Vindication, to a point
My consistent complaint about Jason Bay has basically been this: He strikes out in 27 per cent of his at bats, and the players who do that and age reasonably well tend to either be a lot more athletic than he is or to have even more power than he does. There's a certain amount of contact you need to make to be a truly elite offensive player when you don't have 40-home run power, and he doesn't make it. That's a problem because he's a crappy left fielder; if he isn't an elite offensive player he isn't worth a big contract. I think he's likely to do very well this year, but not well enough to get the Mets to 90 wins without a lot more help than Omar Minaya seems likely to give him, and after that he's likely to be an increasingly heavy anchor on the team. If they were a player away I'd say go for it... but they aren't, at least not if Bay is that player.
Anyway, BTF has a ZiPS projection up for Bay, and it's pretty much in line with what I'd expect:
Year AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS+
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2010 537 94 145 22 3 36 99 81 154 10 .270 .369 .523 136
2011 471 82 121 22 3 28 90 73 134 6 .257 .362 .495 126
2012 466 79 117 21 2 28 87 71 138 5 .251 .355 .485 122
2013 460 75 111 20 2 25 82 69 142 5 .241 .344 .457 112
Depending on how bad his defense is (I don't think it's nearly as bad as people who just look at UZR think it is, but it's bad), those 2011 and 2012 numbers aren't good. ZiPS is projecting something in the range of 2-3 WAR, not at all what you want from a guy you're paying to be an All-Star. And after that he's slipping toward replacement level, which is especially bad considering that that contract all but guarantees a fifth year. Looking at this I'm pretty surprised Boston made as substantial an offer to Bay as they did.
The bigger issue here, though, is the incentive problem. The Mets really aren't good enough to win the wild card unless nothing goes wrong for them, even after signing Bay. Minaya, though, has every reason to make a reckless gamble on the 2010 season even if it's not in the interests of the club. I'm starting to think that the smart play would have been to make a major trade—preferably Beltran, perhaps even Wright—and try to build a monster team for 2011 and 2012. But Minaya's self-interest was always going to preclude that.
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Reader Comments (1)
As with Pedro's contract and any other... I try to ignore the tail end of any of these contracts.
Give us 2 worthwhile All-Star caliber years and its ok.