Stop with the Lugo!

We'll hold off on talking about Marcus Giles extensively until the Braves either trade him or say that they're keeping him. In the meantime, we'll address a player that, for some reason, many Braves fans wish to see next year in the infield. That's right, we're talking about Julio Lugo.

Why do some want Lugo for the Braves? The most common answer is that they want a leadoff hitter, while others cite his defense. Let's take a closer look:

Well, Giles has a .361 career OBP, and Lugo has a .340. True, Lugo was having a fine campaign in Tampa Bay last year, with a line of .308/.373/.498 in 289 At-Bats. After coming over to the National League, he dropped of drastically, posting an abysmal line of .219/.278/.267 in 146 ABs. His decline is very interesting, as most will agree the AL East was a good bit better than the NL West in 2006. Giles and Lugo both posted similar OPS+'s last year (90 and 94), but Lugo had an incredibly low OPS+ of 40 for the Dodgers in the NL. Even if it was a prolonged slump last year for Lugo after the trade deadline, he was so horrible for LA that it might not be worth it to even take a chance.

That's another thing, Lugo would probably cost $5-6 million dollars a year, right about where Giles would be. Giles was better than the NL version of Lugo anyway, but was hampered by injuries. If healthy he should be able to bounce back and post comparable, if not better, numbers.

Let's move on to their fielding now. Giles has really been solid the last few years at 2B for Atlanta. He had a FRAR of 26 last year, and has consistently hovered around a 30 FRAR in his career. Now, Lugo did play 29 games at 2B for the Dodgers last year, and had a FRAR of 5. He notched a FRAR of 10 as the Devil ray's shortstop the first part of the season. However, since Lugo played a considerably fewer amount of games at 2B than Giles did, it is better to look at their Runs Saved Rate, with numbers over 100 being for the better. Lugo got the better of Giles here, with a 112 rate as compared to Giles' 104.

So what's the bottom line? For the season, Lugo had a WARP of 3.4, and Giles had one of 4.5. It makes very little sense to trade away Giles and replace him with Lugo, which would not provide much, if any, of a salary break. Replacing him from within, with a player like Martin Prado or Willie Aybar, might not match the production Giles had, but would free up salary for the Braves to commit somewhere else. We'll have to wait and see what John Schuerholz decides to do with Giles. I just hope he doesn't go pick up Lugo.