Mike Cameron May Be More Valuable Than You Think
by Randy Booth on Dec 19, 2009 6:00 AM EST
in News
45 comments
It's easy to get caught up in some of Mike Cameron's numbers. For instance, his lifetime .250 batting average. Or, if you don't like the whiffs, his 1,798 career strikeouts (that's nearly one strikeout per game).
But that's only part of what Cameron brings to the table. When we look at the total package, you'll see he's quite valuable -- even moreso than Jason Bay and David Ortiz.
Combined.
OTM's sister site Brew Crew Ball dedicated a post to the farewell of Cameron after he signed with the Red Sox. Cameron's exit didn't cause a huge buzz in Milwaukee, but maybe it should have:
He accumulated WARs of 4.1 and 4.3 in his two seasons with Milwaukee. 8.4 over the past two years puts him just behind Ryan Braun (8.8) and Prince Fielder (9.5) for the team lead over that span of time. Cameron was the Brewers' third most productive player over the past two years, and now he's gone, with little fanfare.
I don't consider myself a fan of the Brewers, but would anyone else expect Cameron to be the Brew Crew's third most productive player the last two seasons? Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are good players, so I didn't expect Cameron to even be in their league. Wrong.
Cameron's 8.4 WAR (if you're unfamiliar, click here for more information on this stat) ranked third on the Brewers, but it got me thinking. How would that rank against his new Red Sox teammates?
NAME 2008 2009 TOTAL WAR
Pedroia 6.7 5.2 11.9
Youkilis 5.6 5.6 11.2
Drew 4.2 4.7 8.9
CAMERON 4.1 4.3 8.4
Ellsbury 3.3 1.9 5.1
Lowell 3.2 1.2 4.4
Bay 0.6 3.5 4.1
Ortiz 2.0 0.7 2.7
OK, I may have fibbed the truth a little in the intro. Sure, Cameron had a better two-year WAR than both Ortiz and Bay combined, but that was factoring in Bay's half season with the Red Sox -- not the entire thing. On the year in '08, Bay was good for a 2.9 WAR -- still nothing impressive.
Regarding Ortiz and his WAR numbers, he's at a disadvantage because he doesn't play the field. However, playing the field would most likely hurt his overall numbers (since he isn't that graceful of a defender). Ortiz's 0.7 WAR from last year seems a tad low, even for the aging slugger. The first half of the year really hurt Ortiz.
It's also not the most reliable thing to compare WAR numbers of a player in the National League to the American League. With Cameron aging and the transition to a new club and a new league, it's not exactly accurate to think Cameron would keep up these numbers. He could improve his numbers playing in Fenway, but with an aging ballplayer, the bottom line is you never know what to expect.
With all that aside, the raw numbers are interesting to look at. Cameron just may be a more important asset to the team than some think (and all for around $8 million).
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only if he plays CF though
his defense will be wasted in LF, i cant decide what i prefer Ells LF or Cameron LF? Fromer would make us better next season, Ells on the other hand is still young and with a mentor like Cameron could become a great CF. He has all the tools to be a great defensive CF (except arm).
by German Red Sox Fan on Dec 19, 2009 9:51 AM EST reply actions
LF
Why are you guys SSSOOOO hung up on him in CF??
DUMB idea! Ells is our boy in CF….NOW and into the future.
Why take him out for a 2 year cup of tea from Cameron??
And don’t tell me you are holding your breathe for Westmoreland.
I like Cameron…..he can hit the ball and produce runs. When he gets hot…..he hits HRs in bunchs. He can sling the leather with the best of them and goes all out. But he gets hurt at some point every year. So when it happens this year…..do you switch Ells back to CF…then bounce him back when Cameron comes back
true….why would we move Ells for 2 years when we want him to be the CF of the future….Camerons D will not be wasted in left…he will save a lot of runs over there….as far as center i say leave Ells there
because Ellsbury might not be our future in CF
we have Cameron for 2 years, in 2 years Westmoreland could be ready maybe in 3, so its quite possible that Ells wont be our future in CF.
Why would you sign one of the best CF in baseball only to let him play in the smallest LF in all of baseball? makes no sense
by German Red Sox Fan on Dec 19, 2009 10:58 AM EST up reply actions
Plus Ells isn't here THAT much longer after Cameron
keep in mind, he’s a Boras client who will be hitting FA after 2013.
Don't forget Lin
He’ll maybe ready in 2 years: He’ll start in AA this season.
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
Westmoreland is the future in CF
I am holding my breath for him, which is reasonable, considering he is widely considered one of the better prospects in baseball.
Interesting
The Sox have not recently had a batch of OF prospects such as Kalish, Reddick and Westmoreland. Scouting reports have both Kalish and Westmoreland targeted for CF, wonder if Kalish or Reddick will establish enough power to be starting ML OFers or will they end up lilke David Murphy – a decnt OFer but more of a 4th option on most clubs
I'm not worried about Reddick Power
He has been putting slg numbers over .500 through his whole career in the minors
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
Westmoreland worries
Can the guy stay healthy???? Sure he’s dynamic, but we’ve mostly watched him rehab thus far. He’s played less than Lowrie, folks.
"simul justus et peccator"
I don't consider breaking a collarbone after crashing into an OF wall being injury prone it's being nlucky
He has a surgery on a partially torn labrum in November 2008, he’s been fine since.
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
Westmoreland's injuries aren't indicative injuries.
Indicative injuries are when you tend to come up hobbled by awkward swings, or movements. The Labrum is one thing, but he was just fine playing afterwords. Need two points on a chart to draw a line. And the collarbone…Well, if you get smacked in the leg with a sledgehammer and break your leg, are you injury prone?
USG
by Ben Buchanan on Dec 19, 2009 11:50 PM EST up reply actions
he's not labelled injury prone
because he isn’t and has great potential. But he DOES have very small sample size for the amount of hype he’s getting (because of the injuries).
Personally I love the guy, and am guilty of this just as much as anyone else, but he’s overrated as a prospect. Erm, despite that, there’s is very little I would trade him for because of the ceiling thing.
That's what he's rated for. Cieling and speed.
Speed bumps his floor up a ways. Unless he ends up as underdeveloped on reads as Ellsbury, he’s gonna be a great defensive CF no matter what. Everything else is rated on cieling.
He’s very good.
USG
by Ben Buchanan on Dec 20, 2009 4:18 AM EST up reply actions
WAR!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Manny ain't the only bad man.
by tommy.otm on Dec 19, 2009 10:33 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
I'm starting to get most of the new age stats...
…but can someone explain the replacement player part. The linked article says its not a league-average player, but a player that can be completely replaced by their team.
That makes no sense to me.
garbage
war, uzr, rar… all are just as open ended math equations that produce numbers that the creators wanted them to produce. ie: cameron is NOT more valuable than Bay just because these numbers give hope to the fans who aren’t happy with Bay pulling a Damon. at best he’s just as valuable…when not factoring in age. But when you factor in scrilla… well, its open to interpretation. My opinion… Id rather have Bay for the next 5 years.
as for tacoby bellsbury… he’s kind of over rated. its easy to love him bc he’s a homegrown highlight reel. His base path speed is nice but steals rarely equal wins (dave roberts aside…) if jacoby fell off the earth tomorrow I wouldn’t care as much as I would if lester did. ie: don’t get all teary eyed if jacoby isn’t the future. In the end if crazy Mike Cameron gets to more balls (hehehe) then hell yes. ive seen many a hit reach the 420 triangle with tacoby in toe.
by adubson on Dec 19, 2009 3:12 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Yes, because WAR was developed the minute we realized Cameron was coming over.
These stats are entirely objective numbers and to suggest otherwise is just ridiculous.
USG
by Ben Buchanan on Dec 19, 2009 3:13 PM EST up reply actions
You want Bay for 5 years over Cameron for 2?
Eh, can’t agree with that at all.
Paying $15MM for a DH in 4 years is not something anybody wants.
DFA Beckett
by South Coast Ghost on Dec 19, 2009 3:36 PM EST up reply actions
Ummm...
No I wouldn’t mind having a 36 year old DH that is good at swinging a wooden stick at a leather covered cork/rubber/yarn ball in 5 years.
Especially if having some crazy bastard fÇk with Tacoby’s confidence and sense of job security as of immediately is the alternative.
What I really want is for the Red Sox to not have to pay Nancy Drew a King’s ransom for a grand slam he already hit. And yes… I know he had a good year (for him) last year. Don’t care.
this is just terrible.
Bay would be a fine DH, but his hitting will never be worth $15 million a year if he is just hitting. He’s just not that good.
Somebody should be there to challenge Ells, because while he’s got great potential, the fact is he’s just not that good defensively. Someone needs to kick his ass into figuring out his problems, or move him to the corner.
Drew is one of the most solid players on the team… great defender, consistently great hitter. He’s paid less than you would like to pay Bay to DH. So what do you hate about him?
Completely silly.
WAR correlates with team W-L record to a very high degree. If you fill your team with Bay’s vs. filling your team with Cameron’s you will lose. Look it up and crunch the numbers.
I may be silly but...
No one said anything about fielding a team with 9 Jason Bays. That my friend is silly.
My point was that using math you can get any set of numbers to correlate to whichever set of numbers you want especially when it comes to defensive “statistics.”
For me the numbers worth crunching are listed in order of importance: OBP, SLG, K’s, BB.
Bay in 2008: .384 .537 162, 94
Cameron in 08: .342 .452 156, 75
What’s the difference? 19 walks. Not that big a deal. But Cameron will be 37 when he reports and he’s coming off a career high in strikeouts.
Henry Lucchino is clearly pinching pennies/millions. Which would be fine but to compete in 2010 we have to beat the Yankees. WAR, UZR, and all other mathematical acronym pornography doesn’t factor.
They also don’t factor in 37 year old knees and elbows slamming into the metal sections of the green monster. Nor will they consider 38 year old joints and ligaments straining to get to the 420 corner next year.
*Cameron's Ks were not a career high last year.
But I am high on drugs.
What was that?
Shhh.
The wind…
You see
this is why America is fading, the education system that trained you in logic skills. First, in comparing Bay to Cameron and the issue of WAR, when did you mention age? You simply mentioned that you think stats like WAR are just made up garbage. I point out to you that the correlation of team WAR and W-L record is R=0.82. That is more meaningful than any stat you mentioned. If a team all had the same WAR as Bay and another one all had the WAR of Cameron last year, you could say with an overwhelming degree of confidence which team would win more games. Call it pornography but it cannot be disputed. Bay hurts his team tremendously with his defense. Cameron helps his. That is why Bay has no suitors except the inept Mets. Obviously GMs around the league use the “made up” stat that you are referring to and don’t want to sign Bay, even for 4 years.
And as for age, one reason why Bay is not wanted around the league for 5 years is that not only does his defense suck now, it is expected to get worse. Cameron has held his value at his advanced age better than Bay has at his younger age. The fact that Cameron is old means that we don’t have to be saddled with a long albatross contract like Bay is looking for. By the way, Bay Ked over 160 times last year…
“Call it pornography but it cannot be disputed”
I dispute it. It is just as flawed as any other statistic that pretends to compensate for home field advantage and disadvantage. I could argue that it’s flawed because it doesn’t factor in whether or not Jason Bay has a hardy breakfast before a day game.
I’m just not happy that we made the team older by making the second most challenging defensive position much, much older. But maybe you’re right. Maybe Old Man Cameron will step into Fenway Park and play a perfect season in the most complex centerfield in the game. Maybe having Cameron, Varitek, Nancy Drew (who is 15 games away from having a backeotomy) and the Hip Replacement formerly known as Mike Lowell is exactly what they need to blast past the trillion dollar Yankees.
Thank god Marco Scutaro is getting younger. Maybe it was a good thing we signed John Lackey for eighty-two million dollars for five years which handcuffs them to pay Beckett even more. After all we did save a few million pennies by signing Cameron instead of Bay.
Also… leave the Massachusetts educational system alone.
You can dispute anything you want
you can call the world flat for all I care, but you are wrong, and know little about anything, let alone baseball.
Wow. You're easily aggrevated.
Why are you insulting me? Did you invent UZR and WAR? What’s your vendetta? Take a breath and realize that you’re using put downs in a sports blog comment section towards someone who never said a rude word to you. Grow up sunshine.
At this point. I’m not arguing with you anymore. You bore me.
I strongly
dislike when people are completely arrogant about their ignorant views. It is fine to doubt, dislike or disagree with anything you want. But when you or anyone else makes baseless and incorrect claims in a completely arrogant way, it truly pisses me off. I could care less about WAR and UZR in this regard, it is just the combination of ignorance and arrogance that bothers me.
After all we did save a few million pennies by signing Cameron instead of Bay.
And again, why should we sign Jason “old player skills” Bay for 15+ million until he is 36?
America is fading because of a certain political party currently in the white house
Miguel Cabrera IS the solution to our problems.
Release Jason Varitek before ST is over !
Do not pay Jason Bay !!
Trade Buchholz !!!
Who is Henry Lucchino?
And why is he pinching pennies? You are aware that the Sox added payroll this year—aren’t you?
You may not like stats that you don’t understand. But you can crunch all the hitting stats you like. Defense matters. Bay is a bad defensive player. While Bay may create more offensive runs, Cameron will save runs with his glove.
I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.
by Drugs Delaney on Dec 20, 2009 1:34 PM EST up reply actions
yes the SOX added payroll
but that doesn’t affect Larry Lucchino’s brother Henry, who apparently passes the time by pinching millions of pennies.
Thanks for clarifying that, wolf.
I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.
by Drugs Delaney on Dec 20, 2009 1:44 PM EST up reply actions
i can't believe bay only had a 2.9 WAR
considering he was our best offensive player. his defense must have really sucked.
also, doesn’t that mean that marco scutaro had a a way better year than bay? i thought scutaro was in the 4s.
that was 2008
he was 3.5 WAR in 2009. And yeah his defense was terrible by UZR.
Scutaro is rated higher because he played pretty good defense in a way more difficult, valuable position, remember WAR is rated by position.
sox fever
Sorry , Don’t Have The Same Love Of Cameron That You Do .
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