January 17, 2006
Mark Makes his Marks
The Texas Rangers recognized Mark Teixeira's MVP type season, awarding him a two year contract worth over $15 million. He'll still have a chance to go to arbitration at the start of 2008. This contract confirms my belief that Marcus Giles is underpaid. Teixeira put up better numbers in 2005, but is he really worth twice as much?
You're asking this question of a player on a team whose owner gave Arod a quarter of a billion dollars?
Same agent too.. Hmm.. :)
Giles is much more valuable than Teixeira -- as much as I love Tex, 2Bs who can hit are orders of magnitude more rare than 1Bs who can hit.
Teixeira's away splits: .270/.349/.459/.809
Giles' away splits: .272/.350/.376/.725
Not really all that different. Yeah, Giles has less pop, but everything else is the same (except their position, of course).
that's a tough comparison; not exactly apples and oranges, but granny-smith and macintosh. giles gets the edge on positions, and he is way underrated defensively, but tex hits 3rd and 4th while giles hits 2nd, 6th and 7th. that fact cannot go ignored in this comparison. plus, even if their BA and OBA are similar, the power difference makes tex more valuable to his team. i'd say the real comparison should be between their agents.
Very interesting question... but that's like trying to figure out who is more valuable to one's team: Eckstein or A-Rod. Both are very valuable to their respective teams with their respective roles. Compare their win shares.
Not really all that different.
Let's not gloss over this. Even if we assume that road stats are a truer indicator's of a players' offensive prowess (a faulty assumption, by the way) 85 points of isolated power isn't the same thing at all. It's the difference between Lyle Overbay and Paul Konerko--and nobody thinks Overbay is THAT much better with the glove.
Let's have a closer look at the raw numbers (for the record, both player's home ballparks were rated with a Park Factor of 104 in '05 by Baseball-Reference):
Teixeira .317 BABIP
Giles .337 BABIP
Teixeira 1.00 G/F
Giles .95 G/F
Teixeira .099 BB/PA
Giles .098 BB/PA
Teixeira .58 BB/K
Giles .59 BB/K
Teixeira .274 IsoPwr
Giles .170 IsoPwr
Teixeira 44% XHB
Giles 38% XHB
Given neither player had many IBB, they appear similar in many ways. What sticks out is that Giles was a little more lucky with hits, Teixeira has a sizeable advantage in power (even away from Arlington). Does Giles's defense at a premium position really equal things out?
According to BP Teixeira had 9.3 WARP1 this year, and Giles 7.8 WARP1. (For the THT fans, that works out to 32 Win Shares and 20 Win Shares Above Bench for Teixeira, and 25 WS and 12 WSAB for Giles.) That alone might not be worth the $4M difference (although for a club like the Rangers trying to inch closer to the playoffs it might be the marginal gains might be), but when you consider Teixeira is 24 and likely to get better, and Giles is 27 and has probably peaked, not to mention that Giles has a history of injuries (however fluky), it's clear the Rangers aren't overpaying their first baseman.
The Braves definitely have a good bargain on their hands, but even incremental gains from Teixeira in '06 would turn this into a non-argument.