The LA Dodgers are restructuring Andruw Jones' contract in order to move him in a trade.
I'm hearing the Dodgers are working on a deal that will allow the team to cut ties with Andruw Jones, save $12 million and give last year's free-agent bust the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere.
The Dodgers still hold out hope they can save the money and trade Jones, but the end result will be Jones probably won't be swinging and missing in L.A. this season.
Dodgers GM Ned Colletti said, "We can't confirm that, and right now we don't have a comment," but if a deal is made with Jones' agent, it will give the Dodgers an additional $12 million to pursue Manny Ramirez or cover the cost of a new wardrobe for Mrs. Parking Lot this season.
Jones' agent, by the way, is Scott Boras, and freeing up $12 million helps Ramirez, who is also his client. Jones would accept the reduction in pay to get a fresh start elsewhere in the final year of his contract.
One of the more spectacular drop-offs by an elite player in recent years has been Andruw Jones. Jones, formerly a mighty centerfielder for the Braves moved to LA and had a truly abysmal season, that followed on from a pretty subpar season. FanGraphs paints a grisly picture of his decline in production.
So I've been trying to make sense of this decline a bit and it is entirely possible that it is due to injury. The first thing I did check was K/BB, and sure enough, he's gone from reasonably good to average to worse than average in the last 3 seasons, but you have to keep in mind that LA is a Pitcher's Park. The Dodgers also play 19 games a piece in San Diego and San Francisco, both of them significant Pitchers' Parks.
The BABIP graph is interesting, because it shows he's been below League Average for 4 seasons after being roughly league average for 8. More interestingly, he's been luckier in LA than on the road. My guess is that he's either significantly lost speed or he's been unlucky for the last 4 years. I don't know which. If you discounted the truly crappy 2008 as anomalous, the 3 running seasons of consistently low BABIP would indicate he had lost speed through injury - and yet if this were so, one would expect his SB to decline and his fielding to worsen. RZR says he was a pretty good fielder in 2006 and 2007. So that theory doesn't quite fit
Amazingly, it is his falling K-Rate that catches the eye. He's always struck out a goodly amount, but he was a strikeout machine in 2008. That 2008 season looks more and more like a perfect storm of Pitchers' Park, Bad BABIP season, and swinging like crazy at anything in the hopes of getting a hit. It seems to show progressive panic more than anything else.
My guess is that he's declined a little, but not as much as his wOBA graph indicates. There's a lot to like with Andruw Jones still. For instance, even his bad 2007 ISO is significantly above average, and he still draws walks at a good rate even when he's hitting like crud.
If in fact he's healthy, and keep in mind he's still 32 next season, he might hit something like .262/.350/.432 if his BABIP bounces back to about .290, and his ISO stays at his career low end of .170. He could slug even more than that in a park that is more hitter-friendly than Dodger Stadium. Again, if he gets out of the NL West, then he won't be hitting at San Diego and San Francisco 38 games a year on top of the 81 games at home in LA. The steal waiting to happen just might be a trade for Andruw Jones.
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