Juan Pierre: Unusual Left Fielder

The curious case of Juan Pierre almost requires that I reflect on his value. Pierre leads the league this season in negative value for qualified batters according to fangraphs with a -1.1 WAR. During the 2010 season, he did fare better maintaining a positive WAR due to his defense and a wOBA just above replacement level. However, that level of production was still below average for a major league LF.

The real intrigue is why anybody would want Juan Pierre to play LF and be a lead-off hitter for their team. Now he has some value, he could be an ideal defensive or base running replacement player for many teams. He could even squeak by as a workable center fielder, though still pretty near replacement level, hitting at the bottom of somebody’s lineup. However, Pierre playing a power position and hitting lead-off is not what I would have expected when he was a trade target of the Chicago White Sox during the 2009 off season. I think the White Sox's front office has made many savvy acquisitions and decisions but actively pursuing Juan Pierre was a bit confusing to say the least.

Mark Teahan, Reclaiming Third?

As I write this post, the White Sox are mired in one of their worst slumps in years, with a three game sweep at the hands of the surging Detroit Tigers leaving them having lost ten of their past eleven games. The entire offense it would seem is slumping all at the same time. This isn't unlike what has happened to the Twins throughout much of the early season.

Over their last 47 plate appearances each, the powerful tandem of Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko have hit .098 and .222 respectively. It's at times like this, when a teams offensive stalwarts are struggling that you need to have your complementary bats step up, but by in large, that hasn't happened. While my colleague Colin McLaughlin highlighted the early season brilliance of Carlos Quentin yesterday, there has been precious little support behind him.

Adam Dunn Has Appendectomy

It's been a big week for appendectomies in baseball as Cardinals left fielder Matt Holiday, and now White Sox designated hitter Adam Dunn have both undergone the procedure - which is always curiously referred to as an "emergency" surgery. Is there such a thing as a non-emergency appendectomy? 

Dunn was off to a great start for the White Sox, having gone 4-14 with a double, homerun, and four walks in his 19 plate appearances. He's expected to miss around five days but should be able to return after that. If so he'll miss tonight's final game against the Royals, followed by the teams three game set against the winless Rays, and perhaps one or more games of the Athletics series.

While Dunn will miss time, the team is unlikely to place him on the disabled list and will instead go with Mark Teahan as their primary designated hitter, though Lastings Milledge could see time against lefties as well. A move could always be made later to place him on the DL should he be unable to recover sooner.

Twins Bring Back Jim Thome for 2011

Regardless of the lens through which you choose to view the game of baseball, or how you chose to evaluate performance, Jim Thome's production in 2010 was big. All by itself with no perspective given, a .283 average, with 25 home runs would be good - and if you're someone who prefers your baseball analysis as simple as possible, you're going to like that production. Indeed just 20 players other players posted an average as good with as many home runs.

Prefer your statistics to be more advanced? His 1.039 OPS would've been third to just Josh Hamilton and Miguel Cabrera. His .437 wOBA third to Hamilton and Joey Votto.  How about player value? Thome's 3.6 WAR was the best of any designated hitter, while former Twin David Ortiz (3.3) came in second.

The kicker to all that of course is that the Twins were able to sign him for the heinous base salary of 1.6m - but don't worry, he earned another 200k in incentives for reaching 300 plate appearances - for a grand total of 1.8m

If the voices in your head are saying something along the lines of, "Hold on... what?" you're not alone.

How exactly did we get to a point where Thome, a near certain Hall Of Famer, and one of baseball's most beloved characters could barely get 1.5m guaranteed? I mean, the White Sox gave Mark Teahan (yeah, the Mark Teahan who was supposed to replace Thome) three years and 14m. But picking on the White Sox alone isn't fair. This isn't the case of one team making a bad decision, this is a situation where 29 other teams legitimately sat down and said, "no, we're not interested in Jim Thome even at just two million."

The Royals, who dug up 2.75m for Rick Ankiel and another 1.7m for Willie Bloomquist apparently couldn't dig enough change out of the couch for Thome. I guess paying Jose Guillen 12m to clog up the DH spot was a better play. Neither could the Indians, who instead signed Russell Branyan for 1.5m to be a left handed option off the bench before trading him to the Mariners where he replaced their other DH, perennial Citizen Of The Year Award Winner Milton Bradley.

He'd have been the best hitter on any of those teams - by a vast margin - and could've been had for the baseball equivalent of loose change. How the hell did this happen?

The most likely explanation is that executives saw his declining performance - his OPS in 2009 was JUST .847, combined it with his advancing age and thought he was done for. I guess that makes some sense. Not nearly enough sense mind you, but some. Even when you consider that his market was limited to the 14 AL teams where he could serve as a DH, there are a lot of teams (all of them) that could've used Thome's bat in a bench role - which is precisely the roll for which the Twins signed Thome.

I say all of that to say this: how the hell did we wind up back at the EXACT SAME PLACE????

It's now 2010 instead of 2009 and still no one could make an offer that topped the reported 4m the Rangers offered? Really? It would appear that Thome considered more things than just money - there is speculation he chose the Twins slightly smaller 3m + incentives deal to be closer to his family in Chiacgo, and obviously the Twins are a more competitive club than, say, the Mariners. But... seriously?

Perhaps the only thing more criminal than the Twins being able to sign Thome for 1.5m in 2010 off his .847 OPS in the year before is them signing him for 3.0m in 2011 off his 1.037 OPS.

But let's add some important perspective - I'm not by any means under the impression that Thome is going to repeat his 2010 season, not by a long shot. Other than Albert Pujols, I don't expect anyone to post back-to-back 1.000 OPS seasons. But as Thome showed in 2010 he can still demolish right-handed pitching, and while it's unlikely that he'll do so to the same extent in 2011, I'm guessing he'll still hit them plenty hard. Certainly projecting him to a .850 OPS isn't exactly going out on any kind of a limb.

Further, Thome doesn't fill an obvious hole. Jason Kubel came into 2010 as the Twins every-day designated hitter and he'll likely enter 2011 with the same role. What the Twins really could've used was a right-handed hitter to platoon with Kubel who, like Thome, struggles mightily with left-handed pitching. Personally, I think they'd have been better served by signing either Manny Ramirez or Vlad Guerrero who could platoon in the DH role and provide the Twins with some desperately needed pop from the right side. Clearly the Twins felt otherwise.

Beyond what Thome brings on the field, and beyond the immeasurable intangibles he brings to the clubhouse - he provides something else to the Twins - insurance on Justin Morneau's concussion.

Free agency is a mixed bag. Sometimes you know from the start that a deal is going to implode. Sometimes you know it'll work out. And yes, sometimes there are steals. But they should never be this obvious.

White Sox Bring Back Paul Konerko

It had been apparent throughout the off season that the White Sox wanted to retain their free agent first baseman Paul Konerko. General Manager Kenny Williams wasn't shy about this, nor was team Owner and President Jerry Reinsdorf, with whom Konerko is said to share a very good relationship. Even so, everyone knew that payroll was going to be tight and that the team had other holes to fill. But today, with the other holes having been filled - notably at DH with the acquisition of Adam Dunn - the Sox resigned Konerko.

Good relationship with management and ownership aside, this wasn't an easy sign and Kenny himself said that this nearly didn't happen. Williams has put his club in a tough fiscal position with a number of expensive contracts on the books for a lot of questionable players, be it Alex Rios, Jake Peavy, Mark Teahan, or until recently, Scott Linebrink. Even with back-loading the contracts recently given out to Dunn and AJ Pierzynski, non-tendering long-time closer Bobby Jenks, and trading off 2m of Linebrink's 2011 salary to the Braves - my payroll estimate still put the Sox at 112.2m - already a team record. So to bring back Konerko the team needed some help from ownership, and they obliged in the form of a three year, $37.5m deal that will pay Konerko 12m in 2011 and 2012, and 13.5m in 2013.

In Konerko, the White Sox have signed more than just a very good hitter, they secured a player who should wind up in their teams Hall-of-Fame after spending the past 11 seasons in white and black. Aside from that however, this is a risky signing. The Sox are now committed for the next three seasons to a player in Dunn who should be kept as far away from a defensive position as possible, and another in Konerko who has generally ranked around league average at first, but whom all three of the major advanced defensive metrics rated his 2010 very poorly. His +/- was -17, his defensive runs saved (DRS) was -18, and his UZR/150 was -14.7.

It's perfectly possible that this was an aberration - defensive metrics can be hit-and-miss sometimes - but it's equally possible that Konerko has begun that defensive slide that all players eventually do. Given that he was 34 last year, that would hardly be surprising. If so, the White Sox will be carrying two players who are both better suited for DH roles, and they'll be ding so for the next three years. That's not a particularly heart-warming prospect.

It's also unlikely that Konerko's offense of 2010 will be replicated. That's partly because he's past his prime, and partly because, well, he'd never been THAT good before. If Konerko hasn't found the fountain of youth as I expect, it's far more likely that he'll perform closer to his 2009 and 2007 seasons where he posted OPS marks of .841 and .842. If we assume that his defensive decline is a fluke and he continues to perform offensively at past levels, lets say an .850 OPS, that would make Konerko a consistent 2.5 WAR sort of player.

Of course, that assumes a lot of things that are, in general, really difficult to project for an aging player. That said, we have a lot of history to look at to suggest that Konerko should be capable, at least offensively, of providing consistent production for the life of his deal. So for 37.5m dollars, the White Sox have not only locked up a solid everyday bat, they've locked up someone who, along with starter Mark Buehrle, has been the face of the Franchise for the past decade. And yes (as much as it pains me to admit it), there is some value in that which can't be measured purely by a players production statistics.

Kenny Williams still has some work to do - namely, trying to figure out who the four guys in his bullpen not named Matt Thornton and Sergio Santos are going to be. But, with some considerable help from ownership, he's accomplished his biggest goal - fortifying his lineup and bringing back a fan favorite and White Sox icon.