It’s like dry land in Waterworld.

aside from the Polanco deal from the Phils, it seems GMs are not really overspending yet.

doing $4.4/WAR with 7% inflation and -0.5 per year decline, the Ms are paying for a 2.5 win player. I’d say Figgins is probably more like 3, so this is a decent deal. Hard to believe we’re saying this after him being the butt of so many jokes at FJM back in the day (but not too many, otherwise that woudl destroy their facade of “the media is racist and only celebrates white guys as gritty.” You know, when they weren’t writing a show that appeals across the color line like The Office.)

As I tweeted, Jayson Bay shouldn’t get any more than what Figgins gets. He’s certainly not substantially more valuable than Figgins. On my chart (which is adjusted to be pretty conservative), a guy expected to be 3 WAR in 2010 would be estimated to be “worth” $47M over 4 seasons. So arguable the Ms did get a pretty good deal. CHONE has Figgins at +4/150 offense (I have him at +7). Jeff has him as a +6 defender. Even with CHONE, add in +2/150 positional, and he’s a great baserunner, so another +2 there. +23/150 AL replacement. +4 hitting + 6 defense +2 positional +2 baserunning +23 replacement = 3.7 wins/150 games. Round that down to 3.5, or even 3, and the Ms are making a good bet. It will be interesting to see what Beltre gets.

just remarking that bringing a guy whose defense makes up a lot of his value to DH would be apropos of GMDM.