Mark DeRosa

#7 / Left Field / St. Louis Cardinals

Height: 6-1

Weight: 205

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Feb 02, 1975

Well, the first in-season shot in the race for the Central has been made. And by "Central" I mean "AL Central," and by "race" I mean "the race between Cleveland and Kansas City's front offices to realize that yes, they're out of it and should be getting rid veterans who aren't going to be around to see the next potential shot at contention." This may also effect the NL Central. DeRosa goes to the Cardinals for Perez and a PTBNL... According to the SI blurb, the "player to be named later story" is considered by Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro to be a major part of the deal, so I guess this analysis really won't be complete until I come back in a few months with an analysis of either Skip Schumaker or Colby Rasmus (put down the pitchforks, Cardinals fans, I'm joking). Until then, here are some numbers on the trade so far.

Mark DeRosa goes to the Cardinals.

Offense: Although he got off to a bit of a rough start the first month of the season and people panicked after a small sample sizse, DeRosa currently sports a wOBA of .347. That's a bit higher than most pre-season projection had him, but again, keep in mind the sample size. Using data from 2006 through yesterday, my prototype  adapted Marcels-like procedure gives a projected wOBA of .345, while another version gives .342. The ZiPS in-season projection tool projects .348. So a safe average of those three would be a .345 wOBA projection for the rest of the season. Using the formula for runs above average [(wOBA-lgwOBA/1.15)*PA) and , over a full season of 700 PA (with a .329 lgwOBA) that's  9.7 runs above average.

Defense and Position: Although DeRosa came up with as an infielder with Atlanta, when he went in Texas in 2006 he became more of a utility player at 2B, 3B, and the outifeld corners. The Fans' Scouting Report sees  DeRosa as havling slightly above-average position-neutral defensive skills the last couple of seasons in Chicago. Rally's TotalZone projection sees DeRosa in a similar fashion average or slightly above average at 2B/3B, about average in the outfield corners. However, UZR's numbers are quite different for DeRosa. The see him as goig from below average-to dreadful at 2B from 2006-2008 (UZR/150: -7.2, -1.3, -15.9), while in limited time at third he was either brilliant (~ +21 runs in 2007 and 2008) or horrible (-7.6 in 2006, -16.3 in 2009).In the outfield, his career UZR/150 is +14.7. How do we resolve this?

Projecting fielding is even more error-prone than evaluating it. The general UZR profile looke like a guy with average defensive skills, overall -- good inthe corner outfield, while holding his own (at best) at 2B/3B. And while I'd normally just average the various ratings and give a weighted average, given the limited number of innings of each position year-to-year and the error bars with defensive metrics, one realizes that he would be regressed almost to average everywhere anyway. Given that this roughly coincides with the Fans Scouting Report, I'll say he's about average at 3B (where the Cardinals plan on playing him, from what I've read). So that's +2.5 positoinal adjustment + 0 (average) defense. If I was giving a graph, though, there would be very large error bars.

DeRosa's WAR: 9.7 offense +0 fielding + 2.5 position + 22.5 replacement level (he played in both leagues from 2006 to present) = 34.7 times 85% playing time = 29.5, just under 3 WAR over a full season. At just over half a season, then, DeRosa projects to contribute about 1.5 Wins Above Replacement to the Cardinals with just under $3M remaining in salary. With each margina win costing about $4.5M so far, that seems good for the Cardinals.

Chris Perez Goes to Cleveland.

This is a bit more difficult to evaluate because Perez doesn't have much of a major league record. Scouting-based approaches become more important the less statistical data there is, so a strongly recommend reading the posts on Perez by Kyle and also Jeff's Pitch f/x analysis.

If you look at his FIP and WAR numbers at FanGraphs so far this season, you see that he is at or below replacement level so far, and wasn't much better in 2008. Stat Corner's numbers are a bit better, but still aren't that impressive. The FIP-based projections at FanGraphs are only slighly more positive for 2009, and when I compare those with his Deserved Leverage (deLI), I get about 1.0 -- not at the back of the bullpen, but clearly not the a guy you want setting up or closing.

However, he's still relatively young. Marc Hulet saw him as a potential 3.5 ERA closer type in St. Louis, David Golebiewski also touted Perez's potential. Rally's six-year forecast for Perez sees him as a 0.2-0.3 win player for the next few years. That has value.

Summary

On the surface, the trade looks slanted pretty heavily towards the Cardinals. St. Louis receives an above average contributor at a position of need, whlie Cleveland gets a near-replacement level reliever and a traditionally near-worthless Player To Be Named Later.

But one has to keep the overall situation in mind. Cleveland is out of it. They were going to lose DeRosa after this season anyway, and at this point probably want to play Luis Valbuena and Asdrubal Cabrera in the infield to see what they've got with those guys. $3M is a ton of money, but Cleveland can probalby find a better use for it than being 8 instead of 10 games back at the end of the season (although I still think they're better than that).

Keep in mind that Perez is "free," i.e., makes the replacement salary for the next few seasons. So even if he only delievers 0.7 WAR or somethig over the next three seasons at the minimum, that's still marginal value accrued.

So there isn't much of a devastating conclusion here. Clearly, the Cardinals filled a need at a reasonably low price -- a cheap reliever whose future is a bit of a question mark and $3M to get 1-1.5 WAR at a position where they were certianly flirting with replacement level. Cleveland gets a bit of salary relief by trading an older player who didn't have a future on the team beyond this year as well as a cheap reliever who might help right away, and at worst doesn't kill their budget if he doesn't improve.

Some might think that Cleveland should have received more for DeRosa, but keep in mind that, despite being a good player and with more than half a season left to player, DeRosa still only projects to add 1, maybe 2 marinal wins to the Cardinals, and then he's a free agent. That has value, but this isn't CC Sabathia to the Brewers.

And don't forget the Player to Be Named Later. I suppose I'll have to revisit this with an analysis of Colby Rasmus or Adam Wainwright when that comes through...