Going into the offseason, the Colorado Rockies needed to find a solution to replace the dearly retired Todd Helton. It turns out they decided to open the checkbook and, on December 3rd, 2013, the Colorado Rockies agreed to a two year, $14 million dollar deal with longtime Twin and mini-Pirate Justin Morneau. What are the Rockies hoping for and, more realistically, what can they expect to make the deal pay off?

Morneau had a star pedigree at one point. After a very productive stretch from 2006 through 2010 which included winning the American League MVP for the Twins in 2006 and was justifiably one of the better hitting first basemen in the game. Morneau’s recent years though have been dinged and/or ravaged by various injuries including a concussion in 2010, a pinched nerve in his neck which required surgery in 2011, and then a left shoulder injury which devastated what was left of 2011. He was unable to return to his lofty production, posting less-than-pedestrian numbers in 2012 and the first half of 2013 for the Twins before being dealt to the Pittsburgh Pirates. It wasn’t a bad idea for Pittsburgh. The Pirates needed something somewhat alive to hit and catch the ball at first base and they hoped a change of scenery might get Morneau’s star to shine again and carry them all the way to the World Series. The Pittsburgh version of Morneau, however, seemed more effective at walking than hitting though he did catch a ball here and there. Alas, the Pirates were unable to catch the World Series either except on television.

So, now it’s the Rockies turn. First, let’s take a look at Todd Helton’s recent history and see how high or low the bar is in terms of general statistics and Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

Helton Actuals and Projections Year Team/Projection G PA HR AVG OBP SLG wRC+ Def WAR 2011 Rockies 124 491 14 .302 .385 .466 120 -2.7 2.2 2012 Rockies 69 283 7 .238 .343 .400 90 -3.1 0.1 2013 Rockies 124 442 15 .249 .314 .423 89 -11.2 -0.8 2014 Oliver 143 600 15 .234 .315 .376 89 -8.2 0.2 2014 ZiPS 93 345 11 .248 .319 .420 90 -5.5 0.1

Helton’s last valuable season was in 2011 where he was worth 2.2 WAR over 124 games and 491 plate appearances. Though his defensive number is slightly negative, part of that is a penalty to adjust for how “easy” it is to play first base. For his career, his best season was in 2000 when he accumulated a WAR of 8.3. As far as his defensive value goes, he has ranged from a peak of 6.4 in 2000 to -14.3 in 2006 which was the year he was sidelined in late April and early May with severe abdominal pains. Oliver and ZiPS, two projection systems used by FanGraphs, estimated that Todd Helton would be barely above replacement level if he had returned for 2014. The other two projection systems, Steamer and Fans, did not calculate a projection for Helton in 2014.

Now, more on Morneau…

Morneau Actuals and Projections Year Projection G PA HR AVG OBP SLG wRC+ Def WAR 2011 Twins 69 288 4 .227 .285 .333 69 -3.7 -0.7 2012 Twins 134 570 19 .267 .333 .440 108 -18.0 0.3 2013 Twins/Pirates 152 635 17 .259 .323 .411 102 -12.3 0.8 2014 Steamer 113 491 19 .280 .348 .479 114 -8.4 1.3 2014 Oliver 143 600 16 .267 .332 .417 93 -10.0 0.0 2014 Fans (15) 123 513 18 .266 .327 .444 97 -11.5 0.2 2014 ZiPS 115 484 16 .280 .343 .457 106 -8.0 1.0

Morneau’s peak season, in terms of WAR, was 4.9 which he accumulated during his injury-shortened season in 2010 where he hit .345/.437/.618 over 69 games with a 2.7 Def. In his 2006 MVP season, his WAR was 3.7, “good” for 24th in the American League tied with Gary Matthews Jr. and Micheal Young and well behind Derek Jeter’s 6.1 WAR who finished runner-up in the AL MVP voting. In recent years, he’s been worth up to a win above replacement and in terms of 2014, the projections are a little over the map from Oliver’s 0.0 to Steamer’s perhaps ambitious 1.3 WAR.

Part of that is due to the wibbly wobbly nature of defensive metrics which do comprise a portion of WAR, though comparing apples-to-apples among first basemen within one defensive system helps reduce some of the uncertainty. Personally, when I think of Morneau, I think the ZiPS projection of 1.0 WAR is realistic for what Morneau will accomplish in 2014. Even in a worst case scenario, he is projected to be worth more in 2014 than Todd Helton would have been. However, it is an extreme long shot to assume Morneau will surpass Todd Helton’s 2.2 WAR, 126 game performance in 2011. Or, to look at it another way, a 33 year old 2014 Justin Morneau is projected to be worse offensively and defensively than the 37 year old Todd Helton was in 2011.

In happier news, Todd Helton in 2011 was making $20.75 million according to Cot’s Contracts while Morneau is slated to earn $5 million in 2014 so even if Justin Morneau is not post-prime Helton, at least he is not being paid like post-prime Helton. There was also the advantage that Justin Morneau has postseason experience, which is something Bill Geivett at the SABR Analytics conference that the Rockies wanted to obtain. Furthermore, according to Russell Carleton at BaseballProspectus, the current market rate for 1 WAR from a hitter is $5.275 million. So, at $5 million for 2014, the Rockies didn’t appear to overpay for Morneau on paper. However, when his contract increases to $6.75 million in 2015, there is a slight risk of overpayment.

Yet, we were just talking about “on paper”. On paper, there’s also the theory that a 0 WAR player should be the kind of player easily obtainable from a team’s minor league system or off the waiver wire at no cost. I like to think that the Rockies could have had some player in their minor league system or acquired, perhaps in the Fowler or Anderson trade, some player who could have produced 1 WAR while costing the major league minimum salary.

Another issue is that, with the potential development of Nolan Arenado, Wilin Rosario

and the possible emergence of Eddie Butler and Jonathan Gray, the Rockeis could be poised to contend in 2015. However, with Morneau locked in for two years, his $6.75 million salary can’t be used on some other free agent, nor does it make it likely he would be sent to the bench to give a promising rookie a try. It’s not that dissimilar to the issues the Arizona Diamondbacks faced when they acquired Lyle Overbay, potentially blocking young rookie Paul Goldschmidt. Now, the Rockies don’t have a Goldschmidt, but I’d like to think that by 2015, someone with power and questionable defense like Kyle Parker or even Wilin Rosario could have been moved to first base and provided production equivalent to Morneau. However, the contract afforded to Morneau makes such an experiment more expensive.

Overall, the Morneau contract wasn’t a “bad” contract and the Rockies have a decent shot at getting good value out of it. On the other hand, they also didn’t set the bar that high and while not painting themselves into a corner, made it more difficult to upgrade in the future. I’d hate to call it a stopgap move because the Rockies aren’t really in a rebuilding mode either, but if it was a part of an overall retooling, I’d like to think they could have gotten or made a better part.