Are You Sure That's WWJD With Alex Rios?

Again, the "J" stands for Jeffrey

With every passing moment, my confidence in Alex Rios waivers that much more. What do you do with this guy?

On one hand, he is a rare .280+/20/20-type hitter, capable of the kind of balanced production that Mad Money's Jim Cramer would tout if he played fantasy baseball. On the other hand, with the exception of two, arguably three, months of his White Sox career, Alex Rios has been nothing short of atrocious. Some, including myself, lauded Alex Rios' 2010 campaign overall, attributing his second half to the universe's sick way of evening out his first half (though I do not honestly believe in the gambler's fallacy).

Having pegged Rios as a borderline OF1 in 12-team mixed leagues this year, I wonder if it is time to re-evaluate Alex Rios in the context of his 10+ month stint with the Pale Hose. First, let's examine Rios' splits by month, indexing his wOBA value against the league, weighting factors such as park (i.e., wRC+) (click to enlarge):



As you can see, Alex Rios has not been a very productive White Sox. With the exception of April and May of 2010, Rios' wRC+ has been below 100. Even if we credit Rios' June 2010 as "average," his other 7 months (plus what he's done thus far in June of this year) has been objectively poor.

Some, including myself, might be tempted to point to Rios' BABIP. At .276, it is approximately 50 points below Rios' xBABIP as a White Sox. If you adjust Rios' batting line to reflect his xBABIP, you find his expected batting average rises above the .290 threshold, with an OPS in the high .700's.

But isn't it possible that Rios' true BABIP line lie somewhere in between, perhaps closer to .270 than .325? If you take out Rios' first half from 2010 from the equation, the Rios' speed has been merely "league average" since the outset of 2009. Rios' then career-low 5.3 speed score in 2009 looks fast by the standards of his below-average 4.4 mark in 2011. Rios' declining speed is apparent by his three caught stealing and only four successful stolen bases.

Rios is 30 years old, and he's not getting younger. We like to think of hitters' peak and primes occur between their age 27 and 31 seasons, but the truth of the matter is that the talent tends to peak around age 25, followed by a plateau and decline. There really is nothing "magical" about age 27, and just because 40 is the new thirty does not make 30 the new 25. Aging curve research that I have read indicates that players in their thirties tend to lose half a WAR or so per season across their present talent line. That is not to say that Rios is Father Time, but that at age 30, his prime is likely over, the upside is quite limited, and the chances of replicating previous seasons dies with every passing year.

Given his rare 20/20 upside, promising home park, xBABIP, and brand name, it is hard to sell Rios, let alone at a substantial discount. What you get in return will hardly match the price, or contain the upside, you probably paid for with Alex Rios this year. Still, economics tells us the smart investor ignores sunk costs, and it's hardly likely Rios' reaches that level either. Last month I advised not selling yourself too short on Rios, but I am reaching the point where I am regretting that advice. If you offered me 70 cents on the dollar, I might take it.

Give his brand name, it may be possible to convince another owner that you are "selling low" and entice them to buy Alex Rios at a "fair price." If you could get a Colby Rasmus in return, I'd take it. The truth of the matter is, be it because of age or injury, .265/.310/.420 might be all that Rios has got left in the tank at the moment. Rios could touch the 15/15 mark this season, but 12/12 is probably more realistic. Shoot for upside, aim for prospects. I flipped Rios for Anthony Rizzo and Aaron Crow in a league on Tuesday.

So get out there, try and make a trade. Or readjust your expectations. Just don't keep Rios and expect a major bounce back.

What to do with Alex Rios

Alex Rios is a conundrum of turbulence. A five-tool prospect of the early-to-mid naughts, Rios really didn't do much with his bat over his first two seasons in the majors, posting a combined .273/.315/.390 (.705 OPS) triple-slash line with 11 home runs, 29 stolen bases, 126 runs scored and 87 runs batted in over 257 games played (979 plate appearances). His glove was slick (+23.0 fielding runs above average (FRAR)), but defense is irrelevant in all but the most intricate fantasy formats.

The 2006 season was a breakout year for Rios, however. Over a mere 128 games played (he was slowed down after the All-Star Break due to a ball he fouled off his foot that led to his hospitalization), Rios slashed .302/.349/.516 (.865 OPS) with elite defense (+9.6 FRAR).

Though still somewhat allergic to walks (7.0 percent walk rate), Rios batted in 82 men, while showing a good balance of power (17 HR, .213 ISO) and speed (15 SB, 6.2 speed score). Before his foul-ball injury, Rios' season looked even brighter, batting .359 with 43 RBI and most of his homers (11) through his first 60 games played.

Recovered from his foot folly, Rios followed up his quality 2006 campaign with even better fantasy numbers in 2007 and 2008, batting a combined .294/.343/.480 (.823 OPS). His power (39 HR) and speed (49 SB) blend remained tantalizing, while he racked up 150 RBI and 205 rusn to boot and acted as a model of health (316 combined games played out of a possible 324). Rios' 2006-2008 performance was rewarded by then-General Manager J.P. Riccardi, who gave him the contract we all associate him with today.

Rios had broken out by 2009, but there were some signs that, heading into his age 28 season, Rios, for all his enchantment, was not infallible. For one thing, despite Rios' strong clipping (20.5 percent career line-drive percentage heading into 2009), he remained immune to ball four. Through his first five seasons in the majors (2875 plate appearances), Rios had only drawn 186 walks on his own merit (BB-IBB), for a sub-par 6.5 percent walk rate.

Rios showed some improvement in 2006 (7.0 percent) and 2007 (7.7 percent), but took a large step back in 2008 (6.4 percent) that he would never undo. For a sense of comparison, the major league average walk rate between 2004 and 2008 fluctuated between 8.2 percent and 8.7 percent.

Despite a low strikeout rate that was seemingly improving and settling in around the upper teens between 2004 and 2008, Rios' strikeout-to-walk ratio remained sub-par. The major league average K:BB rate for hitters is around 2:1, but Rios only touched that mark once, in 2007, floating around just under 3:1 the rest of his major league seasons (including 2008).

Rios' sleek wheels (93 stolen bases between 2004 and 2008) were also not as pretty as many analysts pegged them to be. Rios had only eclipsed the 15 stolen base mark in two of his five major league seasons (17 in 2007 and a career-high 32 in 2008). Double-digit stolen bases are always nice, but for as great as Rios' speed was touted (mid-6s speed score), the results rarely materialized in the form of fantasy gold.

Furthermore, and far more worrisome, were the 30 times Rios did his Mike Leake impression was caught stealing between 2004 and 2008. Now, a 75 percent success rate is not bad, but it lowers Rios' net stolen base total between 2004 and 2008 to 63, an average of just over 12 per season.

Still, Rios was a pull-hitter in one of baseball's coziest places for right-handed batters (just ask Jose Bautista, who has hit 41 of his past 70 homers there). His strong batting average between 2006 and 2008, paired with his 24 home runs from 2007 and 32 stolen bases from 2008, gave promise of a .300/20/20 campaign with .300/25/30 upside in the near future.

But then things started to fall apart.

Rios, a consensus top-50 pick of 2009, batted .264/.317/.427 over the first 108 games of the season for the Blue Jays. He continued to steal bases (19 over his first 108 games), but his ISO trended downwards for the third consecutive season. He continued to pray to a Dunn-hating J.P. Riccardi (6.5 percent walk rate), and though his line drive rate was not poor (18.1 percent on the Jays), it represented a career low that further manifested itself in a career-worst BABIP (.289 through his first 108 games played).

Rios was placed on waivers and given away wholesale—for nothing more than salary relief—to the White Sox in mid-2009, and he has resided there ever since. Kenny Williams hoped a change of scenery would be all that Rios needed to return to his glorious 2006-2008 status. I was incredibly, and probably overly, critical of the move at the time.

I did not understand fielding metric sample size requirements at the time, and rather than seeing a major league-average hitter with strong outfield defense capable of posting 3.0-plus WAR seasons, I saw a squandering of cash being thrown at Rios.

For the sake of my credibility, Rios did exactly what I predicted him to do over the final two months of the 2009 season with the White Sox, posting an atrocious .199/.229/.301 line over his final 41 games. Rios stole five bases for the Pale Hose, but he was caught twice. He also only had three home runs to go along with an Erstad-ian .103 ISO.

I continued to hate on Rios in the early offseason (culminating in an infamous radio argument with a certain White Sox post-game announcer over whether Jayson Nix, at the major league minimum, would have been a better player for the Sox than Alex Rios, an argument that persists between the two of us to this day, immortalized on Twitter), but I made amends in March of 2010, pegging Rios as a post-hype sleeper bargain (his preseason rank was No. 141 on Yahoo) for the upcoming season.

In some sense, my analysis of Rios was again dead on. I claimed Rios would hit somewhere in the ballpark of .286/.331/.443 with 20 home runs and 30 stolen bases. His end of season line was in fact .284/.334/.457 with 21 home runs and 34 stolen bases.

Still, for all the good Rios did by the end of the year, almost all of that performance came in the first half of the season. I pegged Rios' second half as the universe balancing out of the type of luck he experienced in the first half (no, I do not believe in the gambler's fallacy), but I should have looked at his numbers in US Cellular field a bit more closely before I ranked him as my No. 12 overall outfielder heading into the 2011 season.

Take a gander at Rios' numbers by month on the White Sox, and pay particular attention to his wRC+, which measures his relative batting value to the rest of the league adjusted for park/league:

Month	AVG	OBP	SLG	BABIP	BB/K	ISO	wOBA	wRC+
Aug 09	0.210	0.221	0.383	0.241	0.09	0.173	0.254	44
Sept/Oct 0	0.211	0.253	0.300	0.227	0.38	0.089	0.246	38
Mar/Apr 10	0.277	0.326	0.470	0.294	0.50	0.193	0.356	118
May 10	0.344	0.406	0.700	0.311	1.00	0.356	0.471	196
Jun 10	0.297	0.355	0.406	0.346	0.33	0.109	0.330	99
Jul 10	0.293	0.321	0.414	0.317	0.28	0.121	0.310	86
Aug 10	0.261	0.303	0.409	0.297	0.29	0.148	0.313	89
Sept/Oct 1	0.228	0.291	0.354	0.258	0.40	0.127	0.297	78
Mar/Apr 11	0.163	0.245	0.235	0.181	0.67	0.071	0.228	34
May 11	0.268	0.305	0.411	0.271	0.50	0.143	0.305	88
TOTALS	0.255	0.305	0.403	0.276	0.40	0.148	0.311	87

Notice that with the exception of April and May of 2010, Rios has been a below-average major league hitter in each of the months he has played for the White Sox. Sure, he was league average in June 2010, but if that's the kind of upside he is providing fantasy owners and White Sox fans alike, then perhaps he does not warrant either the $12 million per year Kenny Williams is paying him or the $20-plus you shelled out to get him on draft day.

In my Ottoneu league, Rios went to an owner for $1 courtesy of a programming glitch we were to lazy to fix. That seemed like a steal of a deal, but one quarter of the way through 2011, his .201/.266/.299 line, with three homers and four stolen bases (with three caught stealing) is hardly looking like a bargain (especially in comparison to my $2 Carlos Quentin).

So what do you do? In light of this data, do you jump ship, ride it out, or "buy low?"

On the bright side, Rios' xBABIP with the White Sox is .328. His actual BABIP on the team has been .276. With less than 1000 plate appearances in a black-and-white jersey, it is very possible that Rios is on an extended cold streak. If you adjust his White Sox batting line of .255/.305/.403 to reflect his xBABIP, you'll find his expected triple-slash line improves to .297/.340/.445. That neatly reflects his 2006-2008 overall performance level.

Furthermore, the move from Rogers Center to U.S. Cellular Field is far from a move to spacious Petco Park for a left-handed batter. Whereas Rogers Center has a right-handed batter index of 116 for home runs and 97 for batting average, the south side bandbox has respective indicies of 145 and 98.

In other words, the two parks have relatively equal expected effects on batting average for righties, while Rios' new home is a 20 percent more favorable environment for going deep. U.S. Cellular Field, in fact, has the highest right-handed batter home run index of any park in the major leagues, with Great American Ballpark a distant second at 125.

If anything, this is an argument is favor of Rios' 20-home run capability, while his three home runs and four steals to date say that a 15/15 or better campaign, even with Rios' struggling, is well in the cards.

On the negative, however, Rios is now 30 years old, and he's not getting any younger. Players tend to peak in their mid-20s, plateau through about age 30, and then decline in ability. Rios may simply be on the downside of a productive fantasy career.

His .097 ISO on the season is far away from stabilizing (we need at least 550 plate appearances to start drawing conclusions with respect to power), but if you take April and May of 2010 out of the equation, Rios' power on the White Sox has been more of an outage than a surge. At some point, a player isn't just having bad luck; he could simply be coming apart at the seems.

Still, Rios is only 30. If he was a couple of years older, perhaps I would be more skeptical, but I have faith that Rios will bounce back somewhat this season and end the year with 15 or so home runs and 20 stolen bases, hitting .280 the rest of the way. That's not bad, but, especially if the White Sox keep Rios in the bottom dregs of their lineup, it's hardly going to end up being what you expected and paid for on draft day. Oliver expects Rios to hit .267/.318/.429 the rest of the way, and to end the season with 18 home runs and 22 stolen bases.

There is probably someone out there willing to take a gamble on an "established" player like Rios, thinking there is plenty of upside left in the tank. Trading Rios is very possible if you are either tired of his early season struggles (a terrible reason to sell) or think you can get more value in return than what he is worth to you or what you think he can do.

Just don't go selling off for 70 cents on the dollar, because a 15-20/20-25 rest of season pace with a average-or-better fantasy batting average is not easy to come by on the waiver wire, especially in deeper formats.

At the very beginning of May, a frustrated Mike Stanton owner offered me a straight-up swap for Rios. I pounced and have not looked back; with Stanton's May surge, I doubt you can get the same deal done at this point, but swapping out Rios for a player like Hunter Pence or Jason Heyward might be possible, and I would personally make either deal.

I can't say I would give the same advice to Kenny Williams, however.

What would you do, or have you done, with Alex Rios? As always, leave the love/hate in the comments below.

Alex Rios: 2010's Big Post-Hype Sleeper?

Alex Rios has had a strange career. Once highly touted by Scouts and Sam Walker (author of Fantasyland) alike as the next big thing amongst outfielders, a world of potential seemed to exist within the bat (and glove) of 1999's 19th overall pick. As this is a fantasy analysis post, I will ignore the value of Rios' +1 WAR glove henceforth.

After two seasons of below replacement level offense, Rios batted .300+ with 15+ HR/SB (.365 wOBA) in his third full major league season of play. Rios followed suit in 2007, hitting .297 with 24 home runs and 17 stolen bases (and a .368 wOBA). With increasing plate discipline, a 6.2 or higher speed score each of his first four major league seasons and with a +.200 ISO in back to back seasons, Rios seemed to project the kind of potential we hold Matt Kemp to today. At minimum, a 20/20 season, seemed in the cards entering the 2008 season. That's when things started to get off track.

Whereas Rios' plate discipline and power had been trending upwards the previous few seasons, Rios took steps back in his K%, BB% and ISO in 2008. The result was a different than expected, but still useful, with Rios hitting .291 with 15 HR and 32 SB (.350 wOBA). While his power regressed a bit (.170 ISO), Rios' saw an increase in his speed score (from 6.4 to 6.8) to go with an elite 80% success rate on the basepaths. Coming into 2009, people paraded Rios around as a .300/25/30 kind of hitter. His ADP barely edged the top 50 entering the season, along with other super outfielder Matt Kemp. However, whereas Matt Kemp ended the season as a top 5 fantasy outfielder, Alex Rios hit a mere .247 with 17 HR and 24 SB (.306 wOBA, 15% below league average when park factors are considered). The 20/20 promise still seems alive, but wheras Rios was hitting .300 with a .200+ ISO, a 16% K rate and a 7.7% BB rate just two seasons ago, Rios hit for a lower average than Adam Dunn in 2009 with his lowest ISO in four seasons (.140), an 18.4% K rate and a pathetic 5.8% BB rate (22nd lowest amongst all players to receive 500+ PA in 2009). Even worse was his 0.35 K/BB ratio, the 13th lowest mark in the majors (amongst all players with 500+ PA). Not exactly the pretty pictures owners expected with a top 50 draft pick.

But alas, there is some hope for 2010. Despite the decline in plate discipline results, Rios saw some improvements in the process. Whereas Rios walked less and struck out more in 2009, he swung at less pitches and even though he was chasing more pitches than he was in 2006-2007, Rios swung less at bad pitches in 2009 than he did in 2008. At the same time, Rios was making more contact. So what gives? A lot of Rios' struggles seem to be the byproduct of bad luck. Let's put the plate discipline results aside and pretend Rios' regression in striking out and walking is to be sustained for 2010. Nonetheless, his .273 BABIP was well below his .319 career mark and .321 2009 xBABIP. The poor plate disciple aside, Rios' 2009 luck-neutral, adjusted batting line would have been .286/.331/.443 (.764 OPS) had his BABIP reflected his xBABIP and we pessimistically assume all additional hits would have been singles. In real life, this batting line isn't exactly sexy and even paired with a +10 run glove, its hard to imagine Rios being worth the $12+ million owed to him each of the next four seasons. However, from a fantasy perspective, there is a lot to like.

A .286 mark is not too far off the .295 mark he averaged from 2006-2008, especially if you expect some rebound in peripherals based on his approach at the plate in 2009. Furthermore, though the .148 ISO is disappointing and hardly telling of even a 15+ HR season, Rios is now employed with an organization that plays 1/2 of its games at one of baseball's most home run happy fields. Whereas the Blue Jays play in a power neutral park, the White Sox play in a top 5 home run accentuating ballpark. Laymen translation: more home runs, or at least a steady output thereof, even if Rios' power game stagnates rather that rebounds.

So there's hope for a .290 BA and 15-20 HR season. What of the speed? Ozzie's made it no secret that he's going to let players be more aggressive on the base paths this season, even if it hurts the team's actual runs production. Result? A very plausible .290-20-30 season.

Depending on where the Sox bat Rios, the R/RBI will come. Depending on where the Sox place Gordon Beckham and Mark Teahen in the lineup, Rios will likely bat either 2nd, 5th or 6th. Given the White Sox weak offensive prospects for 2010, Rios will not likely be elite in both categories, but he is likely to be productive in either R or RBI, while not dragging down your team in the other category.

For 2010, Alex Rios has an ADP of 109, along with other moderate risk/high reward outfielders such as teammate Carlos Quentin and Jay Bruce. Other OFs drafted near him are Denard Span, Johnny Damon, CarGo and Brad Hawpe. Personally, I'd rather have Bruce and CarGo (both of whom I have the highest of expectations for), but Rios is not a bad option with one's 10th overall pick; especially given his strong upside. Yahoo has him ranked even lower, at #141 overall. Remember that Zack Greinke guy? Alex Rios may be that kind of post hype sleeper for 2010. It's in the cards.

White Sox acquire Alex Rios...why?

MLBTradeRumors.com is reporting that the White Sox have acquired Alex Rios off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays for nothing in return. This essentially means the White Sox are responsible for Rios' remaining, prorated contract for 2009 and the roughly $60 million remaining on his contract over the next five seasons. Was it a smart move for a franchise that has been utilizing some combination of DeWayne Wise (.248 wOBA) and Brian Anderson (.283 wOBA) in center? My answer, is a firm no.

Despite all of the hype and brand name recognition (courtesy of Moneyball and Fantasyland) behind Alex Rios, his career has been nothing short of disappointing. While a lifetime .285 hitter who averages 90.3 runs per season and boasts a career 77.2 SB% may appeal to most fantasy baseball players, a player with a career .342 wOBA (league average is .335) and declining range in CF does not.

Since his peak of production 2007 (.368 wOBA, .201 ISO, 7.9 BB%, 9.3 Fielding Runs Above Average), Alex Rios has been on a steady decline. In each season since, Rios has seen his wOBA, ISO, BB%, K%, contact rate and defensive production all trend in the wrong direction. He quickly went from a young and promisingly productive 20/20 leadoff man worth 20.9 Batting Runs Above Average to an overvalued, underproducing asset whose bloated contract was not even the most ridiculous on the team (that honor goes to Vernon Wells, who signed a 7-year, $126 million contract in 2006). If not for the aberration uptick in the quality of defense Rios provided the Blue Jays last season (23.9 runs above average, the highest of a career that averages 11.3 Fielding Runs Above Average per season), Rios's total Runs Above Average value would reflect his three year skills decline.

So why, knowing all of this, would Kenny Williams allow J.P. Riccardi to dump Alex Rios and his monstrous salary on the White Sox? I am not entirely sure. Of course both DeWayne Wise and Brian Anderson* have been below replacement level in terms of their offensive productive for the White Sox this season, but so has Alex Rios, whose season Batting Runs Above Average mark sits at an embarrassingly low -0.5 runs. Furthermore, both DeWayne Wise and Brian Anderson provided considerably more defensive value for the White Sox this season than Alex Rios has for the Blue Jays. Where the two White Sox centerfielders combined for 10.1 Fielding Runs Above Average rating over 1561.0 innings of outfield work, Alex Rios has only been worth 0.1 Fielding Runs over 1951.1 innings! That's approximately one less win of contribution over almost 400 MORE innings of work. So yes, yes, those same two outfielders have cost the White Sox almost two full wins with their poor batting skills, but it's not like the Alex Rios machine and his slightly below league-average offensive this season are going to help the South Siders very much -- especially when you consider his .290 BABIP, declining speed score (5.6 this season) and decreasing line drive rate. At best, Rios has been league average this season. In reality, however, he is an underproducing player who eats up a lot of payroll and a valuable spot on a major league roster.

At Rios' current pace, the White Sox would have been better off acquiring ANY purely average minor league player and giving him a home in centerfield. It would not only save $60 million over 5 years, but give the White Sox an expendable option come this off-season and allow them to acquire a much better player at a much cheaper cost. Even if Kenny Williams thought this upcoming off-season's centerfield market was weak, there is no conceivable way to justify taking Alex Rios's contract off the hands of J.P. Riccardi, even at the cost of no talent (not that the Sox have much minor league talent to fawn over). Williams is paying $11.6 million more per season than he would a random journeyman minor leaguer of average ability and getting the same level of overall production.

Chalk this one up as a big win for J.P. Riccardi. He got the best value any team is going to see from Rios over the last two seasons, largely thanks to an abnormal UZR spike last season. For once, he did something good for the franchise. Kenny Williams, however, well...that's a different story.

*-Apparently some people think that retroactively commenting on the production of Brian Anderson somehow implies that I think he is still on the team. It does not.

White Sox may have claimed Alex Rios off Waivers

Alex Rios was recently placed on waivers, as many players are following the July 31st trading deadline. If a player passes through waivers, he is free to be traded to any team in baseball just as he would be prior to the deadline. If a player is claimed off waivers by a team, the team the player belongs to can give his contract to the claiming team, work out a trade with the claiming team, or take back the player and pretend the waivers never happened. Most of the time, a team just wants to see if their player can pass through waivers, if not they will reclaim him. But rarely does a guy with 60 million dollars left on his contract get claimed off waivers. The Blue Jays can relieve themselves of all that money if they wish.

Since teams are forbidden from discussing their waiver claims, it remains a mystery as to which team claimed Alex Rios. It would really take a mad crazy GM to have the balls to add 60 guaranteed million to the roster. There are rumors floating around that Kenny Williams was that crazy GM to claim Rios and stands a chance to acquire a replacement for Jermaine Dye. Rios has had an off season, but he is a young 5-tool player that is relatively cheap at 10 million per year.