Chase Headley, Potential Free Agent Bargain

Let’s start with a pretty obvious statement: Pablo Sandoval will get paid handsomely this winter.

There’s not much controversy about that remark, of course. Sandoval just put up three consecutive above-average offensive seasons that were nearly identical to one another — his wRC+ numbers were 118, 116 and 111 — and he’s valuable with the glove as well, along with carrying the “playoff-tested” label of having been a part of three World Series-champion San Francisco teams. Considering he just turned 28, it’s realistic to expect similar production from him for at least the next few seasons.
ESPN’s Keith Law suggested recently that Sandoval could get four to five years at $15 million per season, and FanGraphs’ crowdsourcing effort suggested something close to that, at five years for $80 million. Even those seem a little low, really. Either way, someone will pay for Sandoval’s youth and value on both sides of the ball at an important position.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. But with Sandoval taking up much of the air in the third-base room, have we forgotten about Chase Headley, this offseason’s other main free-agent third baseman? Headley isn’t the offensive force that Sandoval is, and offense is what gets players paid. But is it really so unreasonable to think he might actually be a better value?

Two years ago, this would have been a very different conversation. Sandoval had put up a fine 2012 season, but one that looked like a disappointment compared to his breakout 2011. Meanwhile, Headley was coming off a massive 2012 campaign that was not only one of the six most valuable seasons in baseball that year but also one of the two best seasons in San Diego history. At the time, the question was whether the Padres would sign him to a long-term extension or trade him to a contender for a big return. They did neither.

Yet while Sandoval has held steady in the two seasons since, Headley’s path has been much more complicated. His 2013 debut was delayed by several weeks after he broke his left thumb in spring training, then he hobbled around for most of the year on an injured left knee that required October surgery. This year, he missed nearly a month in camp with a strained left calf, then half of April with a recurrence of the same injury.

In the meantime, his offense suffered. The 2013 season was nearly identical for the two players, but as Sandoval maintained his performance in 2014, Headley was well below average for much of it. By the time the Padres traded him to the Yankees in July for an extremely disappointing return, Headley was hitting an atrocious .229/.296/.355, worth only a 90 wRC+, or 10 percent worse than league average.

If at this point you’re wondering why we’re eve discussing Sandoval and Headley in the same sentence, that’s fair. But of course, Headley’s season didn’t end that way. He was reborn in two months in the Bronx, hitting .262/.371/.398 (121 wRC+). Certainly part of that is due simply to the boost any hitter would get in leaving Petco Park for Yankee Stadium, and five of Headley’s six homers with the Yankees did come at home.

But it’s not just about ballpark, and keep in mind that wRC+ is park-adjusted anyway. As a Yankee, Headley showed much-improved patience, increasing his walk rate from a mediocre 7.2 percent to a solid 12.9 percent, and that, of course, is reflected in his OBP. He also made a mechanical change that would have been impossible to notice if not for the fact that he told a San Diego newspaper all about it shortly before the trade to New York. Headley said he returned to his “natural grip” on the bat in early July. That might not seem like a big deal, except that he’d last used it during his stellar 2012 season, and was forced to move away from it while attempting to compensate for the finger injury.

Through the first three months of the 2014 season, Headley was hitting just .201/.289/.322 (80 wRC+). In July, that turned into .316/.337/.459 (126 wRC+), and although we don’t have the exact date that he switched his grip back, it’s clear that his rebound began while he was still a Padre. Yankee Stadium helped, but it wasn’t the only thing. Although it has become evident that Headley’s marvelous 2012 season was an outlier, he still can produce above-average offense.

Back to comparing Headley and Sandoval. There’s no arguing that Sandoval will get the bigger contract this winter, and perhaps considerably so. That’s partially because despite his rather rotund appearance, he’s actually a very good athlete who can more than adequately handle himself on defense.

Headley, however, is one of the elite defensive third basemen in baseball, even though he’s regularly overshadowed by Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado. By FanGraphs’ defense rating, which accounts not only for performance but adjusts for importance of position, he was actually considered the best defensive player in the game this year. (Let’s avoid the torches and pitchforks right now by acknowledging that single-year defensive metrics are not to be regarded as gospel, and no one really believes Headley is the single best defender in baseball. The point here is he’s clearly in the conversation as an outstanding fielder.)

That skill manifests itself in FanGraphs’ wins above replacement, a stat that accounts for both offense and defense. Despite Headley’s ups and downs, you can at least make the case that he has been more valuable overall than Sandoval in each of the past three seasons, as the table to the right shows. The respected Steamer projection system gives Headley a slight 4.1 to 3.8 edge for next year, too.

Obviously Sandoval has a lot working in his favor. He’s the better hitter, and he’s more than 2 years younger, which definitely matters. But he has had his share of injury problems as well. His age and offense, along with the fact that he’s still a good defensive third baseman, will earn him that big contract.

Above, we shared estimates that Sandoval would go somewhere in the neighborhood of five years and $80 million, which might even be low, given his relative youth. But let’s say that’s in the ballpark, and let’s also note that both Law and FanGraphs came in at approximately four years and $56 million for Headley. That actually feels a little high to me considering his ups and downs of the past two years, but considering he reportedly turned down a three-year deal of approximately $36 million last winter, maybe that’s about right.

If those numbers prove close to being accurate, is Sandoval worth the extra $24(-plus) million or more he’d require? Is he worth the extra cash plus the loss of a draft pick, considering he received and declined a qualifying offer, whereas Headley has no such anchor? Remember, at this time of year, it’s not entirely about getting the best player. It’s about getting the best value for the money you have available, the best bang for your buck.

Sandoval might be the better bet for total production going forward, although even that’s not a given if you really value defense. But Headley should return the most value.