Philadelphia Phillies: 5 Most Underpaid Players of the 2012 Season
December 6, 2012 by Alec Snyder
Filed under Fan News
As the the baseball world is currently in Winter Meetings frenzy down in Nashville, Tennessee, the Philadelphia Phillies remain quiet on the transaction front.
At this point in the offseason in prior years, Phillies fans are used to GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. having already signed a top-tier free agent to a lucrative contract that is either an overpay in years, dollars or both. However, this offseason Amaro has been steadfast in his unwillingness to overpay for lesser talent, and it’s certainly praiseworthy. But that’s a conversation for another article.
Last week, I touched on covering the Phillies’ most overpaid players of this past season, but as one of my commenters noticed, it wasn’t entirely accurate because I accidentally used the batting values for pitchers’ worth in addition to hitters.
In brief, pitchers’ worth was determined by how well they batted, not how well they pitched, and in the National League those results will ostensibly not be in the pitcher’s favor. I apologize for the discrepancy.
Having said that, this article will be much more accurate in its accuracy concerning the worth of Phillies players in 2012. As was the case with the last slideshow, I will be using FanGraphs’ WAR-based dollar value amounts that constitute how much a player should receive on the free-agent market should they have hit free agency following the 2012 season and subtracting the player’s actual 2012 salary to determine how much money the Phillies saved and didn’t have to pay.
That doesn’t apply to many of these players, though, because only a select few are actually free agents after the season’s end.
And as was also the case, only players who spent the full season on the Phillies roster will be eligible for inclusion on this list, meaning that midseason call-ups such as Erik Kratz and Kevin Frandsen will unfortunately be excluded from this slideshow.
I present to you a correct version of the Phillies’ five most underpaid players of the 2012 season.
*Salaries courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts.