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Finished 14 games ahead of second-place Oakland.
Nelson Cruz: Lessons Learned (? or not)
39+ homers have the Orioles a little bit delirious
.
Mojo sez,
[Good for Tejas, Holland beating K-Pax] That poor team deserves something to cheer about. Nobody except Oakland deserves the horrible things that have happened to the Rangers this year. Kinsler for Fielder and hold the health. Jurickson Profar, the hope of Texas up in smoke. Shin-Soo Choo goes missing. And Washington quits without two weeks notice. So they got their Holland back and he still has it. GOOD. The carnage was making me queasy.
...
Two weeks notice :- )
The rest of us in the SSI crowd doesn't know if Nelson Cruz' performance in Baltimore was included in the 'carnage' to which the Counselor refers. But today, Cruz had ANOTHER two homers ... and a triple just to gloat! ... as the Orioles ran their division lead to +9.5 games. That's double digits. The M's didn't even win by double digits when they won 116 games, we don't think ...
But the Rangers' B team from two years ago is also now carrying other teams to glory. They're down there in Texas, wringing their hands, Oh, if only we had our old #7 hitter to legitimize this lineup...
...
Seattle, in February, was "all in" on Nelson Cruz. The ostensible argument against Cruz was:
- He's old and the PED's will kill him
- He's moving away from Texas
- He'd be right handed in Safeco
- He's an RBI man, and who wants that
SSI did indeed acknowledge these concerns -- except the PED's, which were always a non-issue -- but the above issues were only the ostensible concerns. The actual concerns were:
- He's an RBI man, and who wants that
.....
Dr. D lunged at a glorious invitation to tilt at windmills. "Who wants Cruz at 2 years x $8 million." There were, naturally, some grains of truth in the old-school silo:
- Cruz' "Power Index" had always been, and still was, immense (here's the SSI article) ...
- ... and that is a component (underlying) skill, which is a thoroughly sabermetric way to analyze
- WAR that is achieved from within the batter's box is worth extra, a lot extra; GM's pay for it, as such
- There was a "tipping point" to be aware of in the Seattle lineup
Nelson Cruz, this is just last year we're sayin', hit 41 homers pro-rated. Here he is late the next year, having hit 39 homers without pro-rat-ion. Shocker.
The M's are okay, now, after a season of desperate scrabbling to get its lineup together. But what would Cruz have meant in the first half? What would he mean, even now, in place of Endy Chavez in RF or Kendrys Morales/Justin Smoak at DH?
...
Two very different lessons learned, we could take from Nelson Cruz' 39+ homers this year:
(1) WORLD: The sabermetricians were right. They used the best information available at the time. Let's not get carried away with one illustrative case history.
(2) SSI: Let's not overrate RBI, but then again, let's not deem [scoreboard changing] a deadly cantagion to be quarantined at any cost. Especially when your ballclub is hemorrhaging games in the bottom half of the inning.
There is such a thing as a hitter who can rake. If you don't have any, it's advisable to go get one or two. Even now, Nelson Cruz would mean worlds to this ballclub. Even this winter, the Mariners could definitely use a reliable RBI bat into the mix.
...
Kyle Seager is a very fine player, by any standard. Seattle blog-o-zens give him credit for absolutely everything except one thing: his RBI. These are precisely that portion of his skill set that has been the difference between the 2014 glory and that infamous 2011 folding up of the tents.
Just the last two games ... Seager pulled out game 3 in Texas with a 2-run shot to tie it, whereupon Logan Morrison chortled gleefully that Seager is the Secret Ingredient. But Seager/Cano failed to manage any "hard RBI" in game 4, and here we are, stalled out.
:- )
More seriously, imagine this team with Chone Figgins x 2 playing in Cano's and Seager's slot? He and Robinson Cano were the difference, this season, between a pennant race and the 2011 implosion. Sorry, hypersabe, you were the one who brought up RBI and Jack Zduriencik.
Your friend,
Jeff
Comments
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Which, 'cause of Oakland winning 102 games themselves, wasn't much more than Balmer's lead now :- )
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It'll be a while before I forget that line drive he smoked (not smoaked) into Safeco's left field seats when the O's came to visit.That is scary stuff for any pitcher, and yeah, we could use a bat like that. The rest of the M's blogosphere was mostly freaking about a long term contract, and after Sexton, the near misses of Fielder and Hamilton, I suppose who could blame them. We couldn't convince Nelson to come here on a one season showcase, not like Baltimore could. But yeah, Doc, you were the one who put the whole thing in perspective, when the sabredudes were getting carried away. But then, we understand that WAR is an contest, not a weapon. You want the most dangerous weapons when you go to war. A nice 1.2 WAR with nice defense at a bargain price is not what you are looking for when, oh, say, there are runners at the corners and you are facing a Derrick Holland with a 1-0 deficit. You want to assert your will upon the opponent. There is a reason the Pentagon is undergoing massive cost overruns for their new fighter jet: you absolutely MUST maintain overwhelming control of the skies in warfare. You pay for it. No use owning a couple aircraft carriers if your jets don't come back to land.
On another related matter, Doc, you and I keep missing each other on the Morales trade. By Sunday, I was getting on board. He had two big home runs Friday, and smoked a game winning RBI late Saturday. Both games would have likely been lost without his bat. I missed the Sunday flameout, however. I don't know what to think. If you are giving me tomorrow's news today, however, then thanks for the heads up.