Let's play "Swap a Bad Contract"!

2U & all the my fellow Royals Fans out there

with the exception of the double standard moderators

Hitters do this all the time. Guillen is a hothead who desperately – desperately – tried to prove himself to the fans and to his teammates. He was thrust into the spotlight as the #1 “offensive force” of the team, for better or worse. His hot-heatedness, in my opinion, made him take a false approach. Purposely hacking at everything isn’t a good approach, especially when you’re plagued with injuries at the time. Guillen should have been placed on the D.L. last season for an extensive period of time and been allowed to heal properly. Also, he shouldn’t have been so hacktastic in his approach. To a small degree, plate discipline is not inherited. In Guillen’s case, that concept applies.

and Guillen has the biggest contract on the team besides Meche. However, while Meche is one of the bets players on the team, Jose Guillen looks like one of the worst position players on the team. Yes, you read that right — not just compared to his contract, but straight up, I feel comfortable saying the following position players, in total value, are better than Jose Guillen going into 2009 (no particular order):

DDJ
Aviles
Gordon
Crisp
Teahen
Buck
Olivo
Callaspo

Butler, probably, too, if they let him hit. Jacobs is a bit of a toss-up. Just to be nice, I’ll say that Guillen’s better than German, although he doesn’t project that way.

Just a few notes:

• OPS, and thus, OPS+, are helpful for back of the envelope calculations, but are not great for getting a good read on a hitter’s ability. It incorporates the wrong “linear weights” for different events, and overvalues home runs in particular with respect to walk, singles, and doubles. It’s a composite stat, but it has its limits. I’ll still have to use it below with the PrOPS stuff, but it does make Guillen look better than he is because of his lack of walks and OBP in general.

• Injury years are part of a player’s performance history. Yes, JoGui only had 268 PAs that year, and thus they won’t be weighted as heavily, but they count, just as the couple hundred PAs this year when he was incredibly hot count. One might also think that past season-ending injuries would effect a guy’s market value, especially in his 30s. I love interesting how people (not necessarily you, Royals Nation) praise players like Guillen for playing “every game” and gutting it out when hurt, but then when they suck and are clearly hurting the team when they do so, that is ignored. Heck, I’ve read Mariners fans excusing his crappy defense in 2007 with injuries, and in 2008 Royals fans did it. Either they guy is hurt all the time, or he just sucks. I’m going to take a little from column A, and a lot from column B.

• The Royals most certainly did not pay market value for him, unless you mean the moronic market value as viewed by the dumbasses (or good GMs in a fit of stupdity) who signed the contracts above. The Royals gave Guillen a contract fitting of a player who would be 3 WAR in 2008 (with expected decline and salary inflation figured in). Was that a reasonable expectation? Here is the WAR I have for Guillen per year since his so-called “breakout” in 2003 (Obviously, the years most close to the signing ones are most relevant.) I use park-and league adjusted offensive linear weights, prorated positional adjustments, prorated league-specific replacement levels, combined BIS and STATS versions of UZR (here available), arm ratings (where available). I didn’t have any good baserunning scores beyond the steals — BP only has it for 2007 and 2008. Suffice it to say I’m not cheating JoGui by leaving them out. Again, 0 = scrub, 1 = bench, 2= average 3 = above average, 5 = monster player (Albert Pujols was somewhere between 9=10 this season).Keep in mind the ROyals paid for a guy who would be 3 this year.

2003: 4.17
2004: 2.22
2005: 3.45
2006: -0.40
2007: 1.74
2008 -0.12

Why should they have expected a 3 WAR player in 2008? He had only been once twice before most recently in 2005, after which he put out a below replacement-level year in 2006, and then hit well in Seattle in 2007, but gave back so many runs above defense that he ended up being below average overall! He’s a year older, that’s what they thought was coming? Look at the numbers again in the context of needing a “3” out of him in 2008: 3.45, -0.4, 1.74. Do we really need a weighted average so figure out what that means?

Was he lucky or unlucky in certain years. I won’t go over the other stuff I posted using BABIP and PrOPS earlier this season. In short ,while one might have seen 2007 as “true talent” as opposed to 2006’s “irrelevant injury season,” when one looks at BABIP and PrOPS, one find that Guillen was actually really unlucky in 2006, and extremely lucky in 2007. Rather than seeing an injury in 2006, a return to true talent in 2007, then a “down year” in 2008, he actually looks like the same .750-.775 OPS hitter throughout… But I’m sure DMGM knows that stuff inside and out.

In any case, even if he repeated his 2007 the next two years, the Royals will still be getting bent over the kitchen table. “All he has to do is repeat 2005, and it’s a good deal!” That’s right, all he has to do is return to his form of 4 years ago. Injured outfielder in their 30s do that all the time! But my sarcasm is unfair in the context of a too-long comment. Let’s just given him a “0” for this year). The Royals basically paid for 7.5 WAR between 2006-2008. If he returns to 2005 form for both of the next two years, that’s almost 7 WAR… so the Royals will still have slightly overpaid if Guillen finds a DeLorean with a plutonium reactor in it. Should we bet now?

• I don’t care about the steroids because I don’t know how to measure their effect. I think the performance record is enough that his attitude is also irrelevant. That’s unfair and illy. And from an objective standpoint, they’re every bit as measurable as the “pressure” of the big contract and being in an inferior lineup without the “protection” of mashers like Richie Sexson.

• Sorry about my typically overlong and overheated post. I’m sure there was other stuff I could put out there, but I’ve overdone it. The Guillen contract does look worse now than when it was signed. Sadly, it was idiotic even at the time. What would have been appropriate? I wouldn’t give a guy with his age and injury history 3 years guaranteed, but if you had had to, and convinced yourself he was average (2 WAR in 2008 — and I think that would have been optimistic), then 3/22 would have been more than enough. Of course, in retrospect, even that would have been disastrous.

I just don’t have faith that Hillman will be willing to bench him. Managers tend to stick with the vet who has the big contract. And also, while we may see Jose as “flopping” if he’s hitting .260/.310/.425, but Hillman might not. that .425 SLG will have some HR’s sprinkled in there and I could easily see Hillman thinking that on this team “that kind of power” can’t be wasted on the bench.

Just a few weeks ago you wanted no part of Teahan. Now he’s your 4th OFer.

When is it that I wanted no part of Teahen? I’ve been willing to trade him (or any other Royals player) for something that would improve the team. And I’ve said throughout the offseason that given that his salary is going to keep increasing, this might be the best time to trade him. He’s an asset either way: either as the starting RFer, a very good super-utility player, or as a trading chip.

Also now you’re making a case for Suppan when you slammed others for adding another veteran pitcher for this staff.

Where did I make a case for Suppan? In fact, I argued against trading Guillen’s bad contract for Suppan’s.

If you’re going to argue with me, at least argue with my actual positions, not something you created in your own feverish imagination.

What do you think is the most likely reason that nothing happened?

I think that the Royals front office had some discussions with one or more teams about Teahen. But these discussions might not have been serious trade negotiations. They might have just been preliminary and never got the stage where one team offered a specific trade to the other. But I really don’t know. It’s really hard to guess how far any discussions or negotiations might have gone.

So, I really have no idea why such a trade didn’t go down. My guess would be that Moore likes his OBP, defense and versatility. I also think that Moore really wanted to trade Guillen and he didn’t want to trade away the guy who would replace him (but I don’t think this was the major obstacle to trading Teahen). I also think that other teams had interest in him, but not huge interest. I think Teahen is a good super-utility player, but isn’t good enough to be a good starter at any of the four positions he plays. And I kind of think that’s how other teams value him as well. So that’s probably about the quality of player other teams would be willing to give up for him. So maybe Moore didn’t get any offers that would actually improve the team, just similar players that aren’t any better or have any more upside.

Of course, this is all just pretty broad speculation. Moore might overvalue him. Other teams might undervalue him. Hard to say.

I’ll play for his salary!

I think a 1.500 OPS season constitutes a “breakout”.