Good Luis/Bad Luis

Today marks the one week anniversary of my entrance into data purgatory. I have not entered the realm of internet hell, still finding enough random wireless hotspots to occasionally check my e-mail, get sports scores- you know, the essentials. On the other hand, I have not participated in the internet activities that have made the web such an appealing place: no consistent internet means no mlb.tv, not enough access to information to read or write anything worthwhile about the Twins, and infrequent fantasy baseball updates, resulting in a miserable 10-1 drubbing last week. It only gets better from here, as the promise of a wireless router has brightened my future substantially. I am aware that my lament treads on dangerously thin ice, the above ground being the safe world of the sports blog, supported by the fatally frigid waters beneath which represent the archetypal emotive blog written and frequented by pock-marked Ben and Jerry’s fanatics with nothing better to do. I have something better to do, so I vow to waste no more time on non-baseball news:

Before coming to the Twins, Luis Castillo established himself as a consistently above-average middle infielder, both with the bat and the glove. Age and injuries had taken a small toll on him, sapping a bit of his batting average and base stealing prowess. Additionally, he was feeble enough with the stick to never slug above .400, and his lack of RBIs- flawed as the stat may be- once prodigiously hinted at his stunning lack of power. Still, as one of the first players shipped out in the Fish Fire Sale v2.0, it seemed like Castillo came to the Twins as something of a bargain: a short-term contract for a high-OBP guy with a good glove that could function as an above-average free agent signing, where the team gives up a couple of promising but redundant middle relief talents. As it has turned out, Castillo has challenged the ’05 edition of Shannon Stewart for the title of most horrendous Twins leadoff hitter in very recent memory.

Indeed, second base was a weak point for the Twins for several years, and the lack of public ire against Castillo, coupled with his public status as a team leader, prevents him from facing the same type of criticism as those whose corpses paved his way. Take, for example, the other Luis Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. As a fledgling “prospect” who received most of the playing time in the division title run from 2002-2004, young Luis never topped a .308 OBP, but at least posted solid ISO (SLG-BA) numbers, culminating in a respectable .176 ISO in 2004, only his age 24 season. Castillo’s ISO this year is a meager .087, although those numbers do not paint the whole picture. Castillo’s OBP is still .342, respectable for a bottom-feeding hitter, but not for a leadoff man who lacks any power.

Altogether, Castillo’s offensive contribution comes out to a paltry .243 EQA, a rating which standardizes offensive contributions to one round number scaled like a regular batting average. In his last full season as a second baseman, that other Luis posted a strikingly similar .242 EQA. Defense, you say? Old Luis loses there too, posting a defensive rate of 92 (8 runs below average for every 100 games) to a 98 for young Luis in 2004. Combined, 2006’s Luis Castillo has gone from a 5.6-6.9 win player, in terms of WARP- every year from 2002-2005, to being worth only 3.1 wins all of this year. Luis R-R-Rivas even managed a 4.2 WARP in his age 24 season. I do not mean to say that the Twins would be better off if they had kept Luis Rivas to play second base every day; settling for mediocrity is generally a mistake. From another angle, this performance is hardly what they expected to get out of Luis Castillo. Perhaps the warning signs were there- he has always relied on his speed, but injuries have diminished that skill in recent seasons, and speedy players are susceptible to a rapid decline when they lose that one skill. Additionally, everyone in the organization knew that Castillo would face difficulty transitioning to a turf field for the first time in his major league career. Certainly, no one anticipated just how bad his defense would be early in the season (and I will be the first to admit that it has improved markedly in the last couple of months), nor would they guess that age 30 would be some magical number that would cause him to post a career low in OBP. No matter how short the commitment, Castillo has not earned his $5 million this year, especially for a team that cannot afford to throw millions of dollars around for dependably below-average performance.

Imagine, for a moment, a Twins lineup without the Castillo trade ever taking place. Nick Punto would presumably remain at second, getting some value out of his surprising on-base skills. The actual replacement would come at third base, where either Rodriguez or Tiffee would have assumed Castillo’s playing time. Tiffee would probably approximate Castillo’s offensive value, sadly enough, but with less to offer with the glove. Rodriguez may be the better option, bringing with him a little less at the plate (a terrible .237 EQA), but remarkably good fielding stats across the diamond. The contributions of Travis Bowyer would be an improvement this year over Will Eyre’s terrible mop-up work, albeit in very low leverage situations, but the team would probably be at a point of equilibrium in terms of run scoring and prevention. Finally, recall the $5 million opportunity cost of employing Castillo, and all of the different ways that money could have been spent- most usefully on a better 3B alternative than Tony Batista. Joe Randa is not the sexiest name to take to prom, but his .259 EQA would play a lot nicer along side Nick Punto than Luis Castillo’s .243.

Or, the money could have been spent on starting pitching depth, a situation which grows more dire by the day. I will chip in on the loss of Liriano in the near future, but for now, keep in mind that one problem which many thought had been solved has really just been a reshuffling of the deck chairs.