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Q. What is SSI's sabermetric calculation on Franklin Gutierrez' gastrointestinal tract?
A. Most of us realize that when we hear that Justin Smoak has lost 9 lbs, that's just noise. "Justin spoke to me in Arizona this March and he personally assured me that he is going to have a great year," a friend tells us. Noise. 90% of us pay zero attention to it.
Dr. D is more dogmatic about these "Noise" classifications than anybody. He wouldn't give you six cents for the fact that Figgins and Seager and Ryan and Smoak went to a mini-camp and had dinner with Eric Wedge. He has been hearing this kind of thing for 30 years, and it never turns out to be anything. (In the NBA, it's different - if you heard that Kobe's and Pau's wife made up, that would matter.)
With Franklin Gutierrez, it's different.
Gutierrez:
- Was a 6-win player, not in theory, but in fact
- Got sick
- Now the doctors say he's not sick any more
That's not "noise" any more than it is when you hear that Richie Sexson's, or Erik Bedard's, shoulder is repaired and that the gun is reading 92 again or the ball is going over the fence again. When a good player gets injured and then he's reported to be healthy again, that's not noise.
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Q. How confident does that make you, that Guti has gained 15-20 lbs. and the trainer says he has had "zero issues for 10 months"?
A. Calling Dr. Grumpy?
Supposing you knew exactly this about a patient: that he had some kind of IBS situation, that he lost 15-20 lbs, that he'd been to Mayo, and here he is in your office with the weight back, and says he feels great?
I'd blink twice, and say, well, okay. Let's see where you are in six months -- and I'd give him like a 30% chance, or something, to have gotten pretty much on top of it.
I'd want to see what happened once the season started, and the stress started piling on, and I'd figure a 60%, 70% chance of the tummy acting up again.
But I'm not the doctor here. Let's see what Grumpy has to say about that.
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Q. Assuming that Gutierrez is healthy, what's the gain to the Mariners?
A. As you know, I'm not a Gutierrez fan the way that all of you guys are, but here's a chart:
| M's CF Position, Year | Runs Created |
| 2009 | +79 |
| 2010 | +62 |
| 2011 | +38 |
| (Gutierrez '11 prorated) | +35 |
In 2009, Gutierrez had a 105 offensive index - and he gave the Mariners a staggering +41 more offensive runs than they had last year. We're just talking about hitting the league average -- .280/.340/.425 -- and you're talking about 4.0 WAR. From the bat alone.
In 2010, Guti had a lousy offensive year -- .250/.300/.360 with an 87 offensive index -- and even that was 2.5 WAR at the plate over the M's pathetic CF production in 2011.
It's one thing to talk about runs over average, or runs over "replacement," or Moons Over My Hammy. Runs over "replacement" don't help you if your center field combo is hitting .200/.260/.270, as the M's combo did last year. The online sites tell you that you can get a .250/.310/.375 hitter in CF for free. No such player showed up in Safeco last season.
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Q. So what came back from the infamous Prognosis Dept. ?
A. The 2011 Mariners got a collective -1.0 WAR from center field last year. Guti's "big" year, 2009, was +7.4 WAR better than that, just because he hit the league average. Even his crummy year, 2010, was +3.0 WAR better.
I'm not a Gutierrez fan, but you don't have to be, in order to ask him to hit .260 with 15 homers. The real Gutierrez, if healthy, is at least halfway between his 6-WAR and 2-WAR seasons in 2009 and 2010, respectively. If Gutierrez hits anywhere near the league average, then the M's get 3-4 WAR, which is a 4-5 WAR gain, in center field this year.
What was Prince Fielder going to add, again?
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