Holliday

[Centerfield]

Remember last winter when we debated whether Holliday was worth the extra money over Bay?

Half a year later and it's not even close. What a season Holliday is having:

.305, 19 HR, 60 RBI, OPS of .914, good for 7th in the league.

Meanwhile Bay...

[Guest Edgy DC]

Holliday certainly cost a bit more, 17 mills a year on average over six years vs. 13.6 over four for Bay. Both have a one year option at 17.

That money saved will, of course, be fools gold if Bay doesn't do something to save his career.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Holliday also cost players, since he arrived by trade. Bay only cost money.

My hunch (hope) is that Bay is merely suffering from Foster-Beltran syndrome, and will improve in subsequent years in Queens. (Hopefully more towards the Beltran end of the spectrum.)

[Centerfield]

Both were free agents.

Looking a little more closely, it's not as if Holliday is having some sort of banner year, he's near his career norms. It's just that's how far Bay has fallen short.

Looking at Bay's history, he had one year in Pittsburgh where he had a .745 OPS, so this is not unprecedented for him.

[Benjamin Grimm]

DUH! My bad!

I was thinking of the Phillies pitcher, not the Cardinals outfielder.

[smg58]

While I thought it was obvious that Holliday was the better player, I wouldn't have outbid the Cardinals. I felt the Mets overbid on Bay too, but I didn't think it was by all that much. Still, I figured Bay was a safe bet to upgrade the offense substantially, and I'm as stumped as anybody by his performance so far.

[MFS62]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: My hunch (hope) is that Bay is merely suffering from Foster-Beltran syndrome, and will improve in subsequent years in Queens. (Hopefully more towards the Beltran end of the spectrum.)

Some "power hitters" lose their stroke forever after coming to the Mets. I long ago named that malady the "George Altman Syndrome".
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/altmage01.shtml
I hope you're right.
Later

[Guest attgig]

On the other hand, Bay's much publicized defensive shortcomings hasn't been attrocious. while the small sample size shows Bay's uzr at -1.6, it's not as bad as I think many critics made it out to be...

[Guest attgig]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: My hunch (hope) is that Bay is merely suffering from Foster-Beltran syndrome, and will improve in subsequent years in Queens. (Hopefully more towards the Beltran end of the spectrum.)

we kinda need it this year though. we had a good shot at a wild card birth, if not the east about a month ago....

[Benjamin Grimm]

I know. But we'll also need it next year and the year after that.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

attgig wrote: On the other hand, Bay's much publicized defensive shortcomings hasn't been attrocious. while the small sample size shows Bay's uzr at -1.6, it's not as bad as I think many critics made it out to be...

The eyetest tells me that Bay has played a better defense than he was getting credit for early this offseason; so do the UZR people, who revised his rating just after the season began (due to corrections in the way they normalize for ballparks).

However, where Bay suffers in comparison to Holliday (and, to a greater degree, guys like Crawford) isn't glovework, but range. Glovework-- squeezing the ones you get to-- is more embarrassing/infuriating, but ultimately of less defensive impact than getting to a smaller number of balls to begin with. Over the last several years-- the shortest span over which UZR results have any real predictive value-- Bay's range looks a lot smaller than Holliday's (even as Holliday's a lot more prone, it seems, to take one off his little Cardinal eggs).

[Guest Edgy DC]

Deckchairs on the Titanic at this point.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Oh, indubitably.