Tampa Bay 5, Seattle 4

=== Lopez' 25th ===

Casey Stengel once complained about a catcher who called way too many breaking pitches. "He can't hit a curve ball, so he thinks no one else can, either," groused Case.

Jose got coached, for about 23 years, by guys who couldn't get the bat head out in front of a 97 fastball without cheating. Casey woulda loved Jose Lopez, no joke.

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

Before the year, we predicted .285-25-100, though we expected a 110-115 OPS+.

Jose's homer Wednesday went 395 feet, according to Hit Tracker. Much to our amazement, he pulled it to left field.

Jose is established now, so is allowed to do it his own way. And he's just now learning that if he utilizes his natural batspeed, gets the bat out in front, and swings up at the ball, it will go over the fence.

Jose is now slugging .467 in Safeco, with a 102 OPS+, and his BABIP for the year is only .261 (compared to his lifetime BABIP of .284). Let me read that last sentence again. Huh! So the OPS+ would be on target for about 110 if the balls hadn't been hitting fielders.

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

Dr. D has been calling Jose an average-solid hitter, but as his 2H roll continues, he's moving into "above average hitter." At second base, making arb dollars, that's quite a player.

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

In the second half, he's .283/.319/.516 with a 118 OPS+, despite a somewhat unlucky BABIP in the second half too.

Next year, Lopez will be age-26 with experience, and the Tejada wait will probably be over. You can see it in Jose's easy homers.

=== Hannahan at 1B ===

Would somebody explain to poor ol' Dr. D ... in the farthest reaches of the most tortured minds that haunt Asylum D-O-V ... WHY Jack Hannahan is playing 1B? With Mike Carp and Matt Tuiasosopo on the bench?

I don't mean, "Wok shouldn't be playing Hannahan." I don't mean, "why aren't the reporters asking about this." I don't mean, "please spend time on the ballplayers you might conceivably win your next pennant with."

Well, I kinda do mean that, but even more, I mean this:

WHY?

I can't think of a reason. FIRST base?

He's a 270/360/390 career hitter -- in the MINOR! leagues. He's very slow (2 triples career).

Here, this will get me some traction, I know it will I just know it:

226 / 314 / 350 -- Jack Hannahan, ML totals, about 1,000 PA's

260 / 320 / 333 -- Willie Bloomquist, ML, about 1,800 PA's

Except Willie is verrrrrrry good on the bases and Hannahan's very slow.

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

So how about it? Why would you be playing Willie Bloomquist at 1B in September, when you have ML-ready blue-chippers to evaluate?

Out of loyalty to Willie? That can't POSSIBLY be it with Hannahan. He got here in the 2nd half. He didn't help Wok establish himself in the clubhouse.

Not wanting Carp and Tui to embarrass themselves? Naaaah. Both are having a ball out there.

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

Sudden thought. 82 wins, maybe?

Do you think that would hold any water?

If that were the case, why wouldn't Mike Sweeney be taking the AB's?

Here's hoping somebody can take pity on Dr. D.

=== Cybermetrics Blog ===

By the way, "Cy" Morong dropped in with a valuable post noting that, although the M's are running a big deficit to Pythag, they've got no deficit in terms of OPS. Here's his website. Thanks bro'.

=== Michael Saunders ===

Sat out a long time. Had his swing re-tooled. Came back into the league and -- raked three hits.

The change in his swing was visible. His upper body and head were inCREDibly quiet, just rock-steady, and he pivoted around his spine beautifully.

Slap me SILLY some hitting coach knew what he was doing with Mick Saunders. Yowch.

Anyway, the three hits, and the third one ... Saunders kept the head right down on the ball, torqued it, and screamed it off the LEFT field wall.

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

We've just loved Saunders' presence out there -- his battles with the lefties, his chop-bunt base hits, his body language. Now here he is, showing that he can adjust on-the-fly and make it work in a game.

Mike Carp has very plus makeup. First AB he ever took, he calmly worked a walk.

Matt Tuiasosopo - you know about his makeup. He's been around football, violence, macho, his whole life. What's baseball supposed to scare him?

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

I don't buy into a lot of the hype, as far as differences between Zduriencik and Bavasi, but I'll buy this one. Jack Zduriencik can sure tell when a young guy carries himself like a major leaguer.

Cheers,

Dr D

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Why Hannahan?

You ask the wrong question. The correct question is "Why Beltre?" The "sorry-but-there-is-simply-no-intelligent-way-to-do-this" reality with the current club and that guys it needs to evaluate is this ... too many are poised to the same position.

Tui and Hannahan are both supposed 3Bs. Everyone and their mother seems to be wanting to move Lopez to third base as well. Hey, we can re-write the old A & C routine, "Who's On First?" EVERYBODY!!! "Who's on third?" EVERYBODY ELSE!!!

Why did Hannahan play first? Because Adrian Beltre, who nobody really wants back, is playing third.

There's also the case, if you're going to be juggling guys into new positions at the major league level, then there are VASTLY superior methods to "you're a first-sacker now, do good, or we'll see you in AAA next year." A more nuanced, (and effective), methodology would be to introduce the player to the position, let them play a game or two. Then work with them on the first 10 of the 400 things you saw them not doing right, (but they got away with).

In the minors you can get away with position change by fiat a little easier, but you don't want to bring a kid up to the bigs and intentionally put him in a position leveraged to increase the odds that he's going to make a fool of himself. That's the kind of thing that can break a kid's spirit and make him useless forever. It's also the kind of thing that can make every OTHER player appreciate the organization less.

There's no EASY answer to the September dance of looking at call-ups and continuing to play the guys who are making 8 figures, (and who the fans are paying to see).

Maybe you throw Hannahan at first, at the last second, to see how he handles it. You haven't made up your mind whether he's gonna be a bench guy next year. Personally having watched the dreadful results from the previous "sink-or-swim" prospect development program, I actually find the nuanced approach of giving PT to the newbies in dribs and drabs optimistically refreshing. I don't need to know WHY myself. I've got enough confidence in the new regime that I suspect heavily that their is a why, and that it's probably inter-connected with 100 variables revolving around who the club may or may not invite back next season. Carp and Tui? There's no decision to be made there. They return -- guaranteed. But Hannahan? THERE, you've GOT to make a choice. And that choice will have implications for subsequent choices.

One can argue that an extra 4 ABs for Hannahan, or an extra 9 innings isn't likely going to be the critical decision maker. Perhaps. But, what Hannahan does at first MIGHT have bearing on what you decide to do with Sweeney, for example. Or when you're playing Lopez at first, and Tui at second. That can impact those DH choice for 2010.

Then again, maybe Carp slept poorly and woke up with a crick in his neck.

Sandy- Regarding Beltre: I

Sandy- Regarding Beltre: I think that his situation has to be more of a business decision than a baseball one. He fought hard twice to get back from injury while the team was at least kind of in the race so in a sense, he's owed the time. He's also in a contract year and really needed to perform well this month to maximize the dollars. Of course, he didn't do that but the M's want to be seen as a team that looks out for guys on the way out, too.

If Beltre were sat this last month when healthy, he could conceivably poison the waters for some prospective FA's that we want to bring in. That all said, I would expect him to take a few days off between now and the end to see some other guys. And I agree about Hanahan, don't need to see him at all and he wouldn't be in my plans next year. We need a few bats to compete.

Beltre is a big part of the club's success.

Sandy...why Beltre? Seriously??

I know he's on the way out, but the guy has done nothing but bear down through some incredibly painful injuries, give 150% every day, and fight his way back from the DL faster than expected TWICE...and when he's been on the field, he's been a plus defender. The bat hasn't been there...it was just coming around when the bone spurs started acting up in late June. He's always been a slow starter and streaky as anything at the plate.

Why Beltre? Because he's earned the right to some respect in his walk-year. End of discussion.

And I'm fine with that ...

Matt,

Thanks for making my point for me. The point is, it is NOT simply about Carp or Tui or Hannahan. I don't disagree with any of the points you make about Beltre. But, one could easily argue that there is "more" justification for playing Hannahan than Beltre. As I noted, I think they have reasons -- that we won't ever know what they are -- but being that they are the ones who are going to have to make the hard choices, I don't see a reason to assume that they aren't making moves to try and help them make those choices.

Eminently logical San-Man

Do think that CA and Matty captured the clubhouse factor here...

Beltre's shoulder is questionable ... he had a terrible year ... and he badly needs to re-establish value going into the FA market...

For the M's to put him on ice right now, that would be a messing-over in the most royal possible terms... can easily picture that costing the Mariners a good portion of potential signings this winter...

'course you're right in the abstract, the time given to AB isn't the most fortunate...

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

I missed this part: what's the argument for playing Hannahan?

Thanks, Doc

You have two choices. You can play Hannahan "some", Carp "some", Tui "some" -- or you can pick any number of them and toss them overboard and not play them for the rest of the season. (Same goes for Junior, Beltre, Lopez, etc.). SOMEBODY has to play -- and SOMEBODY has to sit. If you're gonna play Beltre, (and there are good reasons to do so), there simply aren't enough slots left to play everyone that has a reasonable argument for needing to be looked at more thoroughly.

Saunders was benched for good reason - but while benched, they obviously were working with him -- and from the results seen yesterday, that works seems to have paid off in spades. If the argument holds that working with Saunders on the side, while the veteran Langerhans takes the field, why is it impossible to think the same justification isn't reasonable for Carp or Tui?

Me? I was a Carp fan when Carp was still in the Mets org. I'd love to see more of him. But, I definitely get the feeling that the current club has a *PLAN* for developing talent, and that if they are sitting him, it is NOT so he can rot on the bench. They are likely sitting him to HELP his development. (And, they are also playing him some to help his development).

But, when you don't have any of the inside knowledge that the coaches have - a nuanced approach for development is almost always going to APPEAR to be a haphazzard mess from the outside.

That pernt has some traction

No doubts that this crew often has ideas not apparent from the peanut gallery.

BTW, how's the Cox news playing?

The correct answer...

...is to make Hannahan your starting shortstop.

He can play the MIF fine...not great but better than Betancourt did. Put Hannahan at short, and Tui, Lopez, Carp, Hall, Saunders and Sweeney share all remaining playing time at 1B, 2B and LF and a few of them might steal PAs from Griffey at DH for "health reasons"

Wakamatsu seems to LOVE

Wakamatsu seems to LOVE Hannahan. Why? Who knows. Of course he coached Hannahan in Oakland, right?

I can't think of a good response to you're question, but the only response I CAN think of is that the M's think it's POSSIBLE that they can fix Hanahan in some way to elevate his game significantly. Was poking around BaseballReference yesterday and I noticed that Hanahan's LD rate (25%) was by far the highest on the team, excepting very low PT players. Lopez was second at 22%, then Gutierrez and Carp at 20%. Everyone else was below 20%. Is this something the M's think they can build on? Haven't a clue...

Just checked,

Just checked, Hannahan's career LD rate is 22%. Pull up B-R and sort 2009 MLB Batting by LD%. That's upper echelon in MLB.

Of course LD% isn't EVERYTHING. You see a lot of very good hitters with mediocre LD%s. But if I'm a coach and I see a guy consistently ringing line drives around, I might be wondering what I can do to fix this guy so more of them drop in.

I guess that's as good a stab as any DaddyO

Perhaps they see him as a .360, .370 OBP player at his top, a very slow Mark McLemore, and hitting lefty he'd be a nice utility player... he's the guy they tried at short, right?

I guess if they're "evaluating" him as a substitute going forward, trying to get that .370 OBP unlocked, that is as rational as anything I can think of.

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

This is neither here nor there, but can you iMAGine what the blogs would have written about Bavasi/Hargrove doing this with Willie Bloomquist?

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

As usual, the point is not that Capt Jack and Wok should be ripped, but simply that the degrees-of-difference between one admin and another are more subtle than most fans realize... we put a black or a white hat on folks and then we wind up with skewed perceptions of what's happening on the field...

Evaluating Hannahan

Hannahan in the minors showed doubles power and (in 07 particularly) an excellent eye. He hits LH and they've been willing to have him back up at short as well as the other IF spots.

Right now your likely IF starters are Lopez, Wilson, and Tui/Hall. All RH and none likely to have a high OBP (Tui will eventually, but not likely his rookie season).

So you could bring in a generic utility IF type, or you could see if the patient, line-drive stinging lefty bat that Hannahan might have ever shows up, which, if paired with a glove that can hold its own at all the IF spots, is a nifty utility spare part, especially in light of the RH non-patient nature of Lopez, Wilson and Hall.

I totally concur that HANNAHAN HAS NOT YET SHOWN HE CAN BE THAT GUY AT THE MLB LEVEL. And there is a good chance he never will. But I don't see a ton of harm in giving him a few more looks. 1b just happens to be the easiest place to put guys at the moment with Branyan out.

If that's so Spec

Can you name a guy who became a hitter like that, given Hannahan's minor league #'s?

Appreciate the attempt to triangulate their thinking. My own problemo with that, would be my own opinion that Hannahan has well-and-truly demonstrated that he's not a hitter.

He hit badly in AAA at the age of 25, and then put together some interesting #'s while repeating AAA again and again at 26-28. EVerybody does that. :- )

Suppose D-O-V said that maybe Willie Bloomquist had a breakthru in him? Hannahan's 29 now.

ANY argument we could make for being patient with Hannahan, I could make for Bloomquist, and with more reason. But we're not going to spend our time waiting for Willie to hit a Lotto.

........

Am not aiming my befuddlement at you, of course.

Talking past each other maybe

My recollection is that folks were never against Bloomie as the 25th-man/reserve/platoon/spot player/whatever. It was the notion that Bloomie would blossom in a key role if only given the chance.

If you could have David Bell as a no-speed doubles hitter with a sprinkling of HR, except he'd be lefty and except he'd walk a bit more and except he could hold his own at short and except that you wouldn't be asking him to be starting at third, you'd only be asking him to be a reserve/spot-start-against-certain-types-of-pitchers-in-an-infield-full-of-righties guy, and you could have him for nothing instead of paying some random Wilson Valdez (or Josh Wilson) (or Josh Wilson Valdez?) to come in with no bat at all on your bench, I think there would be some interest.

Here are the splits: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?t=b&n1=hannaja01&year=Career&team=&per162=0 Never play him against a lefty or a power pitcher, and he looks like a semblance of a LH David Bell playing short, without any further "blossoming" involved.

Not that that's particularly special, but I'm talking about the 5th guy on the non-1B/DH pecking order, and assuming 1-4 are all RH. And that the alternatives for the roster spot are likely RH with neither patience nor pop. Not saying give the guy a chance to be an everyday player.

Sample Size

Actually, Doc, the argument for Hannahan over Willie B -- or Josh Wilson over both of them is sample size. The smaller the sample size, the more chance for error in previous assessment.

Willie had 1400+ PAs heading into 2009 - all as a reserve, and KC made him a starter. He's posting a career high OPS, (.677). Of course, that's only about 25 points over what he came in with -- but is a 20-30 point gain in OPS reasonable for a guy going from part-timer to full-timer? I dunno.

Hannhan had about 800 PAs when Jack snagged him. He was forced into every day role for a bit, but that ended with Beltre's return. And his OPS with Seattle, mostly as a starter, (.680), is about 20 points better than what he came on board with.

Josh Wilson only has 500 MLB PAs, INCLUDING the 106 with Seattle, spread mostly over two seasons, with a missing season in the minors, divided among a half dozen teams. Is the 106 PAs with Seattle, (.670 OPS) more or less of a reasonable sample size than the 400 sporadic PAs over the previous 4 seasons?

Jose Lopez got his 1000-1500 PAs during his age 23 season, and hit a dreadful .639. He had shown a .723 OPS the previous season, and that combined with his age, (and lack of other options), kept him going, and now he's blossoming. But, it's not ALL about age. Part of the equation is chances. For most guys, 1,500 MLB PAs is enough to get a pretty good read on their talent range.

For guys with only 500 PAs, you don't go and pull out the minor league stats because they're a great resource of accurate predicting. You do it, because you HAVE to. The really interesting part of all this -- Josh Wilson has EXACTLY the same minor league OPS as Hannahan, (.754), and a (.759) AAA aggregate. But, Hannahan has a .802 AAA aggregate, (and is a year older). Hannahan has more patience, Wilson actually has more power.

For any team OTHER than Seattle, I'd be leaning toward Josh as the rover. More upside due to lower sample size, and more power. But Hannahan is a lefty, has more patience, and a better eye ratio. If there's a really simple reason to keep looking at Hannahan it is because there simply aren't that many lefty hitting utility guys around. For all the hope that Jack Wilson would survive Safeco, the evidence to date weighs against.

Me? I'd rather continue looking at Josh and Hannahan as the default SS for 2010, while I continue to look for a better option. Save the money on the Jack Wilson option and settle for giving the guys with small samples a shot to pull a Branyan while you're shopping.

Lopez is an interesting case.

Lopez is an interesting case. Hes a lot like Beltre last year with an unlucky BABIP but also a very lucky HR output.

With the HR and RBI output this year, I'm kind of hopting that Z will throw him on the market to see what he can get. Don't give him away or anything, but you've got to wonder what a team like the White Sox would give up (great park for Lopez and recently they've been willing to burn specs).

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