What Is Melky Cabrera Worth?

This offseason, Brian Sabean made arguably the best trade of the past year, sending Jonathan Sanchez to Kansas City for Melky Cabrera. Sanchez has been an absolute disaster this year for the Royals, pitching well below replacement level and walking more hitters than he has struck out. Cabrera, on the other hand, has built upon his career year in Kansas City last season with another career year this season in San Francisco. Recently voted to start the all-star game, Cabrera has put up a slash line of .353/.391/.519, good for a wOBA of .389 and a wRC+ of 148. Just 27 years old and a free agent after the year, Cabrera seems to be setting himself up quite well for a good chunk of change this offseason.

However, is he worth that large contract he may receive?



Cabrera’s detractors would have a few major things to point to. First, before Cabrera had his breakout season in Kansas City in 2011, he had never put up a league average wRC+ in his five previous full seasons. And the last of those seasons, 2010 in Atlanta, Cabrera was utterly awful, putting up a -1.0 fWAR, good last in all of baseball. Furthermore, a critic could argue that while Cabrera has been great this year, his success is largely predicated on his unsustainably high .388 BABIP. A recent FanGraphs article shows that Cabrera has been the fourth luckiest player in baseball this season, with a wOBA .038 than what it would be with Cabrera’s true talent level BABIP for 2012.

While it is clear there are several negative factors if a team is looking to sign Cabrera, there are plenty of positives too. The biggest, and most obvious, is age. Cabrera is playing his age 27 season right now, and if he were signing a four year contract, that would take him through his ages 28-31 seasons. This would decrease risk because teams would not have to worry about paying for any of Cabrera’s decline years, they would only be acquiring his prime.

In addition, there’s reason to believe that a high BABIP for Melky Cabrera isn’t entirely unsustainable. Expected BABIP (xBABIP), is a statistic which takes a player’s batted ball data and determines what his BABIP should be if the luck and noise was lessened. Using this xBABIP calculator from The Hardball Times, Melky’s xBABIP would be .335, still well above the league average BABIP. In fact, if we replace Melky’s BABIP with his xBABIP, his line looks almost exactly the same as it did last year, with a slight increase in BB% to 6.3%, even more slight decrease in K% to 12.6%, and a nearly identical ISO of .166.  Last season Cabrera had a .350 wOBA, and the Fangraphs article linked above shows that without the fluky BABIP increase, Cabrera’s adjusted wOBA is .351 for 2012. With over 1000 PA booked so far between 2011-2012, it is probably safe to say that Cabrera’s true talent level wOBA is ~.350. This is good for about 20 runs above replacement level.

Defensively, Cabrera has spent his career playing all over the outfield. According to UZR, he has been about an average to below average defender in both left and right, and below average in CF. Projecting him as a corner outfielder going forward (the Giants have yet to play him even an inning in center this season), Cabrera should be about average or just below, so to be conservative, we will pencil him in for -2.5 UZR a year.

So what does that all add up to? Using rough calculations to project Cabrera’s WAR going forward, Cabrera’s offense + defense + position + replacement should come out to about 20 – 2.5  – 2.5 + 20, good for 35 runs above replacement or a 3.5 WAR true talent level. Given that Cabrera is still in his prime and has had no major injury issues to date, not too much regression is needed for the next four years, the contract we are looking to project.  Again, these are rough calculations, but lets say Cabrera will be worth 3.5 WAR next year, and decrease him .25 per year thereafter to account for aging and the possibility of injury. This would total his projected war over the next four years at 12.5. If we assume that $5 million/win is market value in free agency, then Cabrera should receive a contract this offseason of 4 years/$62.5 million.

Cabrera has been adored in the Bay Area, with the Giants fans giving him the most votes of any outfielder in the National League, and the city still buzzing about his record tying 51 hits in May. Cabrera has enjoyed his time here too, recently telling John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle that he would be open to a long-term extension. However, the Giants must be careful not to overpay Cabrera, and pay him for his unsustainably high BABIP he has put up this offseason. While his agent will surely ask for a contract like what Andre Ethier just received (5 years/85 million), Sabean would be wise to hold court and offer Cabrera a contract of four years, and 60-65 million. This recognizes that he is an above-average player, like he was last year in Kansas City, just not the star that his fluky-BABIP 2012 may suggest.