Jay Bruce's contract is acceptable, his signing represents poor analysis by the Mets

he New York Mets recently signed Jay Bruce for 39 mil over 3 years, that sign represents what i like to call:

An improper analysis of what represents an improvement.

Jay Bruce is a nice complementary piece, kind of fell off a cliff after the 2013 season, but has rebounded in these last 2 years.

Our good pal Dan Szymborski right after the deal was announced, tweeted the Zips projection for Bruce in the next 3 years

https://twitter.com/DSzymborski/status/951321533301043200

There are multiple ways to improve a club and the ideal process when making a move is looking at what you have, what are you giving up and who are you going to get, if after analyzing those 3 things, the move makes sense you do it.

The Mets as we stood a few days ago were set to have the following Outfield:

LF, Yoenis Cespedes
CF, Juan Lagares
RF, Michael Conforto

Zips projections:

Bruce: 576 PA 2.3 WAR (AB plus BB, only info available)
Lagares: 366 PA 1.6 WAR
Smith: 652 PA 2.5 WAR

Those are the 2 guys Bruce will take playing time away from.
With Bruce in a corner spot you move Conforto to centerfield which hurts his value, therefore with Bruce in the lineup, you will be lucky to get the same value you'd have without him.

Obviously, you have to contextualize some of that, for instance, Lagares has injury concerns but even in limited playing time he comes close to Bruce, plus you have Nimmo who has some upside.

There's the 1B factor, Jay has seen time at first before, he could end up there when Conforto fully recovers whenever that might be, but Dom Smith was a top prospect who struggled on 48 games in his pro debut, that's common, he should get the opportunity to play a full season.

Summing it all up, is it worth spending 39 mil to replace Juan Lagares and/or Dom Smith with Jay Bruce when projections have Bruce bringing in roughly the same value, especially when you have a big hole at 2B/3B, no pitching depth, and moving Conforto to centerfield will cost you some value defensively.

This move won't necessarily hurt them, in the long run, it won't become an albatross of a contract, but this money could be spent elsewhere and result in a bigger improvement and when talking about a team with limited resources, aiming for a payroll in the 125 mil area, the room for error is even smaller, paying 13 mil for at best 1 extra WAR, very questionable

Feel free to comment, suggest, subscribe and more as always is my pleasure, apologies for dragging this one out, the subject required some context, so the text became very long.

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