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Angels shrink gap on Rangers by inking Pujols and Wilson
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By Cliff Corocoran
December 8, 2011
LOS ANGELES — The Rangers finished 10 games ahead of the Angels in the American League West in 2011. On Thursday morning, the Angels made up that deficit and then some by committing more than $330 million to first baseman Albert Pujols (10 years, $254 million) and left-hander C.J. Wilson (five years, $77.5 million), the top free agent hitter and pitcher available this offseason.
The Angels had $31 million coming off the books this winter with their commitments to pitchers Scott Kazmir and Joel Piñeiro and outfielder Gary Matthews Jr. coming to an end, and expect to be flush with cash in the wake of a new local television contract with FOX Sports that could add an extra $100 million annually to their coffers. That means that, even with Vernon Wells' still owed $63 million over the next three years, the Angels and new GM Jerry DiPoto had both the money and, after missing out on Carl Crawford and Adrian Beltre a year ago, the motivation to go big this offseason, and they have.
Pujols, a three-time NL MVP, is obviously the bigger name but, curiously, Wilson may prove to be the larger upgrade for the coming season. Assuming some combination of rookie Garrett Richards and reclamation project Jerome Williams can sufficiently replace the middling performance of 2011 rookie Tyler Chatwood, who was dealt to the Rockies last week in a deal that netted catcher Chris Iannetta, Wilson will be replacing Piñeiro and Kazmir directly, as well as spot starter Matt Palmer. Piñeiro, Kazmir and Palmer combined to make 28 starts and throw 163 innings for the Angels in 2011 and were 2.1 wins worse than a replacement player according to Baseball-Reference's Wins Above Replacement (bWAR).
Meanwhile, Wilson has averaged 4.7 bWAR a year since converting back to a starting pitcher from a reliever in 2010. That's a 6.8-win upgrade that you can round up to seven wins when you consider the other 60 or so innings of borderline-replacement middle relief work that Wilson will eat up in the coming season. Add in the downgrade from Wilson to the newly closer-turned-starter Neftali Feliz in the Rangers rotation and already the two AL West powerhouses are neck-and-neck in the division, and that's before factoring in Pujols.
From 2003 to 2009, his age-23 to -29 seasons, Pujols averaged 9.1 bWAR a year. Over the last two years, however, he has experienced some decline, posting a 7.1 bWAR in 2010 and a 5.4 bWAR this past season. That 2010 figure roughly splits the difference between his peak and his career-low bWAR total in 2011, so let's work with that and call Pujols a seven-win player, realizing that, heading into his age-32 season, he could still easily spike back up to nine wins or more.
Unlike Wilson, Pujols isn't filling a hole as much as he is upgrading on an unspectacular player, replacing Rookie of the Year runner-up Mark Trumbo, who was worth 2.1 wins above replacement this past season. Trumbo's .291 on-base percentage undermined his 29 home runs and .477 slugging percentage to make him no better than a league-average player. That's a five-win upgrade on its face, giving the Angels a 13-win upgrade in two moves. They could, however, be even better than that.
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