Rosenthal: Cubs sign DeJesus

[Clem Fandango]

http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/kim-dejesus-tweet.jpg

 

Good thing we didn't hire Dave Martinez

[PrimeTime]

Isn't a press conference for DeJesus going on right now?

[BCVM22]

Isn't a press conference for DeJesus going on right now?

 

Thought that's what I heard, but CSN doesn't have it at the moment and I see nothing about an online feed from the Cubs. Late getting started, maybe?

 

The Cubs just tweeted out a photo of DeJesus at Wrigley surrounded by media. So. I dunno. No video coverage for this one?

[jersey cubs fan]

Isn't a press conference for DeJesus going on right now?

 

Thought that's what I heard, but CSN doesn't have it at the moment and I see nothing about an online feed from the Cubs. Late getting started, maybe?

 

The Cubs just tweeted out a photo of DeJesus at Wrigley surrounded by media. So. I dunno. No video coverage for this one?

 

Not all that newsworthy.

[Magnetic Curses]

Like it. It reminds me of the Desrosa signing (or was it a trade). A down year, but generally good #'s for the carreer. Patient batter, good defender, hits alot of doubles. He's not a typical HR guy in RF. But I think he'll put up respectable #'s in RF and play great defense.

 

I think this is the first of many great moves to get the Cubs quality guys to compete right away. I feel they are probably genuinely interested in Fielder. I think if you let Brett man CF, trade Soriano and get another buy low guy at LF with great defense. That shores up your defense in the outfield. Then sign Fielder giving you that big bat in the line-up. Use some trading chips to get a quality 3B and starting pitcher. You've got a radically different team from last year, and one I think I can enjoy watching next year.

 

the opposite was true of derosa. coming off a career year, which he basically duplicated

 

Ah I see. So that was one case where Hendry's tendancy to sign everyone coming off a career year actually worked out. I seem to remember some people here weren't too high on him (didn't expect a repeat). But Derosa changed minds around here quickly, I think Dejesus could do the same thing.

 

By the way did you know we have 2 Dejesus's on the team now? Starlin's middle name is Dejesus, according to BR atleast.

 

also, ivan dejesus was our first base coach last year.

[Magnetic Curses]

Isn't a press conference for DeJesus going on right now?

 

Thought that's what I heard, but CSN doesn't have it at the moment and I see nothing about an online feed from the Cubs. Late getting started, maybe?

 

The Cubs just tweeted out a photo of DeJesus at Wrigley surrounded by media. So. I dunno. No video coverage for this one?

 

Not all that newsworthy.

 

yeah, it's a not a huge signing.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Like it. It reminds me of the Desrosa signing (or was it a trade). A down year, but generally good #'s for the carreer. Patient batter, good defender, hits alot of doubles. He's not a typical HR guy in RF. But I think he'll put up respectable #'s in RF and play great defense.

 

I think this is the first of many great moves to get the Cubs quality guys to compete right away. I feel they are probably genuinely interested in Fielder. I think if you let Brett man CF, trade Soriano and get another buy low guy at LF with great defense. That shores up your defense in the outfield. Then sign Fielder giving you that big bat in the line-up. Use some trading chips to get a quality 3B and starting pitcher. You've got a radically different team from last year, and one I think I can enjoy watching next year.

 

the opposite was true of derosa. coming off a career year, which he basically duplicated

 

Ah I see. So that was one case where Hendry's tendancy to sign everyone coming off a career year actually worked out. I seem to remember some people here weren't too high on him (didn't expect a repeat). But Derosa changed minds around here quickly, I think Dejesus could do the same thing.

 

By the way did you know we have 2 Dejesus's on the team now? Starlin's middle name is Dejesus, according to BR atleast.

 

also, ivan dejesus was our first base coach last year.

You just got bumped from Bob Dernier's holiday card list.

[Magnetic Curses]

Like it. It reminds me of the Desrosa signing (or was it a trade). A down year, but generally good #'s for the carreer. Patient batter, good defender, hits alot of doubles. He's not a typical HR guy in RF. But I think he'll put up respectable #'s in RF and play great defense.

 

I think this is the first of many great moves to get the Cubs quality guys to compete right away. I feel they are probably genuinely interested in Fielder. I think if you let Brett man CF, trade Soriano and get another buy low guy at LF with great defense. That shores up your defense in the outfield. Then sign Fielder giving you that big bat in the line-up. Use some trading chips to get a quality 3B and starting pitcher. You've got a radically different team from last year, and one I think I can enjoy watching next year.

 

the opposite was true of derosa. coming off a career year, which he basically duplicated

 

Ah I see. So that was one case where Hendry's tendancy to sign everyone coming off a career year actually worked out. I seem to remember some people here weren't too high on him (didn't expect a repeat). But Derosa changed minds around here quickly, I think Dejesus could do the same thing.

 

By the way did you know we have 2 Dejesus's on the team now? Starlin's middle name is Dejesus, according to BR atleast.

 

also, ivan dejesus was our first base coach last year.

You just got bumped from Bob Dernier's holiday card list.

 

ack, 3rd base coach. sorry.

[Guest]

Did the Hardball Times piece on the signing get posted?

 

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/welcome-to-the-north-side-mr.-dejesus/

[A New Era]

Did the Hardball Times piece on the signing get posted?

 

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/welcome-to-the-north-side-mr.-dejesus/

 

I don't think so, thank you.

 

Good article. Does a great job of summing up things I kinda THINK I know, but says it so intelligently in ways I could never express so specifically. I really wasn't quite sure if Theo and co. would move Soriano. But I don't know, lately I get the feeling they will try to eat most of the contract and make him more appealing to a small market AL team. With the things I have learned about Theo and Hoyer, how highly the view defense as part of a players game. I think they will trade Soriano. If Soriano was an average defender, I think they'd just keep him in LF. But I think they really want to improve the defense on this team. For that reason, Soriano is probably a goner.

[Fro]

Agree with all the comments that this is a smart signing.

 

We should get pretty good value compared to what we're paying in and it gives us some more flexibility to further improve the team.

[jersey cubs fan]

We should get pretty good value compared to what we're paying in and it gives us some more flexibility to further improve the team.

 

I'm not sure we should be expecting much more value over what we're paying. They probably paid as much as he's worth.

[Guest]

We should get pretty good value compared to what we're paying in and it gives us some more flexibility to further improve the team.

 

I'm not sure we should be expecting much more value over what we're paying. They probably paid as much as he's worth.

 

Accord to the world according to xBABIP, DeJesus was pretty unlucky with his balls in play in 2011. His .274 BABIP last year was a career low (by .015 points), and despite an uptick in strikeouts (17.0 percent compared to a career rate of 13.4 percent), DeJesus continued to drive the ball with authority (20.2 percent line drive rate). The result was an expected BABIP of .309, which was a full .035 points ahead of his actual results.

 

If we adjust DeJesus' batting line to reflect his xBABIP-based "true talent" line, then we should have expected him to hit .268/.347/.388 (.735 OPS) last season. Using his career BABIP rate (.316) in lieu of xBABIP, we could have expected a marginally better batting line of .273/.352/.393 (.745 OPS).

 

Oliver projects DeJesus for a .326 wOBA in Oakland for 2012 (.741 OPS). Such an improvement would mean the addition of 7-8 batting runs to DeJesus' 2011 batting value, bringing his expected 2011 WAR production to right about +3.0. And that's before you consider the move from spacious Oakland to Wrigley.

 

Those numbers might be off his career batting line of .284/.356/.421 (.776 OPS), but when you consider that the Oakland Colluseim played as a far worse hitters park than Kaufman Stadium last year, as it has for the past few seasons, especially for left handed batters—Kansas City has a slightly inflating wOBA index of 103 for lefties, while Oakland has a deflating index of 95—then the numbers really are not that far apart. And remember that offense around the league as a whole was down last year relative to the past few years.

 

So let's say DeJesus' talent line is not far off his career rate, maybe slightly below it. What can we expect from Wrigley's effects on DeJesus? For starters, it should help boost his very average power. Wrigley Field has a 120 index for left-handed home run power. That means DeJesus should be capable of 15 or more dingers if he can play 150 games (a big if, of course).

 

Wrigley also means that DeJesus should see a jump in his overall wOBA production. The Friendly Confines is one of the more notorious hitters parks in the National League, and as hinted above, the park tends to help left-handed hitters more than right-handed hitters.

 

Given that DeJesus was worth +2.2 WAR in only 131 games last season in one of baseball's most offense-zapping parks, I full expect him to be worth at least +3.0 WAR at Wrigley next season—keeping all else constant—with +4.0 WAR upside if he can stay healthy. At the very least, he should be able to turn in a pair of +2.0-2.5 WAR seasons for the Cubs.

 

If we pessimistically assume the DeJesus will only be worth between +4.0 and +5.0 cumulative WAR over the next two years, that makes his contract worth between $10 and $15 million dollars in "surplus" value to the team. If he is capable of something more, say +7.0 WAR over the next two years, that surplus value conceivably jumps to $25 million.

 

 

From the HBT piece posted above

[jersey cubs fan]

From the HBT piece posted above

 

Yeah, if you take the rosiest prediction, assuming last year was just a blip and not a sign of early decline, and assume his defense is as good as some stats indicate (something I highly doubt), he's worth more. I just think it's getting way ahead of ourselves to expect such a thing. We should expect him to be about worth his contract, nothing more.

[Guest]

From the HBT piece posted above

 

Yeah, if you take the rosiest prediction, assuming last year was just a blip and not a sign of early decline, and assume his defense is as good as some stats indicate (something I highly doubt), he's worth more. I just think it's getting way ahead of ourselves to expect such a thing. We should expect him to be about worth his contract, nothing more.

 

I'd say that's a pessimistic approach given the BABIP and LD numbers on top of the park factors.

 

 

On the low end...

 

If we pessimistically assume the DeJesus will only be worth between +4.0 and +5.0 cumulative WAR over the next two years, that makes his contract worth between $10 and $15 million dollars in "surplus" value to the team.

[jersey cubs fan]

If we pessimistically assume the DeJesus will only be worth between +4.0 and +5.0 cumulative WAR over the next two years, that makes his contract worth between $10 and $15 million dollars in "surplus" value to the team.

 

It think it's absurd to call that the pessimistic low end.

[Guest]

DeJesus has been worth less than 10 million dollars in just one single season(2007, when he was still playing CF) since 2004. It would take an immediate and precipitous decline for him not to be worth his contract and then some.

[Guest]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/from-romance-to-marriage-cuddyer-to-colorado/

 

Let’s shift gears. Here are the cumulative 2009-2011 WAR totals of four outfielders:

 

A: 6.8

B: 7.7

C: 8.5

D: 6.4

 

Outfielder A is Michael Cuddyer. Outfielder B is Josh Willingham, who signed with the Twins earlier this week for three years and $21 million, probably ending the possibility of Cuddyer returning to Minnesota. This has been analyzed elsewhere. My own brief comment will be that Willingham projects as a substantially better hitter than Cuddyer (around ten runs a season), and while Willingham is pretty bad in the field, I honestly think that he is no worse than Cuddyer, and might be better. The only advantage Cuddyer has on Willingham is his health record, which matters, but I’ll leave it to the readers (and trainers and doctors) to speculate on whether that makes up the difference. The Rockies at least do not lose any picks for signing Cuddyer (although the Twins do gain picks by losing him after offering arbitration).

 

Outfielder C is David DeJesus, who signed with the Cubs a few weeks ago for two years and about $10 million. Obviously, past performance only partly determines future performance. Moreover, much of DeJesus’ estimated value comes from fielding metrics that are far less reliable than offensive metrics. Still, I am guessing most people would not have guessed that he was more valuable that Cuddyer and Willingham. I also would guess that teams may be over-emphasizing the more recent season’s performance when valuing a player’s likely hitting value. I do think the fielding gap between DeJesus on one hand and Cuddyer and Willingham on the other makes their projected 2012 performance much closer than people think (I would put all three at between two or three WAR).

 

So who is Outfielder D, the player of the four closest in cumulative WAR (so close that they’ve been of equal value for practical purposes) to Cuddyer over the previous three seasons? Curiously enough, it is the player whose spot Cuddyer may be filling: Seth Smith. I recently posted on Smith’s under-recognized virtues, so I will not go on at length about them here. Summarizing a comparison with Cuddyer: Cuddyer is probably a bit better as a hitter, but Smith is at worst just as “good” in the field. As the previous post points out, Smith’s big platoon split is actually something that can be turned to a team’s advantage if leveraged properly. Finally, Smith is younger, and, more importantly, quite a big cheaper (will probably make just over $2 million in 2012). Even on the most favorable reasonable projected comparison, Cuddyer projects as worth as only one win more than Smith (and I think they are closer than that).