
"While the terms are not yet disclosed for this contract, I would like to point out that giving a two-year deal to a player who was worth 1 win BELOW replacement level last season is not exactly a wise decision. This is not to say that Skip Schumaker is a terrible player. He's not terrible against right-handed pitching and has consistently posted good OBP numbers. But he lacks power and while he technically plays a bunch of different positions, he doesn't play any of them particularly well.
On the plus side, there is hope for him. He had a couple of good years with the Cardinals (2008 and 2009) where he was pretty much an everyday player and his .360 or so OBP over almost 600 PA a season provided most of his value. He's actually okay as a corner outfielder defensively, so if you desperately needed someone to just get on-base that won't butcher in the field, he's your guy. But I'm not sure a two-year contract made sense. It will be interesting to see how new Reds manager Bryan Price handles him and maybe this deal works out, especially since it's probably not for a ton of money.
Still, two guaranteed years for him seems a bit odd to me, though we know that Reds GM Walt Jocketty - who originally had him when he was with the Cardinals - really likes him. This is a wait-and-see that could pan out okay if he's limited to the corner outfield for the most part and only faces right-handed pitching."
The contract was only for $5 million total, a reasonable sum for a veteran role plater. Skip Schumaker was coming off of a very bad year after previously being a reasonably fair player. So while this move caused head-scratching at the time, it just seemed like a strange use of resources.
The Reds also deployed Schumaker in the way that I suggested in my commentary: mostly in the corner outfield and rarely against left-handed pitching. Despite this, Schumaker continued to play below average defense and couldn't hit a lick. In 2014, he was "worth" -1.2 WAR in only 83 games! The fact that they even played him that much when it was clear he was ineffective still baffles me to this day.
I think most sane people would agree it would have been fine to release him and let him walk away with the other $2.5 million. But no, they played him even more in 2015! I'm sure Skip is a really nice guy and they wanted to keep him around the clubhouse, but playing a guy who's "worth" -1.1 WAR in 131 games is simply not good baseball. He wasn't even a good pinch hitter! Basically, the Reds played him because they didn't want to own up to the fact that they made a bad signing. Maybe they didn't have better options? No, they actually did. That's the point of the WAR (Wins Above Replacement) metric. Just about anyone could have done better.
Schumaker retired as a member of the Padres during Spring Training 2016. He even admitted that he couldn't catch up to a 95-mph fastball anymore. You could never blame the guy for not trying, because he definitely did. But the aches and pains just caught up to him. It's sad that he had to go out like that, with three very poor seasons on his record.
The good news is that he was able to retire comfortably and enjoy his family. But to this day, this is one of Walt Jocketty's worst signings, and one of the worse ends to a career that we've seen in a while.