Saturday, November 26, 2011

Free Agent Watch: David DeJesus

David DeJesus was a big disappointment for the Athletics in 2011. He came into the year having a .360 OBP, with a .384 OBP in 2010. He rewarded the Athletics by posting a .323 OBP for his 6 million dollar salary. Despite having a WAR average of 3.27 from 08-10, he had a WAR of just .6 in 2011 (a horrible WASP of 10000). So what happened? His walk rate stayed about the same (actually a slight improvement) at 8.9%, but he hit less extra base hits than usual (just 6.9%). One could say he made up for that by homering 2 % of the time (instead of his normal 1.7%). As one would expect, he was a pretty big victim of BABIP, as it sat at .274 instead of his normal .316. Even though he hit more flyballs, he hit a lot less line drives. He saw exactly the same amount of pitches per plate appearance he  saw in 2011. This is all leads me to believe that 2012 should be a bounce back season for DeJesus. This usually means, although free agency season has been pretty wacky so far, that he will be undervalued. DeJesus Secondary Average and Isolated Slugging are both pretty terrible, as his career numbers are .233 and .137 respectively. With that said, he has 5.3 Runs Created per Game and a .528 offensive winning percentage. He has a career PPS of 93.73, and could be valuable in any lineup. The way he played in 08-10 was worth over 9 million dollars, and while I would hesitate to pay that much, he is a free agent worth considering.

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