Fiddling around with leaderboards is one of my favorite baseball-related hobbies. Screwing with how the board is sorted and formed (which stat the board deals with, time period, player position, etc.) often leads to some delightfully fun nuggets of data being unearthed, and my most recent venture down the rabbit hole was no exception.
This particular search was surprisingly pedestrian in nature. Using the Fangraphs leaderboards, I was looking over the fWAR leaders (among position players) for the second half of the recently deceased 2014 season. Fangraphs happily defines the “second half” as “post-All Star Game,” seeing as their data for the table was pulled from games on July 15th onward. While the All-Star festivities are not truly the halfway point of the baseball season (game 81 of the 162 happens a few weeks or so earlier), it’s a very convenient break in the action and serves our purposes here just fine. I’m rambling, so let’s proceed to the discovery of that nugget of data that I spoke of earlier.
So, the fWAR leaders. (Click that link if you’re unfamiliar with how these youngsters with their rock ‘n roll and sabermetrics slap a completely arbitrary number on a player’s total performance, by the way.) The players you kind of figured would make up the top of the list were there, for the most part. First was Buster Posey, who pretty much dragged himself into MVP consideration with a biblical second half performance of 3.7 fWAR. For comparison, that’s equal to Neil Walker’s production for all of 2014.
Second was Josh Donaldson, who basically kept the A’s afloat while the ship sprung all kinds of leaks. Third was newly minted star Josh Harrison. Fourth was Alex “overtook Mike Trout for the fWAR lead for a few weeks” Gordon, who as you may know recently found himself in the World Series. Fifth was… wait, is that Chase Headley?
Headley actually equaled Gordon’s 2.9 mark in the second half, but in 38 fewer plate appearances. The immediate expectation is that Headley simply out-hit Gordon; it’s what I immediately assumed to be the case. That’s not the case though. Here’s a brief offensive comparison:
Gordon: 275 PA, 10 HR, .265/.356/.441, .350 wOBA, 125 wRC
Headley: 273 PA, 6 HR. .265/.367/.402, .346 wOBA, 121 wRC+
If you use your hand to cover the part of the screen that’s displaying their plate appearance totals, the output is remarkably similar. Gordon holds an edge in slugging, Headley a slight one in on-base percentage. Their wOBA and wRC+ totals are both separated by a mere four points. For all intents and purposes, Gordon and Headley were basically identical at the plate in the second half due to the small sample size that we’re dealing with. A few more balls find holes or seats here and there, and the names could easily be flipped. So, how did Headley equal Gordon, whose second half campaign was good enough to put him ahead of a “struggling” (read: briefly human) Trout, in a smaller space of time? With his glove, of course.
That’s a tall order, and probably very hard to believe. And that’s for a very good reason. Alex Gordon is routinely in the conversation for the title of Best Defensive Player in Baseball, and has a streak of Gold Gloves to show for it. He’s probably going to win another one this year, too. Bottom line, Gordon’s picture is what you see when you look up “elite outfield defender” in the dictionary.
Here’s the thing: Chase Headley is really good at playing third base. So good that according to Fangraphs’ total defensive metric, he was the third best fielder in baseball this year behind Andrelton Simmons and Billy Hamilton. And because of the way defense is figured into fWAR, Headley gets more credit for being good at his position than Gordon. Why? Well, left field has historically been the least demanding of the three outfield positions. It does not require the strong throwing arm right field and center field (slightly less so) do. For example, the left fielder has a shorter amount of distance between him and scoring position bases, while the right fielder has a long way to throw the bar. This is why Yasiel Puig plays right field. Note that this is not to say that left fielders are inherently worse fielders than third baseman. The WAR calculations simply award more credit to Headley for playing a harder position. Remember, WAR stands for “Wins Above Replacement.” There’s more of a tolerance for defensive ineptitude in left field than at third base, as a fly ball is easier to play than a hot chopper in the infield (which is why fielding percentage isn’t all that useful).
But as you and I know, Alex Gordon does not make his living with his arm. He makes it with his range. His absolutely silly, ridiculous range. That range helped him grade out as the best defensive left fielder in baseball this year, and it wasn’t close. Chase Headley also happened to be the best defensive third baseman in baseball this year.
However, Headley’s defense isn’t the reason he matched Alex Gordon’s fWAR total, and was better than a ton of others, down the stretch. It was that his bat came alive again. Those offensive numbers I showed you above aren’t superstar level, but they’re pretty darn good. There’s something to be said for triple slash numbers that go 2/3/4, especially in this pitching-dominant environment. You combine that with his fantastic defense, it’s how you get such great value over such a short span of time. I compared Posey’s production in the second half to Neil Walker’s entire year. Headley’s 2.9 fWAR in the second half is the equivalent of Starlin Castro’s 2014 campaign.
The problem with all of this, of course, is that we’ve been inspecting half of Headley’s season. There was a whole other half, and a larger “half” at that. Headley played only 74 games in that span. A bad back was the primary culprit in keeping him off the field, among other ailments. He hit only .226/.296/.350 during that time. The defense was there as usual, so he still managed 1.5 fWAR. Remember that fWAR is park adjusted, and therefore gives Headley some credit for playing in San Diego’s incredibly pitcher-friendly confines during that time.
While injuries and Petco Park were clearly responsible for Headley’s stagnation at the plate, is Headley’s rebirth as a Yankee the real deal? This question is responsible for making Headley one of the most intriguing free agents about to hit the open market. His MVP-caliber 2012 season is also part of that. Perhaps you remember? That year he crushed to the tune of .289/.376/.498 and 31 bombs, good for a 145 wRC+. The glove was there too, and it amounted to a 7.2 fWAR. Every GM in search of a third baseman dreams of getting Headley fully healthy and back to that 2012 groove, which may have disappeared in 2013 partially due to a fractured thumb in spring training. Between that and his bad back this year, what do we look for in the 2015 model year Chase Headley?
The first thing that comes to mind is, once again, the defense. Headley’s UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating, a measure of defensive range) this year was miles ahead of any other season he’s had. Spikes like this are rare, especially for someone in his age 30 season who started the year with a balky back. Can he even come close to repeating that level of play? Perhaps. For those of you who made it this far into the article and don’t like acronyms and numbers, Headley posted stellar numbers in one other category: the eye test. I’m rather partial to the Yankees, and watched a healthy portion of the games that Headley played in pinstripes. Headley never looked particularly strained to make some of the crazy plays he completed, often even making it look easy. It was some of the best third base I’ve ever seen this side of Manny Machado.
It’s for that reason I wouldn’t hesitate Headley to be a strong secondary component of a team. The glove, even if it falls back off the mountaintop, should provide plenty of value to supplement a bat that barring injury should be at least above average. And who knows? Maybe a fully healthy Headley recaptures some of that 2012 magic, especially if he spends a full season in a hitter-friendly park. Any bonus on that bat is gravy, but at the very least I can’t imagine Headley being less than a 4-win player next year, and probably the year after that. For a team on the brink of contention that needs to fill a hole at third, that’s huge.
There are quite a few options that present themselves. First and foremost, do the Yankees bring him back, or do Brian Cashman and co. not have the roster flexibility with Alex Rodriguez back in the picture? How much do the Red Sox trust Will Middlebrooks at this point? There’s apparently a strain in the front office towards him after he refused to go play winter ball to refine his approach. Can the Indians afford to pay Headley to play third in lieu of the incredibly streaky Lonnie Chisenhall? Aramis Ramirez is headed to free agency as well; will the Brewers bring him back or make a run at Headley? Do the Giants view Headley as a potential answer to Pablo Sandoval hitting the open market? Or perhaps do the Astros feel that their prospects are close enough that they can afford to use up some of their hoarded cash?
There will be no shortage of interest in Headley’s services, and his huge performance down the stretch will be his main argument for a good payday. MLB Trade Rumors’ Tim Dierkes put out an estimate of four years and $48 million, but I feel given the absolute dearth of bats on the market this winter that Headley’s agent will be able to weasel out a fifth year. Headley’s career took a fascinating turn this year in that he suddenly became an uber-elite fielder, and suddenly his bat isn’t his most appealing asset. He most likely won’t ever touch that superstar ceiling again, but being consistently good at everything has a ton of value. Not every player can be a superstar, and that’s okay. What Chase Headley figures to be is a key player for a contending team, and the teams that have lots of those players tend to be the ones that go deep into the postseason. Alex Gordon’s Royals are the prime example of this. An addition like Headley can make a good team great. It will be fascinating to see where he ends up when all the cards fall.
