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March 17, 2009

Prospectus Today

The Motor City Money Pit

by Joe Sheehan

I've been spending a lot of time on this site, looking at bad contracts for a piece that should run this week. It's a fantastic resource for all baseball fans, and one of those reminders that we are incredibly fortunate to live in a time when so much information is available with so little effort. We care a lot about payroll now, mostly because some teams don't seem to care what they spend on it, like the Yankees, and some teams really don't seem to care what they spend on it, like the Marlins. The extremes always make for interesting copy, but there are many stories to be told in between the two.

Take the Tigers, for instance. A year after being hyped as the runaway favorites in the AL Central with their potential for a thousand-run offense, and then falling on their faces in the season's first month and never recovering, the Tigers appear to be a solid contender in a three-team Central race. What's interesting is that despite getting very little attention for their spending, they might have as much dead money as any team in the game.

This year, Gary Sheffield is guaranteed $14 million, $10 million of which will be paid to him now, with $4 million deferred. Sheffield is 40 years old, and coming off of a season in which he batted .225/.326/.400 while playing 47 innings in the field. He was a below-average hitter for the league as a whole, and a sub-replacement designated hitter. Sheffield's last good year was in 2005, though he was adequate in '07. There's very little reason to be optimistic here; Sheffield's leading indicators, like contact rate, K/BB, and isolated power, are all going backwards at a high rate of speed. Even a return to '07 levels wouldn't be enough to make him more than an average DH, and there's every chance he's done. For $14 million.

The rotation is a money pit. The Tigers will pay Jeremy Bonderman $12.5 million this season, less than a year after he underwent a number of surgeries to correct circulatory problems in his arm. Will Carroll is confident that Bonderman can come back, but to what, exactly? Bonderman made 12 starts last year. He made 28 with an ERA of 5.01 in 2007. His peripherals have been going backwards since '06, and the combination of that trend and the questions about his health—he probably won't make Opening Day—make that $12.5 million a considerable overpay.

The Tigers gave Nate Robertson a three-year extension coming off of the lefty's fourth straight innings-eating season in '07. A closer look at his lines would have revealed him to be a poor candidate to continue his success, and he blew up last year, with a 6.35 ERA. Splitting the difference between '07 and '08 would leave the Tigers paying $7 million for 29 starts with an ERA of about 5.50. PECOTA gives him two-thirds of that workload with a 4.72 ERA. In either case, the $7 million is too much money.