2011 Rays Projections: Reid Brignac

2011 is the year that Rays fans will finally get to see Reid Brignac as their starting shortstop. Brignac was being called the Rays shortstop of the future since he broke on to the scene by winning the MVP in the Cal League in 2001.

Since then, though, he hasn’t performed at the same level, digressing a bit on offense while becoming a very good fielding shortstop. Inability to hit left-handed pitching, poor discipline and lack of pitch recognition at higher levels have hurt him but with repetition and he should be able to find his niche.

Here are my projected stats for Brignac:

Stat	Total
AVG	.270
OBP	.323
SLG	.411
OPS	.734
Plate App.	526
At-Bats	489
Hits	132
Homeruns	11
Doubles	28
Triples	4
BB	35
SO	108
SB	5
UZR	+5

 

That makes Brignac roughly a 2.3-2.5 fWAR player in 2011, an actual improvement over the departed Jason Bartlett. Brignac will get a lot of production from his glove. He posted a +3.0 UZR in only 340.2 innings at shortstop in 2010 so my projected +5.0 may be a little low. He also has some loft to his swing so the 11 homeruns may be a bit low and the .270 average could be a bit high. Either way, I feel these are pretty safe projections and I do feel he can out perform them and be a 3-win player.

Rays Need to Trade Bartlett Now

I’m pretty sure we all know the Tampa Bay Rays’ situation by now.  In short, they are a small-market team that spent too much money last year and need to cut payroll significantly.  They cannot afford to retain top free agent Carl Crawford or All-Star closer Rafael Soriano.  They also may not be able to retain Grant Balfour and have already lost Joaquin Benoit to free agency.  Needless to say, they have holes to fill while trying to cut payroll by $25M-$30M.

One way they can cut extra cost is to trade starting shortstop Jason Bartlett.  The market for shortstops is very thin, so thin that it netted career .300 OBP Juan Uribe a 3yr/$21M deal and Miguel Tejada a $6.5M contract to be a starting shortstop.  Uribe at least has value in his bat, glove, and versatility but Tejada may be a downgrade from a Jason Bartlett.

Bartlett, after making $4M in 2010, is due for an arbitration raise of over $5M.  If his agent is smart, he will use Tejada’s deal as a starting point for negotiations.  Over the last two years Tejada has hit .291/.326/.418 with an OPS+ of 100 (league average) in 1354 plate appearances while playig mostly thirdbase.  Bartlett, in the same time frame, has hit .288/.358/.423 with an OPS+ of 111 in 1099 plate appearances while playing all his games at short.  In that same time frame Tejada has grounded into 45 double plays and stolen 7 bases while Bartlett has only grounded into 11 double plays and stolen 41 bases.  The comparisons aren’t even close, meaning the Rays may owe Bartlett much more than $5M predicted by “experts” in 2011.

The Rays seem ready to hand the starting shortstop job to Reid Brignac and, in my opinion, they should.  He is making close to the league minimum and is a much better defensive shortstop (UZR/150 of 14.0 in 2010) with more power (career ISO of .135 compared to Bartlett’s .105) and higher overall offensive upside if he learns better pitch recognition.  A full season of Brignac should yield a 2.0-2.5 fWAR season, conservatively.

The Rays deperately need bullpen help.  The Rays desperatley need to cut payroll.  In my opinion, they need to trade Bartlett now for cheap bullpen help and save the money and pray the market stays away from Grant Balfour because of his Type A status.