I’d like to say that I’m going to fly through the remaining positions, but I’m going to be flying out-of-town for a few days. I’m unsure how much blog work (if any) I’ll get done during that time. Hopefully, I’ll get something back up here by the beginning of next week.

Impact Third Basemen to Be Traded

Brandon Inge has been the name mentioned most often in this spot as he wants out of Detroit, but his contract will be hard to move. Nineteen million over the next three years is hard to justify for a third baseman that hit .236/.312/.376 a year ago.

Ian Stewart will be competing for the second base job in Colorado this spring. If he fails to win the job, he’s blocked by Garrett Atkins at his natural position, and he’d be a very valuable chip if made available. The Rockies could use him to get a missing piece of the puzzle later this season.

This name might surprise people: Troy Glaus. Glaus was already traded once this season, but the Cardinals don’t look like they’ll be contenders this year. Next year doesn’t look much better. If you remember back to his actual trade this offseason, he had to waive a no-trade clause to go from Toronto to St. Louis. It’s very doubtful he’d do it again anytime soon, so he’s one name that can be safely crossed back off the list.

Contenders Needing a Third Baseman

Back on January 28th, the Philadelphia Phillies tried to place a patch over their third base hole by inking Pedro Feliz to a two-year deal worth $8.5M. The only problem is that Feliz isn’t much of an upgrade over the Greg Dobbs/Wes Helms/Eric Bruntlett platoon he’s replacing. Feliz has only topped the .300 mark in OBP once his entire career, and that was back in 2004. He’s moving from A####mp;T Park to Citizens Bank Park, which should help him get over .300 this year, but getting an improvement will help to close that Santana-sized gap that New York created. It would be great if they could get Ian Stewart to complete their infield picture for the next four years, but they don’t have much to offer that would help the Rockies. Until teams start to give up on ’08 at the trading deadline, there isn’t much out there to help the Phillies.

Put Me In, Coach

Andy LaRoche has been waiting for his shot to be the starting third baseman in Los Angeles, and it should be his to lose this spring. The Dodgers have used Nomar Garciaparra to block both James Loney and Andy LaRoche in the past. Last year, Loney took control of the first base job, and this year, LaRoche should follow suit. The question remains – will Joe Torre start the rookie over the veteran?

Next Year’s Free Agents

Casey Blake and Joe Crede make up this list, and I think it’s safe to say both will have to wait until next year to see their next contracts.

Pre-Free Agent Stars

Miguel Cabrera is the easy name to mention. Cabrera will make $11.3M this year, and he’s arbitration-eligible for one more season before his free agency. Even if he’s forced to move to first in a couple years, his bat is so outstanding that he’ll be worth whatever he and the Tigers can hammer out.

Ryan Zimmerman isn’t eligible for free agency until after the 2011 season, but I think he’s proven enough in massive RFK to be signed to a long-term extension. He’s their current and future franchise player, so it’s time to get the deal out of the way.

These guys haven’t reached this stage yet, but they’ve got the potential to be on this list a year from now: Evan Longoria, Alex Gordon, Andy LaRoche, and Edwin Encarnacion.

Recap

Brandon Inge, Ian Stewart, and Troy Glaus (if he’ll agree to it) are trading block guys for me. The Phillies need to upgrade their third base spot again to make up ground on the Mets. Andy LaRoche deserves to be starting over Nomar Garciaparra in LA. Casey Blake and Joe Crede will be next year’s free agent third basemen. Miguel Cabrera and Ryan Zimmerman should be signed long-term. Evan Longoria, Alex Gordon, Andy LaRoche, and Edwin Encarnacion could make their way onto the extension list with good 2008 seasons.

Obviously by now, you've noticed that I didn't get the AL West piece up yesterday. Hopefully, I'll get that finished either Monday or Tuesday. Today, I want to go back to the player valuation model I talked about in November.

Back in November, I wrote a couple posts where I used a model based on Nate Silver's work in Baseball Between the Numbers. The first was an attempt to estimate Alex Rodriguez's value to each team, and the second was an evaluation of the MVP award. Soon after, I was pointed in the direction of Vince Gennaro's article doing basically the same thing, only better. At that point, I added his book Diamond Dollars to my list of books to read. I finally bought it and have started reading it. I must say that if you have any interest in his player valuation, sabermetrics, sports business, economics, etc., you should read his book.

One of the things I've learned from the book plays directly into what I wrote about the Blue Jays and completely pushes me in the one direction. When a team wins fewer games than they expected, the amount of revenue each player brings in for the club is lower than expected, which means that the team is probably paying recent free agent acquisitions more than each of them is generating in revenue. That is a pretty obvious statement, but one I had overlooked. Due to the Blue Jays' commitments to several of their players, they need to play for 2008 to keep those players' value to the club up. If they don't play for now, those contracts will all end up on the negative side of the marginal revenue/marginal cost ledger, which means they need to trade for an impact player. No, trading Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen does not count. I consider that a backwards move. I'd rather have Glaus for 2008 (player option for 2009) than Rolen for 2008, 2009, and 2010.

That lesson can be summed up by saying:

"If you're on the fence of whether or not a team should play for this year or the future, look at the team's current contracts. If they've got a lot of money already invested, play for now."

That's not to say that a team destined to be below .500 with a lot of money invested should play for now. At that point, they're sunk costs, and no amount of additional spending will change that. It's only when you're on the fence.

After a second-place finish last year, the Blue Jays are back in their customary #3 spot, where they have finished 8 of the last 10 seasons.

The Good

A couple of 39 year old hitters have put up pretty good seasons. Frank Thomas has been able to stay healthy for a whole season and continues to prove that he can still hit. Matt Stairs is the big surprise here, logging play in the outfield corners and first base while hitting .295/.374/.560.

Everyone knew that the front of the rotation would pitch well when healthy, and they've proven that to be the case. A.J. Burnett might never post 30 starts in a season again, but he and Roy Halladay are a pretty good top 2. Joining them in the rotation have been a pretty effective trio of Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum, and Jesse Litsch. Once the rotation gives the ball to the bullpen, Jeremy Accardo, Scott Downs, and Casey Janssen have done a good job of closing things out since B.J. Ryan got hurt early on. 

The Bad

One of their big free agent signings from two years ago, B.J. Ryan has always been a significant injury risk due to his mechanics, and this year proved to be a tough year as he had Tommy John surgery back on May 10th.

Making matters worse, their big signing this past offseason was to lock up Vernon Wells for 7 years and $126M, and he has failed to come through on his end of the deal by hitting a paltry .245/.304/.402. Given his career line of .281/.331/.478, he should bounce back next year, but we'll see just how much of a rebound he has in him. Joining Ryan on the sidelines, Lyle Overbay missed a month of the season and hasn't particularly played well when he's been in the lineup. A .242/.318/.394 hitting line is not what you expect from your first baseman.

Just to pile on, GM J.P. Ricciardi signed replacement-level John McDonald to a multi-year contract at $1.9M per year for 2008 and 2009. He is pretty good with the glove, but is it enough to make up for his hitting .246/.271.324? That's pretty doubtful, and at 32 (he turns 33 Monday), it's not likely to get any better. He's probably best suited for a utility/defensive substitution role, but are those guys supposed to be making nearly $2M a season?

Looking Forward

It's not hard to like the Blue Jay pitching staff (currently third in MLB in ERA), but their offense is not particularly good. If Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay return to their previous levels, they could be onto something. But that assumes that the rest of the team is at least as good as they were this year. With high injury risks like Troy Glaus and Frank Thomas, that isn't a guarantee. Plus, the injury risks don't end with the position players, Burnett, Ryan, and Halladay have all had their battles with the injury bug. Just like his former boss in Oakland, Ricciardi has a lot of risk built into his roster, and also like Billy Beane's team, next year's luck with injuries could determine the direction of this team.

Standard Information (Yahoo! Defaults)
12-Team, 5x5, Mixed League
Positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF, U, 2 SP, 2 RP, 3 P
Stats: R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP
Limits: 1250 IP & 162 G

It took a while, but the series lives on. I want to get this finished quickly, so most of my comments will be held back to save time.

Replacement Level
85 R, 15 HR, 68 RBI, 16 SB, .284 AVG

First Tier
1. Jose Reyes, New York Mets
2. Derek Jeter, New York Yankees

Second Tier
3. Hanley Ramirez, Florida Marlins
4. Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia Phillies
5. Miguel Tejada, Baltimore Orioles

Third Tier
6. Bill Hall, Milwaukee Brewers
7. Michael Young, Texas Rangers
8. Troy Glaus, Toronto Blue Jays
9. Carlos Guillen, Detroit Tigers

Hall and Glaus obviously only qualify as shortstops, but they do provide mega-power at the position. They are held back by lack of RBI opportunities (Hall will probably bat second) and AVG, respectively.

Fourth Tier
10. Felipe Lopez, Washington Nationals
11. Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles Dodgers
12. Stephen Drew, Arizona Diamondbacks

Lopez could be eligible at second in mid-April, but I'm in denial and listing him at SS. I just can't believe that the Nationals will actually choose to start Cristian Guzman over Ron Belliard. If Lopez qualifies at second, I would place him at the bottom of the second tier of second basemen.

Fifth Tier
13. Edgar Renteria, Atlanta Braves
14. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies
15. Jhonny Peralta, Cleveland Indians

If J-Honey returns to 2005 form, he will zoom up the charts. If he performs like last year, he's not worth having in fantasy leagues. Somewhere in between sounds right to me.