Alex Rios signed a one year, 11 million dollar contract with the Royals yesterday.
Alex Rios. Who had a nice .280 BA, but an average/below average (especially for the price) OBP at .311. Alex Rios who last year hit 4 homers. Alex Rios who had a war of 0.6 in 2014 over 500+ AB’s but had a 1.1 WAR in 2013. Alex Rios is a example of the price inflation on offensive WAR.
Compare that to Cuddyer, who does play in Colorado and did play in only 49 games last year. In those 49, he hit .331, had an OBP of .376 and had 10 homers. The previous year he hit .332 with an OBP of .389 and 20 homers over 489 AB’s. He had a WAR of 1.2 last year and 1.8 the year before. He doubled Rios’s WAR in about 40% of the amount of AB’s that Rios had. Cuddyer signed a two year deal for 21 million.
Earlier in the off-season, I said, like many people, that I would judge the Cuddyer signing based on what other moves the Mets have made. Without bringing in another shortstop, the Cuddyer signing isn’t enough (probably) for next year. However, by shocking everyone and moving on Cuddyer quickly, Sandy saved the Mets a lot of money, or at least money as it compares to WAR starts. Rios is a candidate for a bounce back year but as things stand today, I much rather have Cuddyer for two years then Rios for one year, with a similar average salary per year.
Even though I would love the Mets to spend more money like the big market team that they are, moves like this remind me why I’m a blogger and Alderson is a general manager.
