I’m pretty sure Beltre or Evan could man second for a year.

Those are the two easiest positions to play. A straight up platoon makes sense, and they could’ve had that for half of what they’re paying Jacobs. Let’s see here:

Mike Jacobs – 1 year, $3.5 million, 2006 to 2008: 0.7 wins above replacement
Ross Gload – 2 years, $3.2 million, 2006 to 2008: -0.5 wins above replacement

Ryan Shealy – pre-arbitration, $400k, 2006 to 2008: 0.8 wins above replacement
Billy Butler – pre-arbitration, $400k, 2007 to 2008: 0.6 wins above replacement

There’s something wrong there, well, about 6 million things wrong there.

Jacobs best case is improving on 2008, but his true talent level is like: ~4 batting runs, -5 fielding runs, ~17 replacement, and as a DH make that -5 disappear, and instead charge -17.5. That leaves us at:

4+17-17.5

21-17.5 = 3.5 runs.

Divide that by 10 to gets wins and you have a 0.35 WAR designated hitter. The spot where you should have the worst fielder/best hitter. Jacobs SHOULDN’T be the best hitter, and he SHOULDN’T be the worst fielder, I guess he uses an oven mitt at first.

For comparison, let’s throw Brendan Harris at DH. That would be silly right? I mean, who would put a shortstop at DH?

Over the last three years Harris has had batting runs of -1.2, 3.4, and -4.2, average of -3, we’ll go with that. Throw out his fielding, make his positional -17.5 and you get:

-3-17.5+17

-20.5 + 17

-3.5 runs

Divide by 10

-0.35 wins

The difference between Mike Jacobs at DH and Brendan Harris is less than a win.

And we were using Mike Jacobs best season.