The Ohman thing is interesting, if only from the aspect of dude thinking he is worth way more than he really is.  Seriously, Ohman may have had a decent WHIP at 1.24 and ERA at 3.68 in 2008, but he did not exactly set the world on fire.  He isn’t even Ryan Madson, who posted better numbers across the board while pitching in a hitter’s park.

It also looks like the Braves will not be bringing back Andruw Jones, who wants a Major League deal with promised playing time.  He can’t even get that from the Rangers, though, so who knows if he will swallow his pride and come back to the Braves on a Minor League deal with an invite to Spring Training.  If he wants to do that, though, he better move quickly because the Braves have been pursuing a deal with the Yankees to bring in Nick Swisher.

The Braves are also considering Bobby Abreu and Adam Dunn, but how likely either of these two options are is unknown.  My gut tells me Abreu is more likely, but I would rather see Swisher out in left field than Abreu.  In order for either Abreu or Dunn to get added they will have to accept deals at or less than $9mil for 2009.

Update

Apparently Andruw Jones has swallowed his pride and taken the minor league offer from the Rangers.  This is a strange move in my eyes, because he would have had a better shot in Atlanta than in Texas, looking at current outfield situations.

The first thing that comes to mind when this topic is explored is where does Howard stack up against the other top tier one baggers in the Majors. Maury Brown of bizofbaseball.com does a great job of comparing Howard to Pujols, while ESPN The Magazine’s Matt Meyers had a great comparison of Howard to Adam Dunn.  Since Meyers’ article is an Insider one, I will refrain from going too deep into his details.

The other guys who pop into my head are Prince Fielder and Mark Teixeira.  We will have to compare them to Howard later this weekend, but I wanted to get this ball rolling with Pujols and Dunn.  Because this could be a large entry, I’m going to break it up and start with Dunn.

One of the things that Meyers looks at is both players’ adjusted OPS.  Adjusted OPS tried to balance out park factors and leagues, to give a more accurate comparison of the players’ abilities in the batters box.  In adjusted OPS, a number of 100 is considered average.  Here are the numbers that Meyers put up for Howard:  167 in ‘06, 144 in ‘07, and 124 in ‘08.  As you can see, his numbers are declining at a pretty steady rate.

Lets compare those numbers to Dunn’s, who hit 114 in ‘06, 136 in ‘07, and 129 in ‘08.  Dunn has been pretty consistent, and is also the only player in baseball to send at least 40 balls over the wall in the past five MLB seasons.

Dunn’s numbers matter because he made $13mil in ‘08, and is currently unemployed and having to drop his asking price for ‘09.  Shit, Dunn may have to settle for a one year deal making as little as $8mil in ‘09.  Meanwhile, Howard will get at least $14mil for ‘09.  Both players are defensive liabilities, but at least Dunn can play a corner outfield spot in addition to first base.  Howard, not so much, as it’s first base or DH for this “well-rounded” ball player.  Both players are virtual windmills at the plate, and both hit for terrible averages.

The thing Howard has over Dunn is his ridiculous RBI rate.  Meyers brings a great stat to the table, however, which shows that Howard was first in the Majors in RBI opportunities over the past three seasons, while Dunn was 37th.

So the question, in regards to Howard/Dunn, is whether or not Howard is worth $5mil more than Dunn was paid last year.  When you take into account that Dunn is facing a huge pay cut right now, it makes Howard’s figure a little more hard to swallow.  In case you are wondering about their age comparisons, Dunn is 10 days younger than Howard.  Since I am planning on this being a multi-entry debate, and I want to be as fair as possible to Howard, I will refrain from making up my mind just yet.