- He's nothing special offensively. His career wRC+ of 97 indicates that he's been a slightly below average hitter spanning his entire career.
- He'll be entering his age-36 season.
- He's coming off of a wrist injury; and wrist injuries have a tendency to zap the power out of a player's bat.
My expectations, to say the least, are not optimistic. Nevertheless, Mychael Urban gives us reason for optimism. For what it's worth -- and I think it's worth something -- DeRosa is fantastic in terms of intangibles. This line from Urban sums up that aspect:
Yet anyone who knows a little about DeRosa, an extremely smart and gifted athlete whose work ethic and attitude allowed him late last season to command a type of clubhouse respect few injured players enjoy, knows that he’s on the short list of guys likely to pull it off.And the projections give me reason to be optimistic too. ZiPS has DeRosa at an OPS+ of 94 for 2011; I would be completely content with that.
A lot of DeRosa's value is derived from his versatility on the diamond. He's useful if he can hit at an average -- or slightly below average -- major league level, because he gives the bench a lot of depth. I don't know if that's worth $6MM, although it's certainly not a stretch to say that.
But if you take that into account, and also give a tiny bit of weight to the fact that he's loaded with intangibles -- experience, intelligence, great attitude and work ethic, and a hot wife -- I'm content with his contract. I would've appreciated it if Brian Sabean hadn't given a two-year $12MM deal to an average major-league hitter in his mid-30s coming off of a failed wrist surgery, but I can live with this. And it's hard to really criticize a deal that values an average player at 2.5-3 WAR over a two-year period.
In the past week or so, he's been labeled the X-factor by both Mychael Urban and Henry Schulman. In general, I'm not inclined to assign labels like that to players; I just don't see the point in it. DeRosa has the potential to be a key role player in 2011, but the Giants could also get by just fine if DeRosa turns out to be a flop...after all, they won the World Series in 2010 without him.
