The Kerry Wood Signing

by R.J. Anderson on Dec 11, 2008 7:48 PM EST

It seems like it's close to official and looks like two years worth ~20 million with an option for a third year. Let's take a look at Wood since he became a full time reliever:

Season	IP	FIP	pLI
2007	24.3	2.87	0.52
2008	66.1	2.32	1.99

Not too bad. Wood's velocity was up nearly two notches and helped him notch 11.4 strikeouts per nine. Wood's BB/9 set a career low, over one walk less than he previously recorded. Here's how he compared to the Indians relievers in terms of NLRS and LRS:

Pitcher	NLRS	LRS
Wood	20	40
Kobayashi	1.2	1.2
Betancourt	2.8	3.8
Lewis	1.2	1.2
Perez	13	16.6

Quite the upgrade, but as is the usual with Wood, there's an injury risk, he simpy has to be worth 2 WAR next season to validate the money given. Otherwise, between this addition and those of Jon Meloan and Joe Smith, the Indians could morph their bullpen into something impressive in 2009.

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Salary concerns

Even if he is worth 2 WAR, $10m/year is quite expensive for a reliever. The Indians operate at a low payroll and I’m not sure they can justify spending this high of a % of payroll on a relief pitcher, even ignoring all the other variables.

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by Kyle Boddy on Dec 12, 2008 5:26 AM EST reply actions

Marcel, Tango, and Wood

I just did a bit of work on this comparing Farnsworth horrific contract to the Wood’s contract, so let me jump in here and see what you think.

Tango recently has been discussing reliever value. He says that in projecting market value with pLI, use the pLI of the reliever’s expected role averaged with 1. So for a closer, you get 1.5 for Wood as closer. I’ll use Marcels here.

Replacement level for relievers is 1.07 x league ERA (4.3)

Marcel projects a 3.76 ERA and 3.58 FIP over 61 innings.

ERA-RAR = 5.70, times 1.5 pLI = 8.55
FIP-RAR = 6.94, times 1.5 pLI = 10.41

Using 10 runs = 1 win for simplicity

Market value = (1.04 times 4.84) + .4 replacment salary = $5.43M = $4.6M overpayment for year 1.

Make sense? Thoughts?

By the way, with the same technique, even without the damage leverage does to below-replacement relievers and using the pr0f3ss0r’s more favorable Marcels ERA rather than FIP, his value was $12,800. No, I’m not making that up.

OMG Banny. FWIW I am only crdtng u w/3 runs allwd bc of DDJ OMFG

by Matt Klaassen on Dec 13, 2008 2:20 PM EST reply actions