Mike Jacobs for Leo Nunez -- breakdown

Last week gave us the first activity of the offseason, the Marlins-Royals swap that leaves the Royals with yet another defensively deficient first baseman who can't get on base and the Marlins with a right-handed reliever who has everything they look in a player (read: he is not arbitration-eligible and has fully functioning use of at least one arm).

For Jacobs, it's not hard to see why the Royals acquired him at first glance. His 32 home runs would have led the Royals by a wide margin (2nd would be Jose Guillen with 20) and he bats left-handed, which should help the Royals improve on their abominable 39-63 (.382) record against right-handed pitching. Their record against lefties was, astonishingly, 36-24 (.600), the second best in the AL behind the Angels. However, on second glance, it becomes very hard to explain why the Royals would acquire Jacobs. His OBP of .299 now gives them a likely 4-5 combination of Jacobs (.299 OBP) and Guillen (.300 OBP). With batters like that at the heart of your order, there's no need for a #5 guy, since he'll only be hitting solo home runs anyway.

The Royals are acquiring a home run-hitting first baseman with a lousy glove who hits right-handers, but not lefties (.235/.275/.414 lifetime -- his numbers in 2008 were worse in all three categories) and gets on base so little than even after 32 home runs, he finishes with an OPS of .813. Although Jacobs bats left-handed, the most likely prospect to fill the role, Kila Ka'aihue, also bats left-handed. The next most likely candidate, Ryan Shealy, although a right-handed better, has historically smacked right-handed pitching to the tune of a .307/.363/.481 line. Shealy is similarly baffled by lefties (.179/.266/.298), but seems to be a viable (and cheap) platoon candidate with Ka'aihue, if the Royals had wanted to set a platoon. With Alex Gordon, Mark Teahen, and Billy Butler also all available to play first base, the Royals had plenty of options at a position where none of their options are particularly good. Shealy and Butler would be a fine platoon and likely cost about $5 million less than Jacobs will after arbitration.

And, as bad as Billy Butler is defensively, his numbers actually compare favorably to Mike Jacobs'. Last year, Jacobs finished the season with a zone rating of .770 and a fielding percentage of .988. Butler has a zone rating of .865 and a fielding percentage of .992 with a marginally lower range factor.So the only thing the Royals get is someone who has historically hit more home runs. But Kauffman Stadium was even less hospitable to the long ball than Pro Player last year. And Jacobs has never shown this kind of propensity for home runs before, setting aside his freak debut season that looks a lot like Billy Butler in his debut season. So it's definitely not a victory for the Royals.

Nunez had a lot of clean sheets in his time as a pitcher with the Royals last year and finished the season with respectable numbers. What is harder to explain is his tendency to get lit up. He allowed 16 earned runs in 48 1/3 innings last year, but allowed 3 earned runs in 4 different appearances, allowing 1 run in 2 appearances and 2 in another. Despite having a hard fastball, he doesn't have the ability to strike out hitters that you really need out of a reliever, mustering only 26 Ks. This also leads to Nunez being beaten in his counts, with batters hitting .189 against Nunez after he's got them at 0-2, which isn't great, but isn't particularly bad either. Nunez doesn't give a lot of free passes (roughly 1 for every three innings), but without the ability to end an at bat, he's a pitch-to-contact reliever that is going to be relying on some exceptionally spotty defense behind him with Cantu, Uggla, and Hanley Ramirez in the projected '09 Marlins infield.But there's no precedent for this success -- Nunez was horrid in his first season with the Royals, and has improved since. Last season, he had a significant regression in walks, but gave up fewer hits in exchange.So I don't feel like the Marlins get a real prize. They get a spotty reliever with a dynamite fastball but no ability to get key strikeouts. He's still only 25, so maybe the Marlins feel he's a valuable project to help build a bridge to whoever will be closing games for the Marlins next year, but he's far from a sure thing.