Kerry Wood, infamous for his fragility, inked a two-year, $21 million contract with the Cleveland Indians after an eleven-year stint with the Cubs, ten if you discount his absent 1999 season. While most have been calling this a solid pickup for Cleveland’s sporadic bullpen, it is difficult to agree when Brian Fuentes, arguably a better reliever, signed a two-year, $17.5 million contract with the Angels soon after Wood changed teams. Furthermore, Wood is guaranteed a third year at $11 million if he pitches 55 games or more in one or both of the next two seasons. Fuentes has a club option for the 2011 season at $9 million.

Fuentes (LAA)

Wood (CLE)

Wood’s bane is his inability to stay healthy. Fuentes, on the other hand, has been placed on the disabled list just once in his Major League career, which began in 2001. Wood has been placed on the DL in eight ( 8 ) separate instances. Perhaps Kerry Wood’s saving grace is his propensity for the strikeout. In 2008, through 66 1/3 innings, he managed an 11.40 K/9 and an equally impressive 4.67 K/BB. Missing bats while maintaining control is a rare ability, even at the big league level. Despite Wood’s stellar peripherals, Brian Fuentes should not be forgotten. Fuentes posted a nearly identical 11.78 K/9 ratio, and showed a bit less control than Wood, compiling a 3.73 K/BB over 62 2/3 innings pitched for the Colorado Rockies.

If Kerry Wood is the better of the two closers, then maybe the Indians made the right choice, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense considering the bargain contract Fuentes received from another American League club. Any differences between the two pitchers’ production levels are minimal at most, and Wood’s durability will be in question as long as he’s still pitching. Brian is about as much of a rubber arm as you will find in the Major Leagues, right along with his new teammate Scot Shields.  Hopefully, when these contracts expire in two years, it will be obvious which club got more bang for their buck.

- Joe

Any questions, comments, criticism, or corrections? Leave a comment and I’ll get right on it. Statistical figures were, once again, taken from Fangraphs.com. I highly recommend it  for any sort of statistical references.

Despite the fact that Guillen does hit his home runs, his extra-base hit totals were not exactly stellar until he knocked 40 doubles in 2008.

As a fan, it can be difficult to believe in the front offices of some organizations these days. Prior to the 2008 season, the Kansas City Royals handed Jose Guillen a three-year, $30 million contract. Guillen turned 32 on May 17, 2008 and posted an on-base percentage of .353 in 2007. Sounds fair enough to the average fan, right?

Wrong. Despite the apparently high OBP, Guillen’s lifetime statistics indicate, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is absolutely incapable of drawing even an average number of walks.

In 2003 – Jose Guillen’s career year by OPS+ standards – he drew 24 walks in 535 plate appearances. However, because of his high slugging percentage, he managed to put up a .391 wOBA. If a player is capable of a high OBP without drawing a lot of walks, is it a sign that he can hit for a high average to compensate, or is he just getting lucky?

When shown his career on-base of .323, it becomes apparent that in 2003, Jose Guillen was getting pretty damn lucky on a daily basis.

Guillen’s contributions in other seasons have been vastly overrated. If a player’s batting average in a given year deviates far from his career average, it is a telling sign that hits seem to be falling where they should not. Something as dependent on luck and circumstance as batting average is not repeatable at a high level year-to-year with the occasional exception (ex. Albert Pujols). To put it simply, if Guillen doesn’t have a lucky year, he’s more or less garbage.

Perhaps the most effective yet accessible statistic to evaluate offensive productivity is weighted runs created above average (wRAA) which is a more useful version of the weighted runs created formula (wRC). Guillen has posted positive wRAA values just three times in his career, which, sure enough, came during his age 27, 28, and 29 seasons (28.2, 16.1, 10.9 respectively).

Now, based on the incessant rumors linking Braves outfielder Jeff Francoeur (career OBP of .312) to the Royals last year, it has become pretty obvious to me that the Royals do not care much for players that know how to reach base. Having incapable players in your own system is one thing, but actively trying to acquire players who cannot get on base is even worse. Kansas City, a team that has made some questionable moves over the past few years, needs to stop going after the Jose Guillens and Francoeurs of the world if they are to turn themselves around. Signing below average corner outfielders who are past their prime years to multiyear, seven-figure salaried contracts is not the way to start. There’s more than a few reasons no team was willing to take Guillen off the Royals’ hands last summer.

- Joe

All statistics referenced in this post were taken directly from Fan Graphs (fangraphs.com) and Baseball Reference (baseball-reference.com). If you have any questions, comments or other insight that you wish to add, please comment. Thank you for reading and please check back often for new articles here at Incumbent GM.

The first in-depth article is going to be OPS (on-base plus slugging) related. This poll should be a good indicator of popular opinions on the two components of OPS. Rack the vote.

Thanks for stopping by my brand new blog, Incumbent GM. I also created baseball blogs Salary Dump and Unsung Yankees. I hope that my posts are informative, but also spark debate in the ever-controversial baseball community. Trades, free agent signings and more will be analyzed, and as always, I encourage your input – the readers are the ones who keep the site going. Enjoy.