Eric Byrnes: A player worth a look?

With the signing of Adam LaRoche, the Arizona Diamondbacks made a bold move on Friday DFA'ing outfielder Eric Byrnes. Some people may be quick to say Byrnes has been one of the worst baseball players in the past 2 seasons, which is fairly true considering his major offensive drop-off. But is he worth a look for a team in need of an extra outfielder? I think he is.

After putting up a strong +3.6 WAR year in 2006 and then an even better follow-up +4 WAR campaign in 2007, the Diamondbacks rewarded Eric Byrnes with a 3 year, $30M contract. Since that deal he's put up a WAR of (-0.9) and +0.5 in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Um, what the heck, Eric? Well, I'm not going to beat around the bush; the key thing here is BABIP. Lets look at his BABIP the past few seasons, with his wRAA next to it:

2006: .277, +6.3

2007: .312, +19.2

2008: .226, -9.3

2009: .229, -8.2

Looks pretty telling to me; clearly the guy lost all of his luck by signing that deal with Arizona. Okay, but seriously, that is some serious misfortune right there. So this will probably bring up questions like, "well what has Byrnes done so differently from 2006-2007 to 2008-2009?". Now lets analyze his batted ball data:

Year: LD%, O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, Contact%

2006: 17.7, 69.3, 90.1, 84.5

2007: 19.0, 68.3, 88.4, 83.3

2008: 18.8, 70.7, 86.1, 82.0

2009: 15.2, 77.1, 89.8, 85.8

The most noticeable thing is the increase in outside-the-K-zone contact and the decrease in LD%, which I do believe has lead to his pitiful BABIP, particularly in 2009, as a result of making contact on pitches that were likely not very good to hit. Everything else seems alright; his contact in the strike-zone has remained fairly consistent, as have his overall contact percentage. So lets break this even further and look at how much hes swinging at these pitches:

Year: O-Swing%, Z-Swing%

2006: 28.7, 69.1

2007: 24.3, 69.1

2008: 25.8, 69.0

2009: 31.3, 69.1

Right off the bat you can tell his swings at pitches in the strike-zone are extremely consistent. But his swing percentage at pitches outside of the strike-zone have increased, which in part with his strong outside-of-the-K-zone contact rate, has definitely had to have a negative effect on his BABIP; hes simply making a lot of contact, perhaps too much contact, on pitches that are outside of the strike-zone. If he can revert to laying off the pitches then I'm sure his BABIP will go up, especially if he keeps up his other strong contact rates.

But even with all of this batted ball analysis there really is no way you can beat around the fact he has been very unlucky the past 2 seasons. These are his wRAA projections for next season:

Bill James: -2.6

CHONE: -3.8

Marcel: -2.1

CHONE projects him to be a +6 fielder, which also seems pretty reasonable, and with 300 PA, he could find himself being a +1 WAR player next season. Assuming hes released, he can probably latch on to a team for league minimum and provide good value if he indeed meets the +1 (or better) WAR projection. Eric Byrnes has been the furthest thing from a lucky baseball player the past couple seasons, hopefully things will change for him next year and he can provide some solid value for a team that picks him up for close to nothing.