Bobby Abreu II

I got more responses and views for my Bobby Abreu post on Friday than I got for many of the more time consuming pieces I wrote this winter. So I'll probably keep posting more of my analysis centering around player expectations for 2009.

The common response I got for my Abreu piece was that a large component of his value in 2009 has to do with where he's going to wind up playing.

You also have to consider a decline based upon the drop in RBI associated with leaving the Yankees. RBI and Runs are lineup dependent stats. The Yankees, although down last year, were still a run producing machine on offense. Abreu is going to suffer unless he winds up on another high powered offense, regardless of whether or not he declines in HR, Avg, and SB.

This is a misnomer, and it's significant enough that I should take a step back and address it.

The argument is correct in terms of what will happen based on the statistics themselves. If Abreu doesn't have ducks on the pond, he's not going to drive in runs. Similarly, if Abreu is standing on second base after one of his many doubles, that double won't lead to an RBI if the bases are empty.

However, the argument doesn't address the valuation component of the discussion.

Bobby Abreu hit .296/20/100/22 last year. Alex Patton says that was worth $32 last year in 4x4. I say it was worth $33, which is the number I'll use since I have my formulas in an Excel spreadsheet and not Alex's.

Knock 10 runs off of Abreu's RBI total and his value (in my formulas) drops to $31.

Knock 20 runs off of Abreu's RBI total and his value drops to $30.

So, yes, Abreu loses some value if he has fewer RBI opportunities. However, he doesn't lose as much value as you might think.

More importantly, you have to know this before you simply declare that Bobby Abreu is going to lose value. If he's going to lose more than $3 worth of value, which is what I was positing in my last post, he'll have to do more than lose situationally dependent stats. He'll have to slip elsewhere.