Winn was not suitable according to Fangraphs stats, his defense in CF was basically -1 win per season, whereas he’s a plus RF.

Really wrong.

Your problem is that you’re using the following samples over the past three years (441, 284, and 71 innings) to determine Winn’s true talent in CF defensively. That’s just plain wrong. In over 5,000+ career innings — 5,000! I can’t stress that enough — Winn is an average defender in CF. Even if you want to make the argument that he’s lost a step in CF over the past couple of years, no way is a -1 win defender (or -10 runs).

BIP distribution is too random to try and draw anything from in a sample size of around 600 innings spread out over 3 seasons. CHONE’s defensive projections have Winn as an on-the-nose average defender in CF. And, when you consider that his peer group in CF includes some of the best defenders in baseball, that’s a very good rating.

So, bottom line is: You can’t judge Winn’s value in CF over three sparse seasons. That’s not only misleading, but a very poor use of stats.

Yeah, the stats are not encouraging, but there are mitigating factors that maybe 2008 was a bit flukey. Much like when Winn had his horrible season right after signing a big contract with us, we can only hope and pray that it’s not 4 more years of this from Rowand.

Hitters are usually steady in their late 20’s, early 30’s, the fall-off starts in the mid-30’s, so I still am OK with the Rowand deal, given what he showed he could do in 2007. But, yeah, he has to start showing it in 2009 or would have to be considered a bust.

If I had to bet, though, I think he was injured, and being young, could recover fast, but the injury weakened him enough that his body eventually succumbed to whatever the injury did to him later in the season. There is no reason besides a physical problem, for him to hit like that for two months, then suddenly is stone cold the rest of the season, for the most part (I think he did OK in August). Given that, I think he should have a nice season in 2009, around low .800 OPS at the end of season.

No worries, Rowand can be a weird subject. He was absolutely awful in the 2nd half and his fielding looked bad, to say the least. 1-year variance? A blip on his resume? I hope so.

I think what we saw of Rowand in 2008 with the bat is pretty close to what we’ll see for the rest of his contract, with slight declines here and there. The defense? Oooh. I don’t know about that. I hope it’s a 1-year blip or an injury or something other than a decline brought on by his ‘GAMER’ approach.

I don’t mind Rowand, too much, but what is maddening is that with the Roberts/Rowand CF signings is that the Giants had a suitable CF all along in Randy Winn.

Weird times.

(Sorry for the shouting, but Cap’n Gomer is a sore spot for yours truly!! Great analysis as always, Chris.)