Minnesota Twins sign Josh Willingham

Terry Ryan has done it again. After adding Ryan Doumit, TR signed outfielder Josh Willingham to a three-year deal worth $21 million; a cheap deal for a player with six straight seasons with at least a WAR of 2. Despite his inability to stay healthy, Willingham is far from an inconsistent commodity in the corner of the outfield. He is consistently a solid hitter who owns a quiet 123 wRC+. I say quiet, because many people don’t realize how valuable Willingham is offensively. However, his value is constrained due to his lack of defensive prowess, very poor baserunning, and he has played in over 130 games just twice in the past five seasons.

Any player who provides above-average offensive value constitutes a major upgrade for the Twins, but Willingham’s signing is important when looking at this deal from an economic standpoint. The Twins no longer have to give an ill-advised, lengthy deal to the overrated and risky Michael Cuddyer. Instead, the Twins have invested in a player who is just as good as Cuddyer and is also cheaper. As I write this post, Cuddyer is on his way to the Colorado Rockies. According to Bill James projections for the 2012 season, Michael Cuddyer will be worth 1.5 WAR, which means that he will be worth around $7.3 million. He’s likely to make more than that with the Rockies, so the Twins did help themselves with this move. Another caveat of note is that Michael Cuddyer has a greater lefty-righty split, so Willingham should bring balance to the team’s lineup.

The fans (14) on FanGraphs who submitted projections for the new Twins outfielder have him at 2.7 WAR in 2012. BIS has a more pessimistic projection (also 1.5 WAR) , but the Simple WAR Calculator at Wahoo’s On First has Willingham’s projected 2012 value (based on James’ projection) at $7.6 million. Even a gloomy projection has Willingham surpassing the total value of his contract. I decided to weigh three different projection systems to get an expected WAR total: fan projections (x3), Bill James (x2), and the Marcel system (x1) in an inception-like move. This weighted projection has Willingham at about 2.3 WAR next season, which is around his true value.

If a win is worth about $5 million, then Willingham is expected to be worth 4.2 WAR over the span of this new deal (1.4 WAR per year). I think Willingham should easily be worth this much, as 1.4 WAR a year is what a “bad” Willingham would achieve over a full season. As illustrated in the first paragraph, Willingham is consistently at or above the league average. It should also be noted that Willingham managed to hit 29 homers in the Oakland Coliseum, and Tiger Field is certainly a better park for hitters. 30 homers aren’t out of the question for him, which should increase his raw offensive productivity on a whole.

Even though this deal is a solid move based on the above projections, WAR/$ isn’t everything when it comes to evaluating contracts. Simply put, the Twins needed an offensive upgrade badly. Jason Kubel was as good as gone, and the Twins are better off with Willingham anyway. In most cases, I give leeway to teams who spent a little more than they should to upgrade a major weakness, and this deal given to Josh Willingham is a steal for the Twins. Both player and team fit together nicely, but, more importantly, the Twins were able to make an important upgrade without spending too much. Terry Ryan has already made some nice moves this offseason- we’ll blissfully ignorethe Matt Capps hiccup- and the Twins offense will be much better than the team who employed below replacement-level players last season.