Very shortly, the Milwaukee Brewers will have to make a decision on whether or not to pick up Mike Cameron's option for the 2009 season. The option itself is for 10 million dollars, but because there is a 750,000 buyout, the Brewers decision on the option is really whether or not to take on 9.25 million in additional salary.

A good place to start when trying to figure what to do would be to figure out whether or not it would have been worth it to have had Mike Cameron last year at 10 million. Cameron is not a high batting average player as anyone who has seen him play can attest. He also racks up a good number of strikeouts. Those things, however, are what he doesn't do and it is a mistake to focus solely on what players do not do at the expense of what they do well.

Mike Cameron, despite having trouble keeping the batting average up, does draw enough walks that he posted a .331 OBP, which is exactly what the average OBP was in the National League last year. The fact that he is so good at drawing walks lead to his finishing 5th in the NL in pitches seen per plate appearance at 4.21. That pays off by getting into opponent bullpens faster and seeing more middle and long relievers, generally the worst pitchers on a pitching staff. Where Cameron really excels, though, is in slugging the ball. In 444 AB's, he racked up 212 total bases (25 HR, 25 2B, 2 3B). Cameron finished 14th in the NL in ISOP (a measure of power) and 24th in the NL in BB/PA, which perfectly sums up where is value actually lies on offense.

Defensively, Cameron is no longer the player he once was and a few late season gaffes have left an impression with many that he really wasn't that good. A look at some of the advanced metrics developed by people at places like Baseball Think Factory (Cameron Defensive Runs Saved +2.8) and Baseball Prospectus (RAA +1) show that he is slightly above average in terms of getting to balls and making plays at this point in his career.

All in all, Mike Cameron gets on base enough to basically break even, and then derives his considerable value from his ability to hit the ball very hard when he makes contact. He does this playing a defense-first position at about a league average level. Going back to that Baseball Think Factory evaluation, he was 43rd in the national league in their "Offense Plus Defense" ranking at a +12.9. Going forward, the people at Baseball Think Factory who do the ZiPS projections see his numbers holding pretty steady next year in most areas, especially his hitting line which they have pegged at .246/.333/.446/.779 (compared to the .243/.331/.477/.808 he actually hit in 2008). It's just a projection, but it's based on the historical record of similar players and how they did at this point in their careers, so take it for what it's worth.

It's very hard to argue that Mike Cameron didn't add good value to the Brewers in 2008 when all the facts are on the table. The question remains, is that value worth the cost of spending another 9.25 million to keep him for 2009? Well, the people at fan graphs seem to think so:

....When you combine average to above average center field defense with a bat that’s worth 1.5 wins over an average hitter, you have a +4 win player. Based on Cameron’s 2008 performance, he was worth between $15 and $20 million on the free market, or more than twice what he actually made. Toss in the team option that now looks like a no-brainer, and Cameron was truly one of the best signings of the winter.

Just take a look at his nearest comparable, Torri Hunter of the Angels.

Hunter: (.278/.344/.466/.800) 257 TB in 551 AB

Cameron:  (.243/.331/.477/.808) 212 TB in 444 AB

Hunter gets a big advantage in BA, a small advantage in OBP and falls short in SLG (and is even further behind in ISOP). Then consider that Hunter is in the first year of a 5 year, 90 million dollar contract that payed him 16 million last year and it becomes very difficult to argue that 10 million for Cameron is anything but below market level for his abilities.

While the Brewers do have some underlying OBP issues on the team, and would benefit from getting a high OBP leadoff hitter to take over in CF, the problem is that those guys just aren't on the free agent market this winter. Mark Kotsay, Jay Payton and Jim Edmonds certainly wouldn't fill that need. So if the Brewers are going to get that sort of player, they're going to have to trade for him. If they count on doing that, they'll have to turn down Cameron's option and leave themselves open to the possibility that they may not get that guy for a reasonable cost. They may well end up giving away more than they get back just to break even in CF next year.

In the end, the Brewer have the ability to pick up a player who was well above average in terms of production last year for something below true market value. If they turn that down, they are going to have an uphill battle to find someone who brings as much to the table as Cameron does. In spite of his flaws and the fact that he is "more of the same" on the Brewers team, it is going to be difficult for the Brewers to do better than him and for that reason it makes sense to pick up his 2009 option.

(Thanks to Badger80 and FunDmentals for posting some of these links on the Brewer Message Board)