Let There Be Jazz!

Published by on December 30, 2009 | 3 Responses

Jon Heyman tweets (I can’t tell you how much I dislike Twitter):

juan uribe has agreed to deal to go back to #sfgiants, pending physical.

If it’s one thing this team needs, it’s more versatility! Honestly though, bringing back Uribe on the (rumored) 1-year deal with an option isn’t a bad move. He was a plus-defender at 2B last season and filled in pretty well at 3B (when he wasn’t ruining perfect games). Even if you expect his bat to regress, his defense will keep him valuable enough to burn a roster spot on.

CHONE has Uribe projected at -11 runs on offense and +3 runs on defense. That works out to a slash-line on offense of .251/.297/.415. After posting a .351 wOBA in 2009, if we adjust Uribe’s bat back to a .320 wOBA (which is actually more optimistic than his CHONE projection) his WAR valuation for 2010 would look something like this:

Batting Wins Above Average (.320 wOBA, league wOBA .332): -0.7 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: +0.3 wins
2B/3B/SS Positional Adjustment: +0.325 wins (85% PT at 2B/3B, 15% at SS)
Replacement Level: +2 wins
—————————————–
= 1.925 wins * .4 (or about 280 PA’s for PT) = +.77 WAR

If the Giants give Uribe around 280 PA’s next year, we could expect him to produce at around .7 wins or if he was expanded to a more full-time role, he should be closer to 1.9 wins.

I would expect that Uribe would earn around $2-3M for this deal, but that’s just a guess. He’s decent Freddy Sanchez / Edgar Renteria Implosion insurance if the Giants chose to play DeRosa in the LF — which they should. Welcome back, Jazz Hands.

I just hit a ball 4,000 ft.

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giantsrainman
giantsrainman

I will grant you that playing time for bench players can and does vary alot and that the presence of DeRosa likely will indeed reduce Uribe's playing time some. But, I don't think it will result in the 182 PA reduction you are projecting. I see most of DeRosa's playing time coming in the outfield as in essence Randy Winn's replacement. I see Uribe getting the lions share of playing time as the primary backup to all four infield spots including 1B by playing 3B and moving Pablo to 1B. It is even possible that Uribe might in essence get some backup catcher playing time if Panda is used in this role. All that said the .2 Win effect of these additional PAs I am quibbling with you over is not significant enough to warrant much additional discussion.

Chris
Chris

Thanks for pointing out my math error -- I fixed the numbers and it moves him to .7 wins or so. You're splitting hairs with the PT stuff. Trying to project PT is largely guess work and with DeRosa on the team now (and whom I assume most of the UTIL work will go to) it's not hard to see Uribe losing some PT.

giantsrainman
giantsrainman

You made a significant math error. The positional adjustment for all three positions in question (2B/3B/SS) is positive (+.25/+.25/+.75) making it impossible for the average positional adjustment to be -.175. In addition I think you are way underestimating the likely playing time by going with just 280 PAs. Some decline from last year's 432 PAs is reasonable but this is just too much decline. I would say projecting about 350 PAs would be reasonable.