beckdawg
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They are paying Edwin Jackson $11 mil a year to be a mop up guy. Can't really factor money in like that after the decision is made. Also, I am about as much of a homer for Alcantara as anyone but to sit here and say he would put up those numbers I think is a stretch. He couldn't hit for shit to start the year which for me especially was a huge disappointment. I was thinking he'd put up a 3 fWAR year at 2B and make some of the talk about Baez die down. Can't win them all I suppose. And even after being sent down it took him a good 2 or so weeks before he starting doing anything.
I had this exact same conversation about Coghlan 2 months ago when everyone and their mother was tearing him down. There's nothing in Fowler's underlying numbers that suggest he's playing any worse than last year. Last year his isolated power was .122. This year it's .136. Last year his bb/k rate were 13.1%/21.4%(pretty much in line with his career numbers). This year he's at 9.7%/22.0% and while his walk rate is slightly down this article suggests it's more to do with the umpire strike zone than anything he's doing. Fowler's contact type is in some ways better than last year. Last year his rates were 19.8%/50.9%/29.3% soft/medium/hard. This year he's at 17.8%/58.1%24.1%. So he's moved away from both ends more to the middle. I would suggest his hard contact rate is being influenced by the strike zone though because obviously if you're at 2 strikes more you swing more defensively. Fowlers BABIP this year sits at .284 which is 57 points lower than his career .341 BABIP and 10 off what it was last year. In 373 PAs he's matched both his HR and SB total from last year when he had in 505 PAs. Oh and his defense in wrigely has been vastly superior to what it was in Houston.
In other words, Fowler is a text book definition of a buy low guy for the second half. Even if you want to go pretty conservative on his second half and say his BABIP only comes up 20 points you're still talking about a .253/.330 hitter which isn't franchise changing but it would make him the 13th best CF in the league in terms of OBP. Even at $9 mil that is extremely cheap. He's presently at 0.7 fWAR. If he doubles that in the second half at 1.4 you're looking at him being worth around 2-2.5 wins. Keep in mind that Coghlan right now is worth 1.6 fWAR hitting .245/.341/.407 so that's well within reach for Fowler. In FA wins cost about $7 mil a piece. So, he'd essentially be worth some where between $14 and $17 mil give or take in FA which is probably enough to QO him after the season honestly.
