Rock Bottom!

A week after I proclaimed Adam Dunn a breakout prospect amid wide discussion that he had hit a plateau (from ESPN to Baseball Prospectus), new GM with Minny roots Wayne Krivsky awarded the slugger with a 2-year, $19.5 million extension. Considering Baltimore recently shelled out $2 million more than that to keep Jay Gibbons around for four years and that the Yankees are paying more 30% more each year for an aging slap hitter with limited power, Dunn’s deal looks like, well, a deal. Despite the statistical “revolution” of the last 20 years, players like Dunn do not get full credit for their abilities. Dunn gets panned for striking out a lot and having a low batting average, but he consistently posts high OBPs (even once reaching .400) and hits for lots of power. A low batting average can hurt if it means the player is making lots of outs and not being productive with the rest of his ABs, but Dunn produces more than 40 runs a year for his team. He’s no Rob Deer, either, as his tremendous power comes with lots of walks. Anyway, a good first move for the new GM- I give it a tip of the hat.

But the topic of today’s column deserves a wag of the finger: players who are poised for a huge decline in 2006. Lots of players project to have terrible seasons, but only a select few have the salaries, histories or manager blackmail to keep them in the lineup long enough to annihilate the team’s hopes. Take Christian Guzman’s 2005 season. Despite posting a MISERABLE -14.9 VORP, he managed 484 plate appearances because the team invested millions in him the previous offseason. In other words, he was lucky that Jim Bowden let him suck that badly. The 2006 collapse candidates have more diverse stories than that, but their common theme revolves around disastrous numbers.

Collapse Candidates

Kenny Rogers: After improbably increasing his VORP and WXRL across his 39-41 seasons, Rogers cashed in with a multi-year deal from the Tigers, who are especially keen on finding players who are over the hill. Rogers projects to a 4.87 ERA, which is not that terrible, but taken in context of the move from the Bandbox in Arlington to the Detroit cavern. His 5.56 park-independent Equivalent ERA looks much worse, and would be utterly disastrous were he still in Texas. Overall, I ranked him 123rd among starting pitchers in my initial pitcher rankings. But Rogers is not Detroit’s only recent free agent mishap, as this offseason also yielded Todd Jones (4.74 EqERA, 36% collapse rate), after last season’s Troy Percival (5.45 EqERA, 4.1 VORP) and Magglio Ordonez (12.8 VORP, 39% collapse rate) mistakes. Turning back the clock even further, Pudge Rodriguez arrived a year before that, leaving his discipline in the National League and projecting to 22 BBs and a .318 OBP this year, acceptable for a solid fielding catcher, but discouraging with his salary and a 39% collapse rate. The one recent signing that yielded market value- Rondell White- is now gone without having seen a winning season. They could have done that without paying him millions.

Scott Rolen: The Cardinals lost lots of offense at the OF corners, replacing Larry Walker and Reggie Sanders with Juan Encarnacion and Larry Bigbie-Sellers. One consolation for Cards fans is the return of Rolen to the hot corner, even though it was admirably managed by Abraham Nunez in his stead. No matter how well Nunez played, it must be better to get an All-Star like Rolen back, right? Well, yes, but not nearly far enough better to compensate for the lost offense. In addition to the massive re-injury risk to his persistently troublesome shoulder and his 42% collapse rate, he projects to only 16 HRs and a .270/.358/.475 line. Rolen probably won’t be bad, but like teammate Jim Edmonds, his previously stellar offensive level is probably a thing of the past. Albert Pujols is good enough to keep the offense afloat, but do not count on a team with loads of offensive stars.

Clint Barmes: Even though Ryan Howard won the NL Rookie of the Year, Barmes had the inside track until he injured himself while carrying a dead deer. All told, he put up 13.4 runs of VORP in only 374 plate appearances while struggling after returning from an injury. I’m sure the positive preseason spin in the Colorado press will deal with Barmes bouncing back from the injury and returning to his first-half form from 2005. PECOTA does not feel so confident, though, putting him at .267/.308/.409 for equivalent stat lines and only a 12.3 VORP over a full season of play. The decline in Marginal Lineup Value Rate from .013 to .004 looks small, but it represents a lost run of production roughly every 10 games. PECOTA’s skepticism doesn’t have to do with his injury so much as his inconsistent minor league record, where he struggled to get his eqOBP over .315 above the low minors. Maybe a “collapse” is not an appropriate description for the 27 year old, but the regression for someone entering his prime is not a good sign.