That Delmon Young and Brendan Harris for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett (and some other stuff) trade between the Twins and Rays looks better all the time, doesn't it? The big pieces in the trade at the time were thought to be Delmon Young, considered to be still one of the top young hitting prospects in the game, and Matt Garza, and good young pitcher who had fallen out of favor with the Twins organization. Harris and Bartlett were sort of throw-in middle infielders.

I won't review the Garza-Young portion. I simply want to discuss Jason Bartlett. After being one of the most overrated players on the the 2008 AL Champions, Bartlett has been on fire with the bat this season, to say the least, hitting .338/.398/.522 with a .404 wOBA (his stats at the moment I'm typing this).

Jason Bartlett

#8 / Short Stop / Tampa Bay Rays

Height: 6-0

Weight: 190

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Oct 30, 1979

That is one contemplative dude.

This offensive explosion is a surprise, to say the least. Given his past performacne and regression to the mean, it's very unlikely that his "true talent" is at this level. And, as Dave Cameron notes, with both Reid Brignac and Sean Rodriguez now in the possible middle infield mix for the Rays in 2009, perhaps it is time for Tampa Bay to sell high on him. So how valuable is Jason Bartlett? That's right, it's another chance for me to be able to do a projection using my usual simplistic tools.

In the article linked above, Cameron concludes that "It will be interesting to see how many teams believe this version of Bartlett is for real." While he is correct to imply that this isn't some brand new level of performance from Bartlett that should be expected going forward, it is also true that this season does count toward a projection of Bartlett's future performance (and Cameron would not deny that).  The issue isn't whether Bartlett is the .311-.335 wOBA hitter of 2006-2008 or the .404 wOBA hitter of 2009. Rather, we want to know what, taken together, they indicate about his true talent. So, as per usual, we'll do a little regression, weighting, and, sprinkle on some sabermetric fairy dust (as my friend NYRoyal might put it).

Hitting (and basestealing): As per The Book, a players true wOBA skill per season should be regressed against 220 plate apperances of league average wOBA. Bartlett's wOBA's (using the FanGraphs implementation) from 2006-2009 are .335, .319, .311, and .404, respectively. Regressed, those are .334, .322, .316, and .379. Doing a weighted average (basically 5-4-3-2), we get a .341 wOBA, as his true talent. Converting to runs above average using in this season's run environment, we get ((.341-.328)/1.2)*700 PA: ~7 runs above average per 700 plate appearances.

Fielding: Usually I just do a weighted and regressed average of Ultimate Zone Rating from FanGraphs, but I decided to mix it up this time. I regressed UZR to Bartlett's Speed Score for each season, and also used Tom Tango's Fans Scouting Report as another data point for each season. It's interesting how UZR and the Fans diverged. Bartlett's UZR/150s from 2006-2009 are 16.1, 9.0, 2.9, and -7. However, when I converted the Fans Scouting Report to runs, I got  1, -1, 8.0, and 4.0 for each year. It's not the differences in numbers I'm concerned about. That's to be expected, especially since converting the FSR to runs is more of an art than a science. What is striking is the difference in "trend" of the Fans having his best years according to UZR as his worst years. But that's why we use multiple data points. I weighted regressed UZR 75% and the FSR 25%. The estimate I come up with for Bartlett's defense is +3 runs above average per 162 games.

Baserunning: I don't always include this, but in Bartlett's case, it's worth adding in. I also want to get a chance to plug Dan Fox's EqBRR (basically baserunning linear weights above/below average) as implemented at Baseball Prospectus, which is the best baserunning statistic that I know of, despite the Bill James numbers that seem to get more publicly for some reason. Since steals are included in the version of wOBA I used here, I subtracted the EqSBR element from them. Although Bartlett was about average in 2006 and 2008, in 2007 he was about 2.5 runs above average from taking extra bases on hits, advancing on ground outs, etc., and is about 2 runs above average so far this season. My rough projection has his baserunning at about 2 runs above average per season.

Adding it all up: +7 hitting + 3 fielding +2 baserunning +7.5 positional adjustment +25 AL replacement level = 44.5 x 85% playing time = ~38 run above replacement, or 3.8 Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

No, he's not a .404 wOBA hitter. Not even close. But our model tells us that a shortstop with slightly above average defense and above average hitting is extremely valuable. Conservatively, that sort of player would cost almost $20 million a season on the free agent market. True, Bartlett will be 30 at the beginning of next season, so we might knock of half a win. But even if we go a bit further than that, and bring him all the way down to 3.0 WAR, that's still a $15 million a season player.

It will be interesting to see if the Rays and their (potential) suitors agree.