Is about +1.8-2 wins in 2009.
In our 2009 team projections we learned that, as of now, the Giants are projected as an 82-83 win team. If Brian Sabean did decide to bring in Manny Ramirez to play left field — note, that I’m not saying he will because I doubt it will happen — then the Giants would probably from an improve 82-83 win team to a 84-85 win team.
That’s probably a lot less than you would expect when adding someone who hits DINGERS like Manny Ramirez. Even if you are down on the prospects of Fred Lewis replicating his 2008 season in 2009 — you should hold some skepticism — I’m not sure a net +2 win improvement makes a whole lot of sense to the Giants right now considering the contract they would have to tender to bring in someone like Manny Ramirez. Ramirez will probably get a three year contract in the neighborhood of $60-70M. And if Boras can work his magic, he could get a little more.
It’s not that Ramirez isn’t a good player, he’s a fantastic hitter with defensive problems, but I’m not sure where he fits on the current team. Bumping up the team win production by +2 wins would be huge for the Giants’ playoff chances in a weak NL West — and adversely, you’re taking away a potential +2 wins from the Dodgers — but is that +2 win improvement worth the $22.5M a year that Manny is reportedly seeking?
Here’s the full WAR spreadsheet comparing Fred Lewis and Manny Ramirez’s projected 2009 player values. I also threw in Adam Dunn and Pat Burrell for comparison.
I used CHONE’s defensive projections for Ramirez, Dunn, and Burrell. I will note here that I’m calling Fred Lewis a +6 run defender in LF when CHONE has him projected as a +1 defender. I’m a little uncomfortable calling him a +6 run defender because his overall sample size is pretty small in the outfield, but I think his true talent should play around +6 runs on defense in LF if nothing more than he’s playing against a largely immobile competition. Lewis could fake CF for a few games a year and that’s something you could never say about guys like: Carlos Lee, Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn, and Manny Ramirez. I’ve used the Olivers for the batter projections.
Even if you bump Lewis down to a +0 defender, he’s really close in value to Pat Burrell. Ramirez, Dunn, and Burrell are all projected to give away nearly a win with their gloves in 2009. That’s the main difference between Fred Lewis and our trio of FA LF’s. Lewis will defend and run the bases much better than any of them.
Back to the question of value. FanGraphs has win values now and over the last four years Manny has been worth: +3.15, +4.21, +2.08, and +6.10 wins. We have Manny projected to +3.29 wins next season. I’ll note that his defense played much better last year than ever before. In most previous seasons in LF Manny has rated as a -20 defender by bUZR/150 but last season he was -6.7 by bUZR/150. If Manny is a +3 win player in 2009 he should be valued at around $15M. You can bet that Manny will get a good bit more than $15M per season.
Final Thoughts
The addition of Ramirez to the Giants would make the team better right-now. But, the dollar amount and deal length are going to be sticking points. In a vacuum, Manny would earn around $45M for a three year contract. He should exceed that by as much as $20M depending on who he signs with. Manny is the jewel of the left field market and, as the win values above show, if the Giants want to commit money to left field they should go with Ramirez. Adam Dunn and Pat Burrell might not even provide one full win over what Fred Lewis will give the Giants.
For a team that’s rebuilding, I’d rather the Giants run with Fred Lewis for another season. When you consider that the Giants are projected as an 82-83 win team without Manny, I would rather take the chance of a few breakout years from younger players than I would on giving a three year deal to Ramirez. We know that despite being a fantastic player, Ramirez will be overpaid. The best case scenario for the Giants is that if they don’t sign Manny, neither does LA.
Comment Starter: Do you want Manny roaming LF in ‘09?
Nice analysis on Manny vs. Lewis value.
I can understand the allure but I would rather see the Giants make do with what they have right now and see where that leads them to in 2010. However, I see Boras leveraging LA with his SF rumor mongering, so the more money he can weasel from them, the better.
I don’t see why anyone would think Lewis can’t replicate 2008, because he basically did the same in 2007 (minors and majors combined) and reduplicated it in 2008. Plus, he’s basically hitting the way he hit in the minors, raising his game with each rise in level. And most of the major free forecasts have him hitting around what he hit in 2008, though most are below his 2008 numbers, but only slightly.
Plus, if he’s swinging for more power in a middle of lineup position, he should be able to make up for the loss in BA with more SLG/ISO.
Interesting on CHONE’s defense projection, thanks for mentioning: Winn and Rowand have the same projections, 7 for CO, 0 for CF.
@OGC
>> I don’t see why anyone would think Lewis can’t replicate 2008, because he basically did the same in 2007 (minors and majors combined) and reduplicated it in 2008. Plus, he’s basically hitting the way he hit in the minors, raising his game with each rise in level. And most of the major free forecasts have him hitting around what he hit in 2008, though most are below his 2008 numbers, but only slightly.
Lewis was a +2.6 win player in 2008 and he’s projected as a +1.5 win player in 2009. I think most are concerned with his BABIP and his high K-Looking%. He was a great surprise last year and I still like him, I just won’t be surprised if he’s a 1-1.5 win player and not a 2.6
>> Plus, if he’s swinging for more power in a middle of lineup position, he should be able to make up for the loss in BA with more SLG/ISO.
I get really uneasy with the “Move him to #3 and BAM! more power!” concept that the Giants are trying to float around with Fred Lewis. His approach — decent OBP, little pop, K’s a lot — has worked for him so far (in both the majors and minors) and the Giants want to retool him.
I don’t think he’s going to start magically hitting for more power or striking out less by just moving him up in the order since he’s been doing it for his entire career.
It just seems really unlikely to me.
I’m gonna say that projected WAR is not in any way adequate to compare Lewis and Manny. To isolate Manny the hitter from Manny the larger persona is kind of pointless in my opinion. If there was ever a guy who, for better or worse, brings “intangible”, “non-quantifiable” baggage to the table, it’s Manny.
He single-handedly revived the Dodgers last year. What could his projected WAR #’s possibly have looked like for a half-season in LA. +1 win, +2 at the absolute most? I’m too lazy to actually get the numbers, but I would bet large sums of money that Manny was responsible for somewhere in the vicinity of a half-dozen wins for the 50 games he played as a Dodger. Not to mention that the increased production from Martin, Loney, and Kemp probably accounted for another half-dozen.
On the Red Sox it was the exact opposite. Jason Bay and the return of Ortiz were certainly major factors in the Sox’ 2nd half success but the absence of Manny cannot be discounted when you look at the reversal in fortunes of that team.
So, what’s my point? I’m not totally sure. I think mostly I’m saying that if we want to accurately appraise Manny’s value versus Fred Lewis’ we have to account for how and where he’s gonna fit into the ballclub. How will he react to his teammates, how will his teammates react to him? If you don’t think that matters, you’re being incredibly myopic. (Not that I’m accusing anyone of overlooking those things, but it drives me up the wall when “stat heads” blindly ignore what is so obvious only because they haven’t yet thought of a way to quantify it. Rant over.)
Also, Manny can do things that Lewis simply can’t. Fred Lewis will not ever in his life go on a month long tear where he bangs out a dozen + jacks, OPS’s 2.000, and carries an offense on his back. Manny can do that. And having that kind of threat usually staves off slumps for the guys around him as well.
All that said, I would much prefer Manny over Fred Lewis. I don’t think Fred Lewis is a potential All-Star level guy. We’ve seen what he has to offer, and frankly, it’s a bit pedestrian for a corner outfielder his age. Manny would provide a hugely, sorely, unbelievably desperately needed 30 HR threat from the right side. He’d be a blast to watch on a day-to-day basis. He’d give a lot of Giants fans something to get excited about, and it would be great way to give the Dodgers the old scroogie.
Furthermore, even if he gets fed up with the Giants’ losing ways and reverts to his same old petulant-child routine, Sabes throws him on the trading block. Big deal. In fact, after what Manny did last year for the Dodgers, the Giants could probably land a pretty nice deal for him (at the very least get rid of his contract), and still be left with a Winn, Schierholtz Rowand, outfield. Sounds good to me.
For me the Manny question comes down to this. Manny’s value will NEVER be higher from this point forward. Lewis’s value can, and should, improve over the next couple seasons. Quibble all one wants about the amount Lewis is likely to improve in value but that probability is still there. Thus , for a non contending team ( 2009 Giants), Lewis > Manny.
Mr Lomez contenteds Manny can always be flipped if things don’t go well. Name me the last veteran Sabean traded or cut ties with more then 5 months left on their contract? I bet you have to go back over a decade so. So trading him is not an option because the front office would lack the will to do it.
Also if other teams were interested in Manny why are they not making inquiries and offers now when it would only cost them money and possibly a draft pick? I think it much more likely more teams will be interested in Lewis during 2009-2010 time frame. Lewis is cost controlled. The amount of interest depends what kind of numbers he backs up last year with.
For these reasons I have to respectfully disagree with sign Manny crowd.
Manny is the only guy who ever reminded me of Bonds. Patient, selective, awesome swing. He’d be exciting, for sure, and would force the Giants to do some real personnel shuffling, which could lead to some necessary house-cleaning and shipping out of overepaid deadweight guys like Rowand and Roberts. But I don’t think we are “one hitter away” from being a good team. I think we are two years away, and Manny won’t put us over the top. I’d really like to see the Giants grow some young players (we are stocked with young pitchers) and build a whole new team. As a life-long fan, I can live with losing if I’m convinced we are creating a future. Other than Texeira, I was not enamored with any of the FAs out there. Too old, too slow, too weak with the glove. It is a funny market, though, and Ramirez might just be had for a relatively cheap deal for two years. I could live with that, even though I’d hate to see Fred Lewis get bumped after his long climb to the bigs. Them’s the breaks, though.
meh. I could take it or leave it.
In the short term, it would make the team better as well as elevate the Giants in the national spotlight. That is usually a good thing for a team.
A 4 year contract has a chance of really putting the team in a salary squeeze when it comes time to deal w/ Lincecum and Cain – so I am skeptical there. Especially given MR’s age and likelihood of decline.
If something like 4/80 happened, I wouldn’t be pissed but I wouldn’t be overly excited either. I would just cross my fingers and hope for the best. I don’t really want MR, but I do realize that he is a great player and would make this team better. If luck holds out, he would be productive for the majority of his contract.
Sometimes you’ve got to take a risk – if he didn’t perform we would get real sick of “Manny being Manny” real fast.
FWIW, 2/40-50 I would be potentially interested in. At that point we could potentially trade Lewis in a package for an infielder, too.
I might actually be happy about something like this, but I’m not sure.
cough cough ripoff cough cough
Actually I’m glad to see that my rough eyeballing of 2009 value actually has some basis using the best available projection systems.
2008 Manny was clearly a superstar even accounting for his defense (which the consensus seems to be around -10 runs); however, his past season obscures the fact that for several seasons prior Manny just was not that good a baseball player.
[...] and Giants websites. We’ve even talked a little about what Manny would bring to the Giants here on BCB. There’s been a lot of good discussion regarding the merits of Ramirez. How much will [...]