Quickee Zito Post: Could The Price Be Right?

Found an article that supports Zito getting $18M for 2007 (and of course he's being paid only $10M for 2007) and it was published on The Hardball Times. The author, Jeff Sackman (seems like a nice guy, wrote an e-mail to him with a question and he replied very nicely, unlike most newspaper reporters I've written to; of course, he's not a newspaper reporter...), analyzed how much pitchers this off-season have been getting per Win Share Above Bench (i.e. their way of saying above replacement level player) and found that the average pitcher, once outliers were tossed, got about $1.74M per average WSAB of their past three seasons or $2.02M per with all the pitchers. Based on that, Zito had a WSAB average of 9 the past three seasons, which works out to $16.2M without outliers, $18.9M with outliers (i.e. all starting pitchers).

Obviously, the Giants are within that range of per season salary, though perhaps a bit on the high side, but that hardly makes up for the length of the contract (as obviously the risks goes up greatly because you have to keep your fingers crossed that he's going to be not only healthy the whole 7 seasons, but that he's going to at least be a mid-rotation guy or better the whole time).

He then noted that whether paying that much would only make sense if the team thought that they were close enough that acquiring Zito would push them into the playoffs. Of course, many Giants fans don't think the Giants have a snowball's chance in LA of making the playoffs. I am currently not sure whether they will make the playoffs, but think that there is a good chance that they will at least be competing for the division title.

They have the makings of a playoff caliber starting rotation and potentially could have a very good top 4 starters in Cain, Zito, Lowry and Morris, if all pitch to their potential peak performance, plus I think their offense, while not stellar, is underrated by most.

Giants Offense Was Not All That Bad in 2006

According to Bill James Handbook, the Giants should have won 80 games had they been efficient with their wins, particularly their pitching, which pitched in bad luck in 2006 (they gave up 790 runs when they should have given up only 733). The bad news was that most teams were inefficient and the the 'Dres should have won 93 games, the D-gers 92 games, the Rockies 85 games, and the D-backs 83 games, putting the Giants last in the NL West, theoretically. Their runs scored was 10th out of 16 teams, so while they were not a good offense, they were at least average (9th had 749 runs and 8th had 758 runs, so they are not that far off from the median).

2007 Giants Offense Could be Better

And with the boost to the offense of Roberts over Finley/Bad Winn and Aurilia over 2006's 1Bs, plus Winn returning to his career norms and Bonds playing on healthy, plus improvements to the bench with Klesko, Frandsen and Linden, and Sweeney returning full time to his pinch-hitting role, I think the offense should be at least around the median again in terms of runs scored, offsetting any declines from Bonds, Durham, and maybe Vizquel (I think Molina will be a push against Matheny/Greene/Alfonzo).

And if Klesko returns to old form, I'll bet we will see him at 1B a lot, pushing Aurilia to 3B and Feliz to the bench, and that would be a boost to the lineup as well. Even if Klesko can hit as poorly as Feliz, it might be worth it to play Klesko/Aurilia over Aurilia/Feliz at least occassionally, to give Feliz a rest, as he clearly petered out last season from all the playing - he was not ready for a long season. That might even push Feliz to do better, as he knows he has to hit well to keep his spot in the lineup if Klesko is hitting at least as well as Feliz is, particuularly since he will be a free agent again next off-season.