Giambi Jumps Back to the A’s

When Jason Giambi took his on-base skills and gargantuan power from the Bay to the Bronx after the 2001 season, he was the recipient of a mammoth seven-year, $120 million contract. But let’s be honest: it was strange to see this long-locked, tattooed fellow transform into a clean-cut, cordial Yankee.

While the mustachioed one managed to rage against the machine as much as grooming requirements allowed, his time with the Yankees was something of a mixed bag. Giambi posted a wOBA in excess of .400 in four of his seven seasons with the Yankees, but as the back loaded portion of his pact kicked in, his value to the club did not match up to the bloated salary commitment. Despite compiling a combined .383 wOBA over the 2006-2008 seasons, Giambi made $67.2 million while providing the Bombers with approximately $26.5 million in performance value.

Giambi made a whopping $23.4 million in 2008, but he’ll make less than a fifth of that sum after coming to terms with the A’s on a one-year, $4.5 million deal with a $5M option for the 2010 season. While Giambi’s salary had become cumbersome in recent years, he looks like an outright bargain at that price. The soon-to-be 38 year-old may no longer be the same guy who slugged near .650 over his last two seasons with Oakland in 2000 and 2001, but he can still provide some value to fantasy owners while invigorating a rapidly improving A’s lineup.

In 2008, Giambi rebounded from an injury-shortened 2007 campaign to post a .247/.373/.502 line, with a .377 wOBA in 565 PA. As always, the Giambino drew a boatload of walks (14.2 BB%) and still managed to put a pretty solid charge into the baseball (.255 ISO). That ISO figure tied Houston’s Lance Berkman for the 14th-best mark in the majors.

Interestingly, Giambi has actually become a little more of a free swinger as he has advanced in age. He’s still a very disciplined batsman, but Jason’s Outside-Swing% has climbed in each of the past four seasons, from an incredibly low 10.2% in 2005 to 19.2% in 2008, and he has increased his percentage of strikes swung at from 60.8% in ’05 to 63.2% in ’08. The increased number of swings seem to have had a slight negative effect on his walk rate. Still, when you’re “only” drawing a free pass 14-15% of the time, you’re doing quite well. Giambi tied former-Athletic-now-Yankee Nick Swisher for the 14th-best walk rate in the big leagues.

Granted, Giambi will be leaving a wonderful environment for left-handed power hitters (per the Bill James Handbook, Yankee Stadium has a 3-year HR park factor of 120 for lefties) for less-inviting terrain: McAfee Coliseum’s HR park factor for southpaw batters over the past three years is exactly neutral, at 100. However, even accounting for the lefty-friendly dimensions of his home ballpark, Giambi’s offensive performance in 2008 was 21.5 runs above that of an average hitter. That ranked him just outside the top 10 among first baseman.

Giambi’s signing also has the likely consequence of sending one of the least productive first baseman in ’08, Daric Barton, back to the minors (Barton was -7.2 runs compared to an average batter). Though many question his power ceiling, there’s still reason to hope for better things from the 23 year-old down the line. A career .299/.411/.455 hitter in the minors, Barton is young enough to put his ugly start behind him and emerge as a solid cog for the A’s down the road. Still, the Athletics may be closer to contention than many realize, and the difference between Daric’s 2008 showing (0.4 WAR) and Giambi’s (2.6 WAR) was substantial.

Jason Giambi may no longer be the unstoppable force that annihilated American League pitching earlier in the decade, but he still possesses a patient and potent stick that should be of use to both the A’s and fantasy squads. In both real baseball and fantasy, position scarcity matters; it’s far easier to find a suitable player at a position like first base than it is to find, say, a good shortstop. Once the top-tier first baseman are gone, your best bet is to wait on a guy like Giambi.