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Swisher Baseline

We started all this by saying, If you liked 7/$105MM for Nick Swisher, you'll love any deal this winter for Curtis Granderson.

SSI didn't like even 4/$56MM for Swisher, and it liked 7/$105MM even less.  So if Dr. D thought the very first premise was totally false, what is it going to think about this whole conclusion?

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WAR Paradigm

In this article, Fangraphs came very close to an epiphany about WAR heroes who aren't great hitters.  (They don't sustain their WAR heroism.)

Per WAR, Curtis Granderson looks great: 

• He plays CF, which is a 1.0 to 2.0 WAR "position bonus" ... +10 runs vs RF, +20 vs DH 
• He generally has played it well - +23 runs bonus over his career
• He runs the bases (like Chone Figgins did) -- another 0.5 WAR per year

So you look at Granderson's 25 WAR over the five years from 2008-12, and you go wow.  A 5-WAR player.  He hits 40 homers, too.  Everybody loves him, right?

SSI cautions that the same things that happened to Chone Figgins -- WAR erosion in several areas at once -- could happen imminently to Granderson.  

Or not.  Thusly...

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Center Field

Granderson used to be a plus CF defensively, netting around +10 to +15 runs per year.  However, in 2011, he was minus, and in 2012, he was wayyyyyyy minus:  -16 runs UZR that year.

In 2012 his UZR defense bounced back ... +5 runs in 58 games.  SABRMatt's theme would be, well, his legs got healthy.  

How do you sort out these arguments, and pick the most important variable?  For SSI, it's the fact that 30-something center fielders fall off the cliff so often.  Ever check Andruw Jones' fielding stats, before and after age 30?  Or Ken Griffey Jr's?  

Center field is a young man's game.  For Dr. D, thirty-something CF's are guilty until proven innocent.

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So in a vacuum, I'm signing Granderson as a right fielder, and POOF there goes 1-2 WAR, up in smoke, relative to Nick Swisher and Kendrys Morales.

On the other hand of THAT, suppose you've got these guys in your 2014 rotation:

• Felix
• Hisashi "Cy Young" Iwakuma
• Taijuan Walker
• James Paxton
• somebody

Then anybody is going to look good in CF.  An aging gold glover like Granderson is fine by me in CF if! and only if you've got that kind of rotation in front of him.

Taijuan + Paxton + Granderson CF, I'd be pretty stoked about.  Saunders + Harang + Granderson CF, fuhgeddaboudit.

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Hitting Trends

Check out Granderson's plate discipline stats -- CLICK THIS LINK -- and you'll find his reaction time (?) eroding quickly.

That graph is going south QUICKLY.  It's one thing for a trendline to be down.  It's another thing for it to be going downhill on a motor scooter!   Note Josh Hamilton's 2013 and be warned.  Here There Be Dragons.

Now, this deterioration in his strike zone control could be because:

• His reflexes are going, OR
• He's swinging harder and wilder, choosing to go for glory shots

I'll tell you which I think it is, and why, in the final post.

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Flier Season 2011

You're aware, aren't you, that we "averaged" 2011-12 to 42 homers, 110 RBI, 110 runs, etc.

But the 2012 was misleading.  Granderson's wRC+ was a sky-high 146 only in the 2011 season; in 2012 it was back to his career norm, 116.  Like this:

So those 40 homers in 2012 are doing a blinkin' great job of deflecting our attention away from the fact that 2011 was a flier.

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DOWN Scenario

Granderson moves to RF, moves out of Yankee, hits .230 with 28 homers and roughly a 105-110 OPS+.  The WAR evaporates from 5 a year to 2.5 a year.

He spends 3-4 years as our feature player, playing worse than Michael Saunders might in the same opportunity.

That's not a farfetched, "absolute worst case" thing.  That's a very possible thing.  Some might consider it the prime computation.

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