We now have our shortstops for 2010.
Blue Jays ink veteran shortstop Gonzalez (no, not that one, the active one) for $2.75 in 2010 and $2.5 in 2011 (club option) while Blue Jays, McDonald reach a deal for 2 more years for $1.5 per year.
Alex Gonzalez's Baseball Reference page shows us he is a lifetime 78 OPS+ player hitting 247-294-395. He has never had a 100 OPS+ and entering his age 33 season I wouldn't expect one now. Backing him up is good ol' John McDonald. He of the 57 lifetime OPS+ hitting 238/276/317.
So, we know they can't hit. What about fielding? Both have fantastic reputations so lets see via FanGraphs...
Alex Gonzalez: UZR/150 = 10.5 last year, on DL in 2008, 5.9 in 2007, 16.9 in 2006. Very solid
John McDonald: UZR/150 = 2.1 last year, -1.4 for 2008, 12.4 in 2007. Hrm, not impressive for a guy who lives by his glove although playing time was short lately so it could be sample size issues.
Note: the leader in 2009 for UZR/150 was Jack Wilson at 20.4 over 105 games followed by Cesar Izturis at 14.1 then Adam Everett followed by Elvis Andrus followed by new Blue Jay Alex Gonzalez. Brendan Ryan of the Cardinals didn't qualify with 100 starts but was at 13.8 while Paul Janish played just under 600 innings at 24.6 (others with under 300 innings were also high but sample size issues go nuts then). Scutaro was at 1.0
For raw dollar value we get (via FanGraphs)...
Gonzalez at $35.4 million lifetime, peaking at $10.1 in 2007 and $2.4 million last year.
McDonald at $2.2 million lifetime, peaking at $2.9 in 2005 and just $200k last year
Thus we now have two no-hit solid (if not great) field shortstops for a total of $4.25 million in 2010 and (potentially) $4 million for 2011. For comparison it cost $4.5 million for one year of David Eckstein in 2008.
What does this mean for 2010? One thing is it strongly suggests no major league ready shortstop is coming in a Halladay trade (a guy in A ball or who is likely to start in AA in 2010 is possible still). It also should make all the kid pitchers really, really happy to know they have a pair of solid defensive shortstops behind them thus keeping their ERA's down (as well as low run support on the negative side).
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20091126120752276