Last night, the New York Yankees eliminated the Los Angeles Angels on their way to their first trip to the World Series since 2003. While the Yankees go on and prepare for a bout against the Philadelphia Phillies, a busy offseason for the Angels begins, one filled with important decisions to make. The Angels have a number of players up for free agency, including ace starter John Lackey, outfielder Bobby Abreu, and perhaps one of the most coveted pieces of the offseason, third baseman Chone Figgins. In today’s lecture, we’ll discuss a little bit about Chone Figgins and what he may bring to the table as a free agent pickup.

Figgins began his career as a part-timer in 2003, but has since become a regular in the Angel’s lineup. At the start of his career, Figgins displayed the classic skillset of the speedy slap-hitter: a contact hitter with a low strikeout rate, speed on the bases, and no power. However, while many managers still employ the speedy slap-hitter in their lineups, often times at the top of the lineup, few hitters of this type can be successful offensive contributors in the majors. Even the best speedy singles hitters in baseball don’t muster more than a .370 wOBA for any given season, simply because it is so difficult to deliver offensive value relying entirely on singles and baserunning. For example, in Ichiro Suzuki’s 2004 season, during which he broke the record for most hits in a season, Ichiro recorded a .379 wOBA according to FanGraphs. In that season alone, there were 15 qualified position players with a wOBA higher than Ichiro’s, in what was perhaps the best slap hitter season ever.

For a player like Figgins, whose skillset would be expected to struggle to be productive in the major leagues, there are only two options for improving as a big-league player:

The first option is used to complement the player’s offensive skillset. Contact hitters usually hit for a high average, but such an average usually fluctuates around a norm due to the dependence on BABIP. As such, their on-base percentage tends to fluctuate as well, and given that these players lack the power to compensate for a low OBP, their down seasons will result in very little value. However, by increasing plate patience and walks, which are far more repeatable skills than singles hitting and BABIP, speedy contact hitters can maintain a steadier OBP, even in the down years, and thus boost their overall average value. Not to mention, an increase in walks obviously allows speedsters to get on base and take advantage of one of their primary tools.

In this regard, Figgins has demonstrated significant improvement since the beginning of his career.

The graph shows that Figgins’ walk rate has steadily increased since he started playing full-time in 2003. This year, he posted a career high walk rate of 13.9%, along with leading the American League in walks. The value of these walks can be seen when comparing his batting average with his on-base-percentage.

Changes in Figgins’ batting average began to affect him less and less as his career continued. This culminated in the 2008 campaign, in which Figgins posted a .276 batting average, the second lowest of his career, while still getting on base more than 36% of the time. This mitigated the damage of the poor batting average and kept his production at the plate to a reasonable amount. This season, with his career high walk rate and a return to normalcy for Figgins’ batting average, he was able to post a .395 OBP, a career high, on his way to a park-adjusted .358 wOBA in my calculations, a season worht 17.5 runs above average for a player with an ISO less than .100.

The second point, regarding stellar defensive play, was a path long taken by many players of yesteryear and accepted by managers everywhere. It was the idea that a player could have a light bat if he played a premium defensive position and played it well. Traditionally, this occurred primarily with “up the middle” defensive positions, particularly catcher and shortstop. But now, with the advent of defensive metrics like UZR, Plus/Minus, and TotalZone, we now have a much better idea about the level defense and the amount a player’s defense is contributing to a player’s worth in terms of runs.

Figgins started his career as a utility man, playing primarily center field at the start of his career. None of the major defensive metrics show that Figgins was a particularly good center fielder in his time there. In 2004 the Angels gave Figgins significant time at third base, and again they did so in 2007. In 2008, Figgins began to take to the position, posting 8.2 runs above average in 89 defensive games according to UZR and 9.9 runs above average according to TotalZone. This season, Figgins stepped it up a notch according to UZR, notching 14.5 runs above average in his time there. The fans seem to generally agree, rating Figgins an above average defender at the positions he’s played since 2004.

What about the whole package? According to FanGraphs, Figgins’ excellent offense and defense this season has been worth 5.9 WAR this season; my calculations based in part off their data and BP’s Equivalent Baserunning Runs have him at 6.2 WAR. This breakout season came at the appropriate time given his impending free agency. According to the current free agent WAR rate, Figgins would be worth something along the lines of $26.4M and $27.9M. Of course, he won’t be paid like a 6 WAR player because a lot of his value is derived from defense. Running a projection using 8/4/2/1 for Figgins’ offensive numbers and 5/4/3/2/1 for his defensive numbers (with defense weighted between UZR, TotalZone, and Fans Scouting Report numbers converted to runs, whenever available), I got the following projected line, taken at 136 games played and 639 PA to account some for his health issues the last two years.

6.3 wRAA + 7.2 Defense + 2.1 Positional Adj. (3B) + 21.3 Replacement = 36.9 Runs Above Average, or about 3.7 WAR

Given his defensive reputation according to the Fans Scouting Report this year, I would trust most of those numbers as fairly indicative of his performance. He isn’t a 6 WAR player, but what he is a solidly above average player that any team could use. At this year’s market rate, Figgins would be worth $16.6M, and I don’t doubt someone won’t give him money around that value. Given Figgins’ age (he’ll be turning 32 before the next season starts), we could expect some downturn on the order of half a WAR. At an estimated $14.4M accounting for his age, it’s likely that he’ll be paid his worth in the offseason this year.

Figgins is the example of a player who, with a limited offensive skillset, still excelled by maximizing repeatable skills like walks to help his offense and contribute deftly on the defensive side with his glove. Now that he’s settled in to a position, it’s possible he may produce defensively at the level he has shown for the life of his likely contract, which should be around two to three years in length if the participating teams are intelligent enough. At that length and value, you could do a whole lot worse than Chone Figgins.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Player Profile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.