Offseason Moves by Moneyball: Starting 2B

Now that the dust has settled and we can see the fuzzy shape of the 2006 Cardinals roster in the distance, let's review how the team did with their offseason free-agent signings, shall we? In the next few posts, I'll look at each of the team's offensive acquisitions -- from a perspective of Moneyball skills: On-Base Percentage, Pitches Per Plate Appearance and Walks-to-Strikeouts ratio. Before we get started, I assumed that:

• the Cardinals could've signed any of the players who signed elsewhere for less money than the Cardinals paid at the position.
• the amount the Cardinals paid to sign the player was the most they would've paid, and thus I excluded higher-priced players.
• defense wasn't a factor, since a Moneyball approach prefers offense to defense.

Starting 2B Signed: Junior Spivey Spurned: Mark Grudzielanek Should've signed: Ryan Freel or Mark Bellhorn But thankfully they didn't sign: Miguel Cairo, Bret Boone or Damion Easley The Cardinals let the Royals pay Mark Grudzielanek $4 mil for his services this coming season and opted instead to sign Junior Spivey for $1.3 million, which would turn out to be the third-richest 2B signing (based on 2006 salary) this offseason (behind Grudz and Ryan Freel). So did the Cardinals make the right call, at least from a Moneyball perspective?

Player	2006 Sal.	OBP	PPA	BB/K
Freel	$1,300,000	.371	4.06	0.86
Grudzielanek	$4,000,000	.334	3.50	0.32
Bellhorn	$800,000	.324	4.21	0.46
Spivey	$1,200,000	.315	4.05	0.35
Easley	$700,000	.312	3.76	0.55
Cairo	$1,000,000	.296	3.49	0.61
Boone	Min. League	.290	3.78	0.43

Boldface: new Cardinal Italics: old Cardinal Both Ryan Freel and Mark Bellhorn, who signed for nearly the same or less than Spivey, had better numbers in all three Moneyball categories last year (and Freel surpassed Grudz in all three). But Spivey certainly was far from the worst choice. Bret Boone, Damion Easley and Miguel Cairo would've been the wrong or incorrect answer to play the majority of games at second base in 2006.