Cubs sign Marlon Byrd, 3yrs/$15M

[RobertR]

The Arlington park factor is 104. Wrigley's is 108.

 

Yeah, Byrd has a big split in home and away. OTOH, his road games tend to be in places like Oakland and Seattle a fair percentage of the time with the weighted schedule which is going to skew the split somewhat.

 

Now, maybe there is a special configuration that helps Marlon Byrd in Arlington that won't help him in Wrigley. Or perhaps he justs like sleeping in his own bed. And perhaps 2009 was a career year. But, I note, that when the park factors were taken into account, with OPS+, Byrd did come out as above average with an OPS+ of 106. Heck, courtesy of Baseball Reference his 2009 Road OPS+ was 102. With 2007 and 2008 being better on a rate basis. That's very crude, it doesn't take into account BABIP or handedness for instance, but I didn't have to throw out half his ABs in the process or ignore figuring in park factors.

 

I'd be more worried about his defense than his offense if I was the Cubs.

 

Robert

[Ennder]

Really depends on which park factors you use. If you take something like fangraphs which used a 5 year model then Arlington came out ahead of Wrigley. I'd be most concerned by his age and the fact he has never played full time until last year more than anything.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/pitcher-win-values-explained-part-six/

[RobertR]

Really depends on which park factors you use. If you take something like fangraphs which used a 5 year model then Arlington came out ahead of Wrigley. I'd be most concerned by his age and the fact he has never played full time until last year more than anything.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/pitcher-win-values-explained-part-six/

Which is fair, but I think it's notable that it's not like he's going to a park that's wildly different like Petco.

 

I'd be concerned about his age as well. I do think the fact that he had over 900 PAs in the previous 2 years at a similar level of production is relevant. About 1500 plate appearances is a pretty solid sample size to establish a level of production.

 

The fact that he isn't Milton Bradley and likely won't suffer an emotional meltdown if there's some tough sledding is probably relevant as well.

 

Again, I don't think Byrd is a great signing. But, $5 million per year doesn't buy you a whole lot either. If he puts up an OPS in the upper .700s he should be worth the deal and I think there's a fair likelihood he does just that.

 

Robert