HQ on Jose Lopez - 30 HR, .300 AVG next?

=== Caveats & Quid Pro Quo's Dept. ===

You can order your Forecaster here. No embedded ad links at SSI, but am sure that Shandler wouldn't mind a bit of linkage in return for our moshing off his work.

Not that they've gotten on us about it, but am guessing that we'll probably have to start paraphrasing pretty quick here. General ideas are public domain; I'm a little murkier on infringement issues when you snip 50 words out of a writer's column with link, credit and endorsement. ;- ) Thoughts?

Saunders, League, and Lopez, that is three guys with rosy BaseballHQ outlooks. It's not that HQ doesn't have pessimistic outlooks on M's players; it's that we're cherrypicking fun players to talk about right now. Info-tainment is da name of da game.

=== HQ Riff ===

Turned 2008's breakout into a stepping stone, and still may not have peaked. xBA and H% ping-pong say that he can recapture 2008 AVG. Improved FB & PX and strong 2H say that power is legit. Add it up, and .... UP: 300, 30 HR

Bid: $21

Position scarcity chart: first tier, 9 other second basemen, aligned with Uggla, Zobrist, Cano, Kinsler

=== SSI Mixing Board ===

By "breakout" in 2008, Ron is referring to Lopez' AVG & HR going from .260 and 10 up to .300 and nearly 20. In 5x5 roto that's a valuable second baseman.

In terms of real baseball, Lopez' OPS+ also rose from 71 to 103 in 2008, and his RC/27 from 3.2 to 4.7, so you can see why Ron calls 2008 a "Eureka" year for JLo.

Then he sees 2009 as continuing the momentum, and 2010 with latent energy yet.

.........

By H% ping-pong ... the last four years, Lopez' BABIP has gone 31%, 27%, 31%, 27%. Lopez hit .272 last year despite an unlucky .270 BABIP. Shandler interprets this to mean that Lopez is going to jell as a legit .300 hitter. (The language is circumspect because roto champs are into 80%-value bidding.)

..........

Power is legit ...

Lopez' PX was 123 in the second half, elite for middle infielders, Safeco or no Safeco. Lopez' power was elite MI while playing in Safeco.

Lopez hit 8 homers in the first half and 17 (!) in the second half, only 79 games. Take Lopez second half, times two, and you have a 35-homer player. Hitting .300.

....

Flyball trends -- across a series of years -- are what Shandler watches most in predicting HR breakouts. This is his Jamesian influence: the idea is to track K/BB, or BB, or FB, or BB%, across 3-5 years. When you see a smooth growth pattern somewhere, you have valuable information.

Lopez' flyball rate has been trending up; he used to be a very extreme groundball hitter, but now is even-steven, 1:1 fly balls and ground balls.

Ergo, you've got a classic profile for somebody who is going to start reliably parking 25-35 home runs per season.

=== SSI Mosh ===

Shandler doesn't have the time to go look up Lopez' scatterchart -- scads of HR's just barely over the fence at Safeco.

And that's good: he's analyzing in a vacuum, not influenced by the scary-looking scatterchart. Lopez is, after all, reliably performing these HR feats in Safeco.

It's obvious to me that Lopez is starting to look for his pitch and deliberately swat it out of the park. This is a light bulb that is difficult for many to turn on -- that many young GB hitters will later make the decision to hit for the fence.

Granted, Lopez' natural 30-35 homer peak might get edited to 20-25 inside Safeco. Then again, maybe not. You've got that 17 homers in the second half.

.............

I like Ron's take, that Lopez is going to jell as a certified .300 hitter. His bat is so unbelievably fast, and his weight transfer so compact, that in his prime he's going to be almost impossible to strike out.

=== RC/27 vs 5x5 ===

Lopez doesn't walk, but then neither do many Latin hitters. Plate discipline is a wonderful thing -- but no absolutes need apply. Miguel Tejada and Kirby Puckett could hit a mortal ton.

Lopez' RC/27 was 5.1 in the second half last year, and RC/27 unduly penalizes players who don't walk. Granted that Lopez is going to be worth more in 5x5 than per EqA or wOBA. The same thing was true with Miguel Tejada.

Miguel Tejada, in his prime, would hit .300/.340/.525, with 5.5 runs per game, 32 homers and 120 RBI. Jose Lopez did this in the second half last year. He's now "Age 26 With Experience" and making a whopping $2.75m next year.

Lopez isn't a great fit for the park, but then neither was Miguel Tejada a great fit for Oakland's park. You've come this far with Lopez. Now you get his age-26 and age-27 seasons. We agree with HQ, that they're going to be .300-27-110 seasons.

2010 should be the year, when Lopez posts Miguel Tejada production, if he is going to do it.

Cheers,

Dr D

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Yoga

I think the key to Lopez success in 2010 is loosing weight and his flexibility in the joints.

Form Larry Stone

Jack Wilson is completely over the bruised heal that hampered him in September, Griffin said, and also seems to have recovered from his hamstring injury.

"He's playing basketball, working out, taking yoga a couple of times a week. He'll come to camp ready to go,'' he said.

Wilson is just one of many players the Mariners have asked to take yoga workouts to improve their flexibility.

I think Lopez is one of many players who have been asked to take Yoga.

Mariners FO is learning from Ichiro and NPB!

The power Ichiro generates is not manly his build up muscles. It is the flexibility.

If you can twist your hip or your shoulder 2 or 3 degrees more your bat swing speed goes up. Yoga will help it.

Let see how Lopez comes to spring camp.

Lopez home/road

It should be noted about Lopez. In 2008, he had a PRO-Safeco HR split, (13/4).

In 2009, it reversed to a pro-road HR split, (8/17).

Lopez has ALREADY proven "capable" of hitting 13 HRs in Safeco in a season. He's ALREADY proven capable of hitting 17 HRs on the road in a season. So, while I would not normally recommend taking the best two home/road splits from two seasons to create an "expectation" for a player -- I do believe it is a not unreasonable methodology for suggesting an upside possibility WITHOUT actual improvement. Personally, I think Lopez has a little more room to grow. I think .300/.330/.500 is a good target for Lopez in 2010. Of course, any projection to career best must always be considered optimistic -- but 26/27 is the historical sweet spot for setting career bests.

As for his defense? The club was #1 in baseball DER in 2009 while Lopez was playing 2B, (and Yuni was playing short). Can his defense POSSIBLY be that bad if he's playing with the #1 defense in all of baseball?

Long time BaseballHQ reader,

Long time BaseballHQ reader, and if Ron isn't responding to your emails, assume you are fine with linking to him. You are doing all you can to give credit where credit is due, while bringing the HQ perspective on the M's to the blogosphere.

Love the HQ talk - keep up the great work

Thanks for the feedback 'Reader

and that would be a good idea, to e-mail them :- )

In the meantime, think we'll take your opinion as representative. Gracias pardner.

I hadn't thought about he 2-3 degrees

But of course that's true.

In golf, a pro will angle his right foot a bit to the rear, when going for a big one. Increasing hip turn, of course.

Yes

But if you make stretching and get flexible you don't need to put the right foot ( for RHB) to the rear.

I think it is something MLB has forgotten....

Lots of theories as to what

Lots of theories as to what generates the most thump in a golf swing. One is the difference in rotation between the shoulders, and the hips. It destroyed his back, but Freddie Couples has hit the ball as far as anyone and still does at 50 with nearly static hip rotation. But his shoulder coil acts as a slingshot with his lower body the base. Compare his action with a max-effort swing like Woods for example, 2 methods to get to the same end.

Lopez seems to generate a ton of power with his wrists. To me it appears that at certain points his timing is off moving his body with his hands and he still makes good contact. If anything, the more experience he gets, the smoother the action will be coupled with his already great hands, creating more power.

Many analysts that come from either a traditional statistical or scouting/coaching background get their feathers ruffled when it becomes apparent that the supposed objective analysis of the neo-saber crowd is tinged with agenda. Raul Ibanez destroyed many pillars of internet baseball truth. His was probably the best dollar per production contract in the game while we had him. He consistently beat the street when with the M's and still is exceeding expectations. Lopez gets a thorough bashing on the Seattle net. If we make the team better by trading him, fine. It will not be addition by subtraction. He has a good deal and is entering his prime. I'd wait it out and see what we get.

An interesting volley there

As to whether a wrists hitter like Aaron or Schmidt is going to get the same benefit from hip turn. Good catch.

Agree of course that a golfer can 'wind the spring' hard at the shoulders rather than at the hips.

As always, the real world is complicated, with a lot of moving parts. :- ) Whether JLo specifically is a yoga candidate is a good question.

Maybe, like Schmidt and Aaron, if Jose wants to go for a bit more power, the more harmonious movement would be simply tucking the front shoulder a bit more. That could be right.

The bigger key though is how much you buy into the power. I would be more optimistic about Lopez' 2B power in the 2nd half than his HR power (also covered earlier).

If I'm playing ROTO I buy Lopez expecting something similar to his '08 season.