In yesterday’s discussion, during which I spoofed those who show disdain for Micharl Cuddyer, frequent-commenter Jason raised an interesting issue. He wrote: “The $8.5 million Cuddyer is making this year comes in part from your season ticket money to sit in 220, Howard. From that standpoint, I would think you would be curious … at the questioning of how that investment is paying off.”

How is my investment paying off? What is a valid measurement that I could use as a way to judge position players?

Let’s try the statistic OPS+. That’s on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, adjusted to take ballpark factors into account.

For this purpose, the strength of the statistic  is that 100 is the average. A player above 100 is better than average, a player below is worse.

Now, think of the Twins like an investment portfolio. Some are going to be high-yield, others are going to thud along and some are going to bite. Currently, player OPS+’s range from Joe Mauer’s sick 249 to Nick Punto’s sickening 40. The team OPS+ is currently at 109 and last year’s team was at 104.

Here’s the complete list.

(Cuddyer’s current basic numbers are .275 average/.364 OBP/.471 slugging percenteage.)

Obviously (I think), Mauer won’t maintain his current OPS+ all year. The all-time best* is Barry Bonds’*268* on 2002*. I’d expect that he’ll settle in somewhere between Justin Morneau’s current OPS+ of 177 and Jason Kubel’s 142. (Both Mauer and Morneau finished last season at 137 while having Top 5-MVP seasons; Punto’s was 99. Albert Pujols led the majors last year at 190.)

If Mauer ends up at 160 — 60 percent above average. I’d be thrilled with my “investment” in him — and would know that it’s unreasonable for me to expect everyone to attain that level of offensive scorch. Just like I wouldn’t expect my entire investment portfolio to yield 60 percent, even in the best economic times. You hope high performers and the solid performers more than make up for the dogs.

Cuddyer? His OPS+ right now is 124, the same as in his best season of 2006. That’s a 24 percent “yield” and I’ll take that from him. It’s a big improvement over last season’s injury-hampered 92. and better than his career figure of 107.  For the season, I’d be very happy if he performed in the 110-120 range. (It’s early enough in the season that yesterday’s performance moved his OPS+ from 112 to 124, kind of like a huge day in the market.) I’m not going to put him on my All-Star ballot right now, but I’ll make the argument that Cuddyer’s a solid player who has deserved his at-bats. That he’s making $6.75 million this season (or $7.67 million if you want to throw in one-third of his signing bonus) doesn’t bother me.

Based on this method, I’m feeling good about my “investment” in Cuddyer right now. I won’t feel bad about seeing him from my seats in Section 219 at Target Field next season.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 10:10 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.