Blake & Loretta --> Dodgers

by bluemax on Dec 9, 2008 1:12 PM PST Comment 17 comments

The Dodgers appear to be on the verge of announcing the return of third baseman Casey Blake.

According to various reports, the Dodgers and Blake have agreed to a three-year deal. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that the contract is worth about $17 million.

Link

LAS VEGAS -- While closing in on re-signing third baseman Casey Blake, the Dodgers further solidified their infield depth Monday night by agreeing to terms with veteran utilityman Mark Loretta on a one-year contract, according to agent Bob Garber. Loretta must pass a physical exam for the deal to be official.

Club officials declined comment when asked to confirm the agreement.

Link

Some thoughts, the Dodgers have essentially traded away Andy LaRoche who was cheap and under club control for 3 more years for 3 years and $17million to Casey Blake who is old and declining. This is the kind of dumb move that leads the team to being "Cash strapped". I don't think Blake will be productive over the length of this deal.

This also takes the Dodgers out of the immediate running for Beltre.

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Not a big fan

Blake’s not much of a defender anymore, and while his bat has been above-average for a while, now, he’s 35 years old, so a three-year commitment seems a little silly. He looks like a 1.5-2 win player in 2009, but after that, who knows?

by Jeff Sullivan on Dec 9, 2008 1:19 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

The money is so cheap

that it doesn’t matter than he was given three years. I don’t think we’d have much problem if it were 2/17.

Loretta could have been an ok stand in for Loafie, but we’ve gone the better route in that area.

by JI on Dec 9, 2008 1:28 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

$17M/3yr is cheap for teams with $100M+ payrolls

Those sorts of teams can afford multi-million dollar bench guys and still win games. If you figure that $25M is about the minimum amount you can spend and still field a team, the Dodgers have about $90M in discretionary payroll. So Blake now represents about 6% of their payroll above minimum.

If you are, say, the Twins with about $60M, $17M/3yr is about 14% of your payroll above minimum. They offered Blake $12M/2yr, which seems to me like it would have been an incredible waste on a small payroll, but the biggest problem for them is that the payroll is that small to begin with.

At any rate, Blake makes way more sense for the Dodgers than less affluent teams.

by ubelmann on Dec 9, 2008 4:21 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Blake isn't a bench guy

he’s an average regular, and an average regular is worth more than 6m per on the open market.

by JI on Dec 9, 2008 4:53 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

He'll be a bench guy soon enough

He doesn’t have old player skills, but he doesn’t have a skillset that ages better than average, his defense is already below average, and he’s fairly unathletic. His PECOTA collapse rate going into 2008 was 28%, and with him being another year older, I expect it will be at least that high again next year. I could be wrong, but if I’m going to make a FA investment on a limited budget, I’m passing on mediocre 35-year-olds.

by ubelmann on Dec 9, 2008 8:15 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Refer to my originals

comment:

2/17 wouldn’t have been bad, so what’s the harm in 3/17?

Regardless of whether or not the Twins like to spend money, this is still a below cost deal.

by JI on Dec 9, 2008 9:17 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I even disagree that it's below cost for the Dodgers

Blake isn’t even an average player now—league average with the bat, below average with the glove.

Either way, all teams have to put 25 players on their roster, but some have much less money than others. If you don’t have much money, you don’t want to put that much of it on a high-risk, low-reward player like Blake. You only get so many bets to make.

by ubelmann on Dec 9, 2008 11:34 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Once you adjust for position he's above average.

by JI on Dec 9, 2008 11:38 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

From my googling

A .335 wOBA is average for a 3B. That’s where Marcel and Bill James have Blake. ZIPS has him higher, I guess, but I’m not that bullish on him.

by ubelmann on Dec 10, 2008 7:14 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

and I think you're missing the whole point

5.5m a year isn’t a high risk

by JI on Dec 9, 2008 11:39 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

On a one-year deal, I would agree

But for multiple years, I think that teams with low payrolls have to be smarter about who they give their dollars to. The Rays (rumored to be interested in Blake at the trading deadline) will only pay Carlos Pena, Carl Crawford, and Scott Kazmir more than $5.5M in 2008. The Indians (rumored to be interested in Blake this offseason) will only pay more than that for Jake Westbrook, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, and Cliff Lee. The Twins will only pay Joe Nathan, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, and Michael Cuddyer more in ‘09. Cuddyer’s about as good as Blake, but he’s a full five years younger and the Twins are paying Cuddyer a premium since they think he’s a team leader, good in the community, etc.

Even if two teams with different payrolls had the exact same opinion of a player’s talent and future contributions to their team, it’s always going to make more sense for the rich club to pay that player more money. The Twins were willing to go $12M/2yr, I don’t know that anyone else actually made an offer. I suppose they probably could have gone to $17M if they hadn’t made a questionable $6M/2yr investment in Mike Lamb (projected for a .266 EQA in 2008) that they will still be paying out next season.

Ultimately, I don’t think anyone misjudged Blake here. He’s a slightly below average player now who will be farther below average by the time the contract is over. In the end, the richer team was able to spend more for the same talent simply because they have more money and the same number of roster spots to fill.

by ubelmann on Dec 10, 2008 7:53 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I think what you don't get

is that on the open market, where the player goes to the highest bidder, Blake signed for well below his market value (which was something like 2/16), it doesn’t matter what cost cutting team are willing to pay or whether there are potential bargains elsewhere, of if he’ll be bad in that third year, the Dodgers are basically getting the third year for free.

by JI on Dec 10, 2008 11:01 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I think we just disagree on what Blake is going to do

Sometimes “the market” doesn’t appropriately price players, but I don’t see it here. If you figure $4-5M for each win above replacement level, Blake needs to be worth about 3.5-4 WAR over the course of his contract. You’re claiming that he’s worth about 3.5 WAR over just the next two years, but I don’t see that.

Last year his VORP was ~27 and his defense was about -5 runs. Looking at his Marcel, we should expect about 20 runs above replacement on offense and keeping his defensive value constant he’s -5 runs on defense. I think there’s a good chance that Blake’s defense regresses further, but even if it doesn’t, I figure he’s a 1.5 WAR player next year, and given his age, probably a 1 WAR player the year after that.

So I don’t really see this as a great contract for anyone. It’s pretty close to fair from where I sit.

by ubelmann on Dec 10, 2008 2:34 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

17 million => around 3.5 WAR

If he’s 2 WAR next year then he only needs to be 1 WAR and then 0.5 WAR over the last two years of the deal.

Andy LaRoche is probably more valuable but the LAD wanted wins last year because they were on the cusp of the playoffs (win now mode). If it were me I would have held onto Andy LaRoche but I wouldn’t say what they did is too crazy.

by Edgar for Pres on Dec 9, 2008 1:35 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs