Who Has More Value: Jason Bay or Matt Hollday?

I meant to touch on this nugget last week, but for some reason I forgot about it. In this chat on WEEI, former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette is asked a (somewhat) simple question and gives a rather startling response:

12:19 [Comment From JeremyJeremy: ]
Who would value more, Jason Bay or Matt Holliday?
(My interpretation: As a GM, who would you value more, Jason Bay or Matt Holliday?

Dan Duquette:
Jason Bay performed in both the NL and AL, and Matt Holliday has only established that he can perform in the NL. With those two going into the market probably Bay will do a little bit better than Holliday because he performed in both leagues.

Does that logic make any sense at all? Outside of Jason Bay's agent, it's accepted throughout the baseball community that Matt Holliday is the superior player and in turn, the best free agent on the free agent market.

Should teams be willing to pay more for Jason Bay because he played in a great situation in Boston, was surrounded by potent hitters for two years, and not surprisingly, put up some of the best numbers of his career? I think not. If you compare the AL experiences of Bay and Holliday, you'll clearly see that Bay was in a great lineup with other great hitters around him while Holliday was stuck on a terrible team, in a terrible ballpark, with very little offensive talent around him.

Duquette's logic in stating that Bay will do better than Holliday because of his performance in the AL is laughable. For starters, Matt Holliday only played three months in Oakland and yes, while he did struggle during his tenure with the A's, there are plenty of reasons why this was the case:

1. Holliday was adjusting to a new league
2. Holliday was adjusting to a new team
3. Holliday was surrounded by one of the worst lineups in baseball
4. Holliday was playing in one of the worst hitters parks in baseball

I seriously doubt that GMs around baseball will rank Bay above Holliday because Matt Holliday struggled for a few months during his first stint in the American League. If anything, Holliday's struggles with the A's are a good reason for AL teams to proceed with caution when pursuing Holliday, but that's not a valid reason to rank Bay above Holliday.

I'm sure given this economic climate there will be teams out there who pursue Bay instead of Holliday simply because of the cost. But if you ask any of those GMs if they would prefer Holliday or Bay, I guarantee a majority would say Holliday regardless of how he performed during his brief stay with the Athletics.

Valuing Bay over Holliday solely on their respective experiences in the AL is ludicrous....Matt Holliday's contract will exceed Jason Bay's.

Thoughts?

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