Garret Anderson

On Tuesday the Angels announced that they signed Garret Anderson to a 4-year $48 million extension. Of course since I'm a Red Sox fan - my first thought was "how does this signing affect the market for Nomar?"

Well - here's my thoughts on the signing and what it does to the market.

Anderson is older and plays a less "skilled" position (corner outfield vs. short stop). Anderson does have the fact that he is more durable going for him (Anderson have averaged almost 156 games per year for the last 8 years wereas Nomar's career high in games played is 156 which he reached twice) but Nomar makes more of an impact both on offense and on defense.

Before the Garret Anderson fans get up in arms - consider that Nomar's batting average is almost equal to Anderson's OBP and that Nomar consistently gets more extra base hits even though Anderson consistently has more at bats during the season.

Nomar would also have a much bigger impact marketing wise on a team's ticket sales. Think about it - would the average fan even know who Garret Anderson is?

So if Anderson is worth $12 million per year - then the case can easily be made that Nomar's open market value is about $15 million per year (which is more than I think the Red Sox are prepared to offer).

Edit: I should also point out that Anderson has been underpaid during his career and this extension may be overpayment for years of loyal service. Over the course of their careers - Nomar has made roughly $20 million more than Anderson. Not sure if this is a true factor but I thought it was worth pointing out.