Eric's Giants Blog

Does anyone else want to claw their own eyes out?

According to the AP, Magglio Ordonez has INSTRUCTED HIS AGENT to make an offer to the Tigers.

That's right. The Tigers. They won 72 games last year and honestly, that was a pretty good year for them. I lived in Southeast Michigan for three years and I watched a fair amount of Tigers baseball from 1998 to 2001. The team they fielded in 2004 was a pretty good Tigers team.

Huh. So let's imagine someone had given Ordonez a choice: Go to to the Tigers, where he'd have to battle ... Carlos Guillen? as the team's best player (to stifle the chorus of Pudge Rodriguez supporters, Guillen was better last year, posting a VORP of 70.5 to Pudge's 63.1. In fairness to Guillen, he was second among shortstops to Miguel Tejada, and in the top 5 in the AL (Melvin Mora, David Ortiz, Travis Hafner, Guillen, Manny Ramirez - interesting list, btw) or go to the Giants to be Barry Bonds' sidekick, hitting 5th behind him (yes, I've officially given up the dream of putting Bonds back in the 3-sport where he belongs) and playing for a team that has contended every year for about a decade.

Ah, but the chorus of outrage continues - we have Alou! And Maggs has a bad knee. He might miss time...

It's all true. If Ordonez didn't come with serious warts, he'd already have received a 5-year, $75M contract from Anaheim, Baltimore or one of the New York teams. So the real question is, which are the greater set of risks - Magglio's twice-operated knee or the combination of Alou's age, the likelihood of a park-related decline and the defensive disaster of playing an average left fielder (yes, I'm in a generous mood tonight) in a very difficult right field?

Alou's been a pretty great player at various times in his career. He was awesome in 2004, there's no denying it. He was nothing short of spectacular from 1998 to 2001 (not counting the entire 1999 season, which he missed due to an ACL tear). He has a lifetime career OPS of .880 and a lifetime batting average of .300.

Ordonez became a very good player in 1999, putting up his first .300 season in the majors (only his second full season), with a nice .349 / .510 line to go with it. He played in 157 games. Since then, he did nothing but get better before getting hurt in 2004.

1999: .300 / .349 / .510
2000: .315 / .371 / .546
2001: .305 / .382 / .533
2002: .320 / .381 / .597
2003: .317 / .380 / .549

Note that I'll still give 2003 the nod over 2002, since he played in 160 games that year, compared to 153 in 2002. His Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) went up every year from 1999 to 2003.

This is the development of a fantasic ballplayer. He hits for average, draws plenty of walks (although he'll never be Barry Bonds or even Jim Edmonds in this regard) and hits for power.

We'll have to see how many years Ordonez gets from the Tigers or whoever signs him. If it's five (it won't be), I'll be the first to say to that brave team - enjoy him. But if it's 4 or less (my guess is 3 with an option if he's lucky, 2 with an option if he's not), he's a better investment than Alou. It's not that he's better so much as it's more likely he's still as good as he was. Call me crazy, but I just can't get over how old Alou is. And that the Giants were the ones who decided to pay for his 2004 season.

At least he and his dad will have fun in the clubhouse.

I guess.

posted by Eric @ 9:57 PM