Twins and Adam Everett reach deal

[Friendly Confines]

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7559454?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=49

[javy knows my name]

I was just thinking that they needed another infielder who can't hit. Glad to hear he's off the market.

[sneakypower]

I was just thinking that they needed another infielder who can't hit. Glad to hear he's off the market.

 

They'll be sorely disappointed he isn't in fact, as good as Derek Jeter.

[Post Count Padder]

Another bad hitter on that team. Ouch.

[haltz]

MGL[/url]"]Fans think that this signing is “questionable.” Even somewhat knowledgable fans.

 

Not only is it not questionable, it is the steal of the century, literally.

 

Funny, I have him at exactly +31 (like Rally) in UZR projection (per 150). That is with regression and age adjustments! He may be the best defensive SS of all time.

 

I have him at -32 in hitting, which is replacement level even for a SS. So basically he is league average. Add in .5 to 1 win for being a SS, and he is a 2.5 to 3 WAR player. For 3mm dollars! OMG!

 

If I told a mainstream audience that he was worth almost as much as Jeter (which he is - I have Jeter as .5 win better for 08), how long would it take for them to stop laughing?

[badnews]

I don't understand that fancy talk. Let's try something I understand at a very basic level:

 

WARP3

 

Everett

 

2003 - 3.4

2004 - 3.7

2005 - 3.7

2006 - 5.7

2007 - 1.6

 

Jeter

 

2003 - 4.6

2004 - 7.7

2005 - 11.7

2006 - 11.7

2007 - 8.8

 

Or the much hated David Eckstein

 

2003 - 4.2

2004 - 3.7

2005 - 7.3

2006 - 5.5

2007 - 3.8

 

Maybe we should try trading for this guy:

 

2003 - 3.1

2004 - 8.8

2005 - 6.2

2006 - 4.4

2007 - 8.7

[haltz]

No surprise, but FRAA blows it with Everett. The fielding gap is probably on the order of 40-50 runs as we're talking about the very best and worst among ML shortstops here. You can go to BRef and see that their lwts offensive gap has been something similar in recent years. It's pretty much that simple, and we don't need [expletive] replacement levels or f'd up fielding numbers here.

[badnews]

I don't understand but I'm skeptical defense can be calculated that precisely. Maybe if I did understand I wouldn't be skeptical. The conventional defensive metrics show that Everett was above average but not fantastic until 2006.

 

Bartlett was a pretty good defender for the Twins this year so I wonder if they'll really gain any benefit from this. Even the best defensive players seem to be, statistically, inconsistent from year to year, and if he posts another sub-.600 OPS next year I'd be dubious his fielding could save it.

[haltz]

He'd have to have a monster year defensively to salvage another .599 OPS (-38 runs prorated to 600 PA), but FWIW he's only done that once and it's a 236 PA sample. Being a career .656 hitter, it's easy to see that it's within the realm of possibility especially in that amount of plate appearances (I'm sure he's had 200 PA that bad in a row before). It is somewhat hard to post an OPS that low though over the course of a season, I'd think, unless you just just stopped putting balls in play. 14 guys have pulled it off in the last decade, and Everett is a terrible hitter, but it'd be tough to project that, and a projection is the only reasonable statistical basis for decisions of this nature.

 

As far as the metrics go, they destroy conventional fielding stats. Even if you don't trust their accuracy completely, they consistently point to these guys being on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, and we know that a hit prevented is worth about three-fourths of a run. Logically, the spread of talent among MLB shortstops being a hit prevented every couple of games isn't that far-fetched, at least not to me. We know that most MLB teams discount this sort of thing, probably precisely because they don't trust the metrics and offense is easy to quantify. If ever there was a opportunity for a fantastic underpayment, this seems to be it (without going back to look, MGL says this better than I can in the link that's posted).