Earlier this week I did a piece on the 3 most underrated free agents. I mentioned I'd do an article on the top 3 most overrated free agents. Well, here I am. Let's get the list started.
3. Nick Swisher, Right Fielder.
You have got to love Swish. He's got a great sense of humour, and he always would play games with the bleacher creatures of Yankee Stadium. I don't think that people understand how inflated his stats are after playing half of his game at Yankee Stadium, though. During Swisher's term as a Yankee, he has averaged around 25 home runs. I can't even count the times when he has hit a home run that has barely gone over the short porch in right field in New York. It seems like a weekly occurrence. If I were to conservatively estimate, I'd say about he hits about 5 "Yankee Stadium Home Runs" every year. So now we must look at his stats, if we took 5 home runs off of them. He becomes a guy who hits 15-20 home runs a year. Add that to his .260 batting average, lack of speed, and mediocre defence, you are really getting an average player.
Prediction: Nick will end up as a Seattle Mariner. With the fences moved in at SafeCo, it'd be the right idea for the M's, just the wrong player.
2. Kyle Lohse, Starting Pitcher.
16-3 with a 2.86 ERA is good, right? Yes, it's good. There are just a few things that make me second guess Kyle Lohse. One of those thing is his 2012 WAR. It's quite fascinating, actually that someone who led the league in win percentage, and had a sub-3 ERA had a WAR of just 3.9. It's telling you that Lohse was lucky. He doesn't have a put-away pitch. Stuff-wise, he's not great, based on his 6.1 K's per 9 innings, which is actually quite bad.
Another thing that made me second guess Lohse is the lack of continued success. If I'm the GM of a MLB team, I am not locking up Kyle Lohse long-term. When you look at the stats that matter, you'll see that Lohse's 2012 wasn't too different from his 2011. I can see him becoming the pitcher that he was when he was younger. Nothing much more than average. If I'm signing a pitcher long-term, I'm signing a guy with at least 2 years of success, not one who had a good ERA, but doesn't have the peripherals to back it up.
Prediction: Lohse signs with the Boston Red Sox. Lohse in the AL East will be a disaster, in my opinion.
1. Marco Scutaro, Infielder.
I love and respect what Marco Scutaro did for the Giants this postseason. For that same reason, he's overrated. I think teams will look solely at what he did in October, and not realize that he's nothing more than a solid utility infielder. When was the last time that Marco Scutaro was a solid starter at a single position for an entire year? I personally would say it's when he played for the Blue Jays, in 2009. I'd also say that that was the only year that he was a solid starter.
If you look at just this year, when Scutaro was a Rockie, he was quite terrible. He was a below replacement player. There was certainly a switch turned when he was traded to the Giants, but I don't think it's something that you can come to expect for years to come.
Don't get me wrong, Scutaro is a valuable player to have on any team, but for the amount of money I predict he'll get, no thank you. There are many similar options out there for cheaper, such as Jeff Keppinger and Freddy Sanchez.
Prediction: Scutaro re-signs with the Giants which will earn him a nice paycheque. He will be valuable to the Giants, as a utility player, but he won't be worth the contract that he'll receive.
You can follow me on Twitter, @IsaacBlueJays.
To connect with the site, Follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment