Posted by Dan Wade on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 1:51 pm

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Kelly Johnson was non-tendered by the Braves, after all his 2009 season was a poor one and he had all but lost his job Martin Prado. What should be a surprise is that he was let go just 10 hours before the deadline as the Braves were completely unable to find a trading partner.

No doubt, that he was a non-tender candidate really hurt his value—if teams think they can get a player for nothing more than cash, they aren’t likely to pay prospects to secure his services. That said, the fact that the Twins got something for Boof Bonser after he had been DFA’d indicates that there is a market for these soon-to-be-freed players.

There’s nothing about Johnson’s 2009 season that makes him a really sexy pickup. His .224/.303/.389 line was well below average, producing a 83 OPS+ and less than one win of WARP-1, which may be giving him too much credit for his questionable defense. It was his second straight year of decline since his breakout season in 2007, when he hit .276/.375/.457 with 16 home runs. 2008 was still an above average season for Johnson, as his .287/.349/.446 line was good for an OPS+ of 109.

2008’s rise in batting average was fueled by an unsustainably high batting average on balls in play—.340, 30 points above his career average—so a decline should have been expected. However, the regression didn’t stop at the mean, it pushed his BABIP as low as it had been high. 2009’s .247 isn’t likely to remain, meaning his 2010 BA should be back closer to the .270s or .280s.

What is somewhat worrisome is that his walk rate, so good in 2007 at 13%, has fallen off to 8.5% in 2008 and 9.5% in 2009. He’s right around league average and his strikeout rate has fallen as well during that time, so it isn’t as though he completely lost his strike zone discipline. However, without the consistency of the walk propping up his line, he’ll be prone to the swings in both BA and OBP we’ve seen between 2007 and 2009.

His defense isn’t well thought of, ranging between -10.6 and -0.1 runs via UZR at second base, but he does have some versatility. He posted a 10.3 UZR in left field during the 2005 season, and while he doesn’t hit enough to start in a corner for an entire season (see also: Murton, Matt), he does give teams an option as far as moving him around the diamond late in games.

Johnson’s career minor league numbers are quite good, .282/.365/.467, and when the Braves demoted him in 2009, he responded with a .308/.339/.596 line over 59 PAs, so it isn’t as though he has a history of poor performance masked by one great season in the pros.

For the other 31 teams in the league, Johnson makes a fair bit of sense, if you believe he can keep his walk rate at or above 9.5%. It seems unlikely that he’ll regain 2007’s magic, but (without adjusting for league) a .265/.335/.400 seems entirely possible. Granted, if he moves to the AL, that line will decline a little bit. He’ll be a fairly cheap option as he’s unlikely to see much of an arbitration raise from the $2.8 Million he made last year.

Johnson could be useful as a Mark DeRosa-lite, that is, he could play a little at second base or step in for defensively-challenged left fielder when a particularly flyball-prone pitcher is on the mound. As noted above, he’s almost certainly going to improve from last year’s fiasco, but the more difficult league could eat up many of those games. If he were a better defender, he’d be a much better option, but his bat isn’t good enough right now to carry an average-at-best glove.

The decision between the two isn’t as clear-cut as it might seem. While DeRosa is a better defender at third, the two are close at second, and Johnson is both younger and cheaper.

Ultimately, it’s hard to feel confident with slotting Johnson in as the full-time second baseman, which is what he’s going to want to be. Whoever picks him up will be taking a gamble, but he’s a great late-inning replacement at worst and a quite possibly could be a very solid starting second baseman if he can keep his walk rate up and his BABIP rebounds the way it ought to.

Dan Wade is a contributing author at Baseball Daily Digest. His work can also be found at TwinsMVB.com and the Bleacher Report.