What to Expect From Adam Everett

We've got our shortstop. Adam Everett has returned for the paltry price of $1.55 million. He apparently was looking in the $3 million range, but signs for half of that. Do we get our money's worth?

Basically, if he repeats his 2009 season, we easily get about 4 times the surplus value of Everett. But, I'm going to say this: he needs to play more.

I know, I know, his bat is awful. It's a pain to watch him stink it up at the plate at the bottom of the order. But that's not where his money lies. Valuing Adam Everett occurs at the jump. . .

Fun With Projections, Fanning the Milton Bradley Flames and Polanco v. Sizemore

Like I mentioned in my last post, the CHONE projections for hitters have been released. Sean Smith does a ton of good work from the CHONE projections, to TotalZone defensive metrics for the minor leagues, to the Wins Above Replacement database Lee is using for his top 20 tigers series. So head on over to Sean's site and waste away your afternoon looking at various CHONE Projections that I don't cover below.

About a month ago, I advocated trading for Milton Bradley after reading a piece from Patrick Hayes proposing it. Nothing has dissuaded me from still hoping Bradley comes to Motown and now we have CHONE projections to use to see how good he could be next year.

How does Bradley look for 2010? And what about other Tigers of interest? Find out after the jump...

Trading Curtis Granderson

The media and internet has been quite a-buzz with rumors of Curtis Granderson potentially being shopped by the Detroit Tigers. I want to say this right off the bat: I think Dombrowski is listening to offers, not shopping him. There's a difference between the two. And I see no reason for Dombrowski to not listen. You don't know if someone's willing to trade you the moon for him if you're not open to the discussion.

I've valued Curtis Granderson to be quite the bargain back when Lynn Henning was hitting him with the "Trade This Tiger" dart-toss of a column. He finished the 2009 season with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement and now with the Bill James and CHONE projections (hitters only, thus far) being released, we can get a pretty good read on his value. In the past, the Bill James projections have been a bit inflated (probably has to do with the level at which he is regressing the past numbers) and CHONE has proven to be a beast of a projection system as of late. Let's examine him (again). . .

2009 CHONE Projections

Sean Smith, who blogs on baseball and the Angels, has released his 2009 CHONE projections for hitters. He's in the process of getting this all set up on a new hosting site as his old one just stopped working (why, I'm not sure and from what I know, neither is he). The CHONE Defensive projections are what I had been using in my previous attempts at valuing a player, and those are currently gone. However, he's assured everyone they will be back when he gets them on his site.

So, go peruse the hitters tabs for your favorite team. The R150 column is Runs Above Average per 150 games based on his own custom Linear Weights system (linear weights is the best method for offensive evaluation). They are also park-adjusted, league-adjusted and there is an "expanded" tab you can click. These are only up for a few (Angels) players. However, what they give is a percentile projection, projections through the 2014 season, and incorporates a speed number which he uses to evaluate baserunning. These are fantastic projections. To see an expanded tab, here's one for Brandon Wood and Vlad Guerrero.

When the defensive projections come back, those are what I would use for defensive prowess until at leas the mid-way point of the 2009 season. Fielding data takes roughly twice as long to stabilize in comparison to offense. So 1 year of fielding data is on par with roughly a half of season of offensive data.

These are, however, the best projections on the internet that I know of (yes, I think they're better than B-Pro's PECOTA projections). And they are 100% free. Please check them out. The Pitchers projections should be up in a few weeks.