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July 20, 2007

Lowell For A-Rod?

From Paul Hagen -

The Red Sox appear to be intrigued enough by the possibility that Alex Rodriguez will opt out of his Yankees contract that they're not willing to discuss an extension with incumbent third baseman Mike Lowell.

I'm starting to feel like it's 1988 again...where the Yankees and Dodgers "traded" free agents Willie Randolph and Steve Sax (for the 1989 season). If A-Rod does indeed opt out, and if he goes to Boston, it would not shock me to see the Yankees go after Lowell.

And, if New York did this, they should probably count on losing around 50 runs in offense on the deal. Over a course of a season, that "loss" would average out to around one-third of a run per game.

How many "wins" would such a swap cost the Yankees? To be honest, I have no idea. Could it be as many as 10 wins? More? Less?

If you have any ideas on the cost of such a switch...please do share them here.

Posted by Steve Lombardi at July 20, 2007 09:20 AM

Comments

Approximately 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 # of wins. I have no idea where I got that number from, but I know it's significant and I think it was meant to represent the # of wins ARod will cost the Yanks.

Posted by: Garcia [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 10:00 AM

Well Lowell has a WARP3 of 5.0 which is basically average. A-Rod has a 13 WARP3. So it would cost the Yankees 8 wins over a full season. That's not even counting A-Rod's clutch hitting though so its probably more like 10 wins

Posted by: Mike NYY [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 10:01 AM

A-Rod has a WARP3 of about 13 and Lowell has one of five. So 8 wins. That doesn't count A-Rod insanely clutch hitting. So over a full season the Yankees would lose about 10 wins. That basically be equivalent to replacing Jeter with Cairo

Posted by: Mike NYY [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 10:03 AM

And if we resign Torre, he could bat Lowell 8th and DH him every 5th day so that Cairo could get another 100 ABs to keep his batting eye sharp. Y'know, Cairo's just as good defensively at the hot corner as Brooks Robinson ever was. And, best of all, he's not black.

Posted by: JohnnyC [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 10:16 AM

first, Alex would play short in Boston.

Second he's not going anywhere. Boras/Alex don't care where the $$ comes from, which is why the 20m the Yanks get from Texas insure that he'll stay in NY...They'll extend the current contract 3 years + a signing bonus to the tune of 195m, (or so) all in, for 6 seasons.

Posted by: Jason O. [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 10:53 AM

Shelley Duncan got called up. Details to follow. Hmmm, maybe they'll DL Damon?

Posted by: JohnnyC [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 01:56 PM

Thanks for the heads-up Johnny.

Posted by: Steve Lombardi [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 20, 2007 02:26 PM