Is it even possible to put a price on grindiness?

I would guess that he will get at least 5 million and it may very well be from a contender. His real value, is that he's a true leadoff hitter and those are tough to find.

Not to be a wise-ass, but why do you think this?

Pods had a .353 OBP this year, which ranks him 39th in the AL and 80th in MLB.

537 AB's he had 39 BB's. 74 k's

8th in the AL in SB with 30. 4th in Caught stealing 13. (for sake of comparison Ellsbury had 70/12, Crawford 60/16).

Scored 75 runs.

again, the questions are, why do you think he's a true leadoff hitter and why do you think these numbers are hard to find..

and 57th in OPS

59th in slugging.

Forget On Base plus slugging or just slugging percentages. Leadoff hitters with power are rare and thats not what a leadoff hitter really needs to offer. A true leadoff hitter has to get on base and be a legitimate threat to steal, as well as actually stealing bases. Podsednik has value, in that he hit .304 and stole 30 bases, with 163 hits in just 132 games, several games in which he did not even play the whole game, but was inserted to pinch hit or pinch run. Yeah, I know that he was caught stealing too many times. But a guy with a .304 average that causes the defense problems with his base stealing threat and who steals 30 bases, will get 5 million. He is not a top tier player, but he is a valuable piece.

I agree, him hitting .300 definitely has value, just not as a starting OF in the AL. He did start 128 of those 132 games.

I think most of us agree the most important function of a lead-off hitter is scoring runs and to do that you need to be on base. Pods being ranked 39th in OBP in just the AL alone sorta speaks for itself. If a player wants to get by by being a slap hitter that's fine with me, but you also need to be able to play D and/or be great on the bases. Pods D and his baserunning get rated as a D+ in my book.

So at the end of the day, imo, you have a .300 hitter with no power, who can't run very well (30 SB is not a lot, 17 guys did it), can't play D AT ALL, has NO arm, gets picked off constantly and gets caught stealing constantly.

In my baseball world that's the definition of NL 4th or 5th OF / pinch hitter / pinch runner. (not that there's anything wrong with that)

I congratulate pods on hitting for a high average this year, I was very surprised, but thats about it. Hit .300 for first time since rookie year in 03.

Let's also keep in mind he hit .253 and .243 in 2008 & 2007.

Hard to disagree with potential new contract tho, thinking 1 year around $3.5 with mutual option in yr 2 around $5MM.