Monday, August 01, 2005

 

Randy Winn

Dear Randy Winn,

Welcome to the Giants. I wish you all the best now that you are part of the team. None of the following has anything really to do with you, personally.

But what the hell? This trade was completely pointless.

To evaluate any trade, you need to look at who the new guy is replacing in the starting lineup, not just who he was traded for. According to Felipe Alou, Winn is our new starting center fielder, replacing Jason Ellison. Allow me to geek out here and compare some sabermetric stats, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus:

Player       EQA    FRAR    WARP1
Winn        .263     13      3.0
Ellison     .253     12      2.2

First, a brief word about what these numbers are.

EQA is "Equivalent Average," which is a single measure of offensive productivity per out, adjusted for the player's league, home park, team pitching, and perhaps phase of the moon, in the context of the 2005 season. (There's another EQA that adjusts for how this season stacks up against all the other seasons, but we're analyzing 2005 here.) League average EQA is always .260.

FRAR means "Fielding Runs Above Replacement." This is how many runs a guy saves with his glove over your typical replacement-level player. This is NOT adjusted for position, and centerfielders are assumed to be worth 10 runs more than corner outfielders. Winn has been playing left field this year, so Ellison is actually 9 runs "better" than Winn in this comparison.

WARP1 means "Wins Above Replacement Player." This is how many wins a guy is worth, compared to any old replacement you can get, adjusted for the conditions of the current season.

So, to make a long story short, after you crunch all the numbers, Randy Winn is worth about 8/10 of a W, over the course of a whole season. Projecting this forward to the last two months of this year, we can expect the Giants to win about 0.25 more games when all is said and done.

Of course, Winn might get really hot with the bat, but he might also slump, like Ricky Ledee. He might actually be a downgrade on defense, since he's better suited for left field than center. And he is more expensive than Ellison -- costing about $1.25 million for the rest of 2005, compared to Ellison's $105,000. Also, Winn has a mutual option for 2006, which will cost between $3.75 million and $5 million, depending on who picks up the option. Indications are the Giants intend to keep Winn for next year, so pencil him in for a cool $5 million. Next year, Ellison is going to be making less, I would guess.

Are you beginning to see why I say this trade is pointless? No? Let's continue.

Ellison is 27. He is at the peak of his skills, most likely. Winn is 31. He is past the usual peak, and can be expected to only get worse in the future.

So the team is now older, more expensive, and not really a whit better. And I haven't even talked about who we gave up. Even if we got Winn for free, as if by magic, this move is pretty well pointless. When you consider that the Giants are now worse off at backup catcher, and have one fewer pitching prospect than before, this trade is just awful.

To my amateur eyes, the three biggest needs the Giants have is starting pitching, power, and outfield defense. This move alleviates none of those needs, and has a chance of actually hurting the rotation down the road if Foppert regains his pre-surgery form.

So, Randy, no pressure, but in order to make Sabean look good, you'd better go on a tear for the rest of this year and next.

Jefferson 11:16 AM

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