How come you suddenly cut you sample size from 3 years to 2 years, when talking about K/BB? Now you’re dealing with 300 PA’s, not nearly a large enough sample size to judge a player by. Looking at their last three years, Ensberg’s 1.275 K/BB is definitely superior to Crede’s 1.867.

Though really, I never mentioned K/BB. I said that Ensberg has better on base skills. In other words, he gets on base more often. That’s not really arguable – Ensberg has never had a major league season in which his OBP wasn’t higher than Crede’s (I’m obviously not counting his 74 AB’s with the Yankees as a season), and it’s usually by a pretty big margin. Their overall numbers over the past 3 years:

Ensberg, 2006 -2008: .230/.352/.419, .350 wOBA*.
Crede, 2006-2008: .261/.300/.461, .329 wOBA*.

I definitely think that Ensberg is likely to outhit Crede next year, and both Chone and Oliver seem to agree with me.

Chris:

I think I need to clarify what I meant by “in vacuum”. My point was that we shouldn’t compare Crede to the general replacement level, when talking about how much money he’s worth – we should compare him to our replacement level. I think our replacement at 3rd is better than “replacement level” (even if not by much), so saying that “in order for Crede to be worth around $4M he’s going to have to reach at least 250 PA’s”, while true in general, may not be true in this case. Another thing to remember is that a win isn’t worth the same for all teams. For a team in the heat of a playoff race, it definitely makes sense to pay, say, $6M for a player that will bring them an extra win that year. For a rebuilding team, spending that amount of money on a slight improvement in the short term would be considered a waste. Your 90th win is worth more than your 70th. So, while an average win is worth about 4-5 million, it may not be worth it in our case.

And no, I don’t like the idea of Sandoval at third, but I also don’t like him at 1st or as a catcher. Frankly, I have no idea what to do with the guy.

I agree that Bowker does not have any business at first. I also agree that it may close the door on signing RJ if the Giants were to sign Crede (though i am not sure how much money the G’s have left to spend on this years payroll). But, Pablo does scare me at third.

On a side note, when do we stop paying Benitez and BLB deferred payments?

Also, I am glad I discovered your blog. As always, great work.

I’ll respond to some of the good points you made Cookyman.

>> Crede has a career .322 wOBA. I don’t see how expecting a slight decline from a 31 y-o 3B who’s just had two injury plagued season could be considered a low-ball. But notice that in the end I did split the difference between Chone and Oliver, even though Chone looked too optimistic to me.

I think we mostly disagree on Crede’s offense but I wouldn’t have a problem adjusting him down to say .320 wOBA. I’ll re-post the WAR’s with a .320 wOBA when I get a chance to see what they look like. I’ll do them with a .315 wOBA, too. Just for giggles.

>> You’re thinking in vacuum. It doesn’t matter how much Crede is worth in general, or how many wins above replacement he is. What matters is how much he’s worth to the 2009 Giants. And the answer, like I showed in my previous comment, is not much. Over 250 PA’s he’d be worth like 2 runs, a trivial amount. That’s not worth $4M to any team, let alone a rebuilding one.

I’m not thinking in a vacuum but my concern, as I’ve stated repeatedly, is with Sandoval playing third base over the course of a season. I just don’t see it happening and the similarities to the John Bowker situation — in a way, but I’m not saying they are identical — are pretty striking. You’ve got a player playing a position that he probably doesn’t have any business in playing. I don’t see Pablo Sandoval playing even 400 acceptable innings of third base in a season. I think despite what Sabean has said, he’s also concerned about Sandoval’s defense at third base. Most leaked trade rumors this season have dealt with third.

>> Why not? Money is money. Every dollar we spend on Crede is a dollar we can’t spend on Johnson (or anyone else).

Money IS a finite (to an extent) resource but do you honestly think that if the Giants drop $4M on Joe Crede that they’ll close shop on trying to bring in Randy Johnson? Honestly? Crede’s salary is a drop in the bucket and with a 1-year deal, you’re not going to get burned. With the TV deal stuff the Giants are supposedly in good financial shape.

re: Ensberg, I’ve been a huge fan of him in the past — just search for his name on this site — but even I think he’s a long shot. You can dislike Crede all you want but he’s at least been producing something in the majors over the last couple of seasons. Ensberg washed out with the Yankees last season, was DFA’d, and signed with the Indians and hit .189/.323/.340 in 150 bats or so in AAA. And, he’s not going to play elite defense like Crede. And, he’s got the same injury concerns.

I’m convinced that the Giants need a fall-back option for third base if they really want to try Sandoval out next year at the position because he’s not going to make it through the season. I don’t think we’ll use Jesus Guzman anytime soon either because Evans has made some not-so-subtle comments about his defense at the position.

I chose to lump all three years for both because they have had injury issues and I wanted to get a decent enough sample size to dampen some of the “noise” that would be there from part time playing. I also though with their injury issues it seems more likely the weighing of each season that goes on in Marcel would probably add more noise to the issue. That’s my rational behind grouping them as one sample. I know it’s not perfect but it was the best I could come up with.

I really don’t see much of a an advantage for Ensberg in K/BB (1.725 for Crede vs 2.02 for Ensberg) for in the last 2 years and that bodes poorly for Ensberg I believe. Over the last 2 years Ensberg’s 1k per 4.49PA’s and 1BB per 9.09 P.A.’s vs Crede’s 1k per 7.86 PA’s 1BB per 13.55 P.A.’s( Hello , Is that you Pedro?) really makes me think Ensberg might not be able to hit enough to keep a pitcher honest. If anything Crede puts that ball in play a bit more often and should have a bit more pop. Ensberg will get about 7.5 walks for every 5 walks Crede stumble upon. I think we will have to agree to disagree about the current state of Ensberg’s on base and plate discipline skills. Bah! Why did the Mariners have to sign Russell “The Mussel”?

Merry Xmass all.

Chone projects Ensberg to outhit Crede by 4 runs. Oliver likes Crede less, and sees Ensberg outhitting him by 8.5 runs. Let’s say Ensberg is better by 6 runs.

Chone projects Crede to outfield Ensberg by 13 runs, which sounds reasonable.

So overall Crede is better by 7 runs. Divide by 3 since we only want them to get ~200 PA’s, and the differnce is 2 runs, about a fifth of a win. I don’t want to pay $4M more for a fifth of a win on a team that isn’t even planning to contend. I’m sure there are better things to do with the money.

I just gabbed the last 3 seasons worth of hitting stats because neither player is being viewed as bring anything to the 2011 squad ( and probably not even the 2010) so t is all about what the have done recently and can be expected to do in the next 12 -18 months.

In the last 3 years Crede has 1046 A.B’s, 273 H, 482 TB, 460 SLG, 199 ISO, 68 BB, 127 K.
In the last 3 years Ensberg has 746 A.B’s, 171 H, 311TB, 417 SLG, 188 ISO, 145 BB, 185K.

So I would say Crede has more pop to his bat. I thought Ensberg would be the more patient hitter but now I am hesitant to say that because 101 of Ensburg’s walks came in ’06 and both the rate and amount Ensberg K’ed. Personally I would say Crede has the less toxic bat but I am willing to change my stance if some one can show me a reason or trend to believe otherwise.

I admit to not being Adept enough (yet) with WOBA to take a stab at that. Maybe that would favor Ensberg more?

Gain:
~7.5 defensive runs at 3rd.

Loss:
~4 offensive runs (Oliver has Phelps better by 15 runs, Chone has him better by 9. I split the differnce and divided by three since it’s only 200 PA’s).

We’d probably also lose like a run or two for Pablo playing 1st. This isn’t exact science, but again I think it’s pretty clear the net gain is so small that it’s not worth the money. I admit, though, that I don’t really have a solution for whom to put at 3rd with Pablo, outside of calling up Guzman. Is Morgan Ensberg still a FA? He seems to me very similar to Crede in production and should be much cheaper.

• I think it would be impossible for Botchy to playing him 1100 innings in 2009 thus plenty of playing time and at bats for Pablo.

• If Pablo as a bad spring the Giants would have the option to work him in Fresno a bit without needing to see a Velez & Ochoa on the field at the same time. At age 22 this is good option to have.

On 3 catchers:

One, of many things, that Botchy does that drives me nuts his he is very willing to use his back up catcher to pinch hit early in games. That type of bench use almost mandates having 3 guys that can play catcher and block balls. Let’s face it the Giants will be, for the foreseeable future, all about denying 90 feet. They will not be able to out slug or explode for 4+ run innings thus bad outfield throwing, blocking bad pitches, not booting infield grounders will be pivotal to whatever amount of wins the earns in ’09. I don’t see a way around having Holm type on the team if they expect to get more then 70 wins.

The other thing about the catchers use the drives me nuts is the main catcher (who is our clean up hitter) get less rest that way and the justification of we needed the run reserve catcher X was the best bat to send up in the 5th to move the runner over because I did not wan to burn my best bench hitter that early. Considering how poorly catchers hit as a group it is just stupid. However Pablo, by not starting at third every day, is a chance to save Botchy from himself.

Coockyman I love your point on total run production. We already know Crede can’t play enough to fully block any of Ishikawa, Pablo or Guzman. Do really you expect Pablo to play over 800 innings as mlb third baseman next year? And why do you presume Pablo at first is taking time for Ishikawa inside of time from Phelps?

Somehow the Giants need to fill 1450+ innings over at third. Right now we are looking at Pablo, Frandsen (both of whom are being counted on to help other positions) and then what…Raptor Jesus? I like the signing of Guzman and I am hopeful but I would consider it a successful year for him if he comes up midseason and stays. So to me the question is would 1 year of Crede be an improvement on whatever Guzman and Phelps would bring if they were forced to spend the entire season on the 25 man?

All that aside if the Giants are in a chose only 1 between The Unit and Crede then I agree Johnson would be the better bet use of money. I would guess the Giants have less than 15M left in this year’s budget. But how much under that 15M I haven’t a clue.