BABI's 2007 Over $30 Players

Third of the series.

At the 2007 BABI auction, 9 players went for $40 or more, and an additional 8 went between $30 and $39. Four of the 8 $30-39 players were hitters, two were closers and two were starting pitchers.

We’ll start with the hitters. Here is the list and their stats (HR/RBI/SB/BA), for both 2007 and 2006:

Andruw Jones – 39 (Pecklers)
We discussed Andruw’s travails in the posting two days ago. It was ugly, particularly that .222 BA.

Bill Hall – 33 (Any 9)
2007 -- 14/63/4/.254
2006 --35/85/8/.270

We said “$32.” Before the season, Bill Hall (who qualified at short last year) predicted that he would steal 20 bases. He came up a little short. Fortunately Kenny 9 must have read the same thing, and he topped us. By the way, he thought he stole Hall at $33.

Adam Dunn – 31 (Lickers)
2007 – 40/106/9/.264
2006 – 40/92/7/.234
Dunn always scares people with his .248 lifetime batting average. He’s hit exactly 40 home runs for 3 straight years, and he always steals a few bags to boot. He was a superb value last season, is probably a keeper for 2008.

Ryan Freel – 30 (Cappers)
2007 – 3/16/15/.245 (75 games)
2006 – 8/27/37/.271

Here is the risk of chasing the one category speedster. Freel got hurt, and was history by August 3. But even if he had finished the season, he would have been 4/24/22/.245 at the rate he was going. Here is one of the reasons why Geo quit early.

Three bums, one excellent value. That is a bad percentage, and interestingly, much worse than the over $40 players. You expect the over $40 players to do better, of course, but you would also expect the average overpayment for stats to be higher. I've always theorized that the most expensive players are less affected by inflation than this next tier as a percentage, because it feels so painful to say "$47" or "$58" that there is a natural ceiling. For BABI, though, last year was the ultimate in stars and scrubs auction bidding (39 $1 players), so the expensive guys were really expensive.

The $30+ starting pitchers were:

Jake Peavy – 34 (Bats)
2007 – 19 wins, 2.54 ERA, 1.06 WHIP
2006 – 11 wins, 4.09 ERA, 1.23 WHIP

There is no denying that the Cy Young winner was worth this huge bid for a starter. It is so risky to buy a starter for a big number, but it certainly worked. Unfortunately for the Elder Barry, the rest of his pitching picks weren’t so great.

What I want to know is where did Barry get the balls to bid $34 on a guy with those 2006 stats? He had a lot of hype as a comeback player, but that is a huge bid for a guy with an ERA north of 4. Plus what I REALLY want to know is: who said $33???

Ben Sheets – 31 (Falkuhns)
2007 – 12 wins, 3.82 ERA, 1.24 WHIP
2006 – 6 wins, 3.82 ERA, 1.09 WHIP

It certainly wasn’t a $31 year. LDN kept complaining about how Dontrelle was killing his pitching numbers, but this guy did not provide $31 in stats even though he didn’t suck.

Billy Wagner – 38 (Any 9)
2007 – 34 saves, 2.63 ERA, 1.13 WHIP
2006 – 40 saves, 2.24 ERA, 1.11 WHIP

I don’t think any closer is worth $38. Wagner had a good year, but even on a good team, he didn’t really get that many saves, and his numbers, while good, were worse than 2006.

Trevor Hoffman – 34 (Falkuhns)
2007 – 42 saves, 2.98 ERA, 1.12 WHIP
2006 – 46 saves, 2.14 ERA, 0.97 WHIP

Another great year, but not as great as 2006 in any category. The guy just looks so hittable.
It is a small sample, but the Bats traded like crazy and only finished 4th, Any 9 finished 6th and the Falkuhns were out of the money. I think it is connected.

Even though Peavy was great, he used up an awful lot of resources. Barry had a monster keeper list, so he may have felt he could afford Peavy (and Carlos Lee at $44), but he also ended up buying guys like Wade Miller, Adam Everett, Mike Lieberthal, Matt Lindstrom and Jeff Baker, in addition to over spending on Wes Helms (19) and Ryan Church (17).

One more thing about these pitchers – they didn’t stink. Sometimes they do, and when that happens to a player over $30, you can just kiss that season goodbye.

Tomorrow’s final installment: the other end of the spectrum.