Holliday to Cards, 7 years $120 million

[logan82]

with their starting second baseman missing for the majority of the season.

 

To be truthful we probably got better than expected production out of our 2B spot in 2009 so Weeks going down didn't hurt as much as it might have.

 

Has anybody seen team projections for 2010 yet? I would think it may be a bit premature, but it may give some idea of where we currently sit.

[TooLiveBrew]

Rickie--I love the guy, but come on, do we really think he's gonna make it thru a season.

 

Absolutely. I personally think it's pretty fluky that he suffered the same injury to each wrist so close together.

 

 

I think the Braun-Fielder combo is now exceeded by the Pujols-Holliday combo

 

Why? Away from Coors, Holliday has mustered an OPS around .800 in his career.

[trwi7]

Absolutely. I personally think it's pretty fluky that he suffered the same injury to each wrist so close together.

He's never played more than 129 games in a season either due to injury or poor performance. It's a pretty big leap to think he can make it through a season.

[Invader3K]

Weeks played in 129 games in '08, and 118 in '07. Beyond that he has never even played more than 100 games in a single season (granted in '05 he was called up mid-season and played in 96 games, but that's going quite a ways back now). It is more likely than not he won't play a full season, based on past evidence. If he plays the majority of this year, I will be very pleasantly surprised.

[sheethead]

Deferring salary... the American way. We WANT it now, but don't have money for it... hmmmmm... we'll pay you later, how about that?

 

So this is what teams are going to have to do to keep up with the Jones' (NY, Boston, etc).

[logan82]

He wasn't hurt in 08 though and it can be easily argued that the should have played more in 08.

[Invader3K]

The big market teams do it too. I think I remember reading how the Mets were paying Bobby Bonilla's contract off for several years after his retirement.

[joepepsi]

Holliday is a much, much better player than Bay. Bay's WAR for the past 4 years: 5.5, 0.0, 2.9, 3.5. Holliday's WAR: 4.4, 8.0, 6.3, 5.7. Bay is an above average player, Holliday is Ryan Braun with good defense.

Holliday's career OPS is .933. Bay's is .896. Considering Holliday has a 1.066 career OPS at Coors, the difference is suspicious.

 

I'm not convinced he is a "much, much better player than Bay". He is about 16 months younger, so he might be. But until he puts up the numbers for a couple years away from Coors, I'll reserve judgement.

[endaround]

He is. Are people completely ignoring Holliday's last year despite having an atrocious start in Oakland? Bay hasn't been real good since 2006. Using career data ignores how far Bay has fallen off.

[TooLiveBrew]

Maybe his slow start in Oakland is just him not playing half his games at Coors, or not having the .374 BABIP he did in the second half of 2009. I'm surprised you're small-sampling it up here.

 

EDIT: Not sure how Bay's .904 road OPS from 2009 isn't legit. He was very good at the plate last year.