More Shortstop Evaluations

With Fangraphs adding the very lauded UZR fielding metric invented by Mitchell Lichtman, I decided to now use that into my evaluations on Jack Wilson, Cesar Izturis, Adam Everett, and with talks in the comments section on Bill's site, I'll throw in Nick Punto, as well.

To keep this short, I'll just go with the nitty-gritty method.

Jack Wilson

Marcel's 2009 wOBA: .311
CHONE 2009 defensive projection: 7 runs.
UZR Average for the 06-08 seasons: 3.235
Probabilistic Model of Range Runs: N/A (hurt; did not meet the 1000 balls in play minimum used by David Pinto).
Justin Inaz's Defense Runs: +6.7

Average of defensive metrics: +5.645

WAR: 1.855
Market Value on 1 year deal: $9.275 million.

Cesar Izturis

Marcels wOBA projection: .290
CHONE: 7
UZR 06-08: 2.59
PMR: 11.69
Justin: 14.7

Average: 8.995

WAR: +1.139
Market Value: $5.696

Adam Everett

Marcels wOBA: .280
CHONE: 19
UZR 06-08: 18.02
PMR: 4.59
Justin: -0.5

Average: 10.28

WAR: 0.769
Market Value: $3.845

Nick Punto

Marcels wOBA: .299
CHONE: 3
UZR 06-08 (just his SS numbers used): 25.275
PMR: +5.74
Justin: +0.6

Average: 8.65

WAR: 1.549
Market Value: $7.749

Some notes:

-The UZR was a weighted average. I weighted 2008 at .45, 2007 at .35, and 06 at .20.

-The WAR is calculated by giving each player 595 PA's for 2009, which equates out to roughly 85% playing time -- or the amount that a normal starting fielder plays out of a 162 game season. This is a bit of an assumption for those on this list that have had health problems in the past season or two (Jack Wilson, Adam Everett). I also included an addition of 0.5 wins for a positional adjustment of these guys playing SS.

-Market Value is just WAR multiplied by 5, as that's the going rate for a 'win' above replacement level.

This method puts the players in this order: Jack Wilson, Nick Punto, Cesar Izturis, and Adam Everett.

Wilson costs a prospect and one that should be pretty good (likely one of the Tigers top 5 not named Rick Porcello), due to the Pirates apparently picking up a large chunk of the deal. No thanks.

Nick Punto will come cheap. He fared better in this method than I anticipated and has posted wOBA's from 2005-2008 of: .282, .324, .260, .324. He seems to have a drop off after getting closer to the league average each year. If this pattern holds true, he's likely to drop into the lower .290's -- that'd put him on par offensively with Cesar Izturis.

Izturis, also would come cheap monetarily. He's more glove than bat, but has been steady with the wOBA's since 2005: .274, .258, .273, .292. He's projected for .290 but the transfer to the AL from the NL might be enough to keep him below that projection. Also working in his favor is that he's 28 and could be on another year of an upswing before decline sets in.

Everett's by far the worst bat of the four potential options. His defense has always overcome such shortcomings at the dish, but he's coming off a couple of injury-plagued seasons in which his elite defense is being questioned as a thing of the past.

These options are brutal. There's no other way to put it. I think that I like Cesar Izturis on the 1-year deal, but I say that with immense trepidation. I think I can expunge Jack Wilson from this discussion simply because he costs players rather than money. With that said, the other three aren't exactly names you expect on World Series contenders. I can get behind picking up any of the remaining three, as it's just a matter of who's the cheapest.