Thursday, July 31, 2008

I hate Andruw Jones.

If you are a Dodger fan, then you probably know how terrifyingly awful Andruw Jones has been this season. You have probably heard that his batting average is .167 and that he strikes out every 2.7 at bats. More than likey you have counted up all the zeros in his salary and wondered whether that many shots of tequila would be enough to obliterate the whole painful situation from memory. It probably would not be, and your hangover wouldn't even approach Ned Coletti's headache.

Maybe you are one of those people who had high hopes when the Dodgers signed Jones last summer. You thought to yourself, "Ok, he had a bad year in 2007, but he still hit 26 home runs. He is Andruw Jones, he'll bounce back. He hit 51 in 2005. That's alot. He's only 31. He has 10 Gold Gloves and is a 5-time allstar. $36.2 million over two years is probably too much, but he's Andruw Jones. Juan Pierre can't even throw the ball to second base." You became warily starry-eyed, willing to set aside a troubling trend in hopes of a return to glory. You overlooked the fact that you had always disliked Andruw Jones and his lackadaisical-looking, one-handed basket catches and smug little smiles. You were even willing to glimmer over that bulging waistline (as long as that heft's in Dodger Blue right! Right?...)

Well, things are even worse than they seemed. Much worse.

Jones has a VORP of -14.6.

(VORP stands for "Value Over Replacement Player." The number basically represents the number of total offense above or below the level that an average replacement--most likely from the minor leagues--could reasonably be expected to produce.)

Jones salary for the 2008 season is $14,726,910. In essence the Dodgers are playing him $1,008,692 for every negative run his presence on the field costs the team as opposed to throwing some adequate minor leaguer out there. I suppose to make the numbers fair in terms of cost you would have to subtract $390,000 (the minimum MLB salary of the replacement player) from the total, but I don't really feel like being fair. Especially since Jones does not play over some adequate minor leaguer. When Andruw Jones plays, Andre Ethier sits. Ethier has a VORP of 10.1 (notice that this is a positive number). Therefore, the actual number of diminished offense everytime Andruw Jones is on the field is -24.7.

24.7 runs over the course of a season is no small thing. 24.7 runs over the course of a season could very realistically cost the Dodgers their division.

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