Sez G-Money,
Right on cue, he takes that long (35-inch) lever, is short to the ball with it and drives it to oppo CF over the fence. Long HR for a 5'10 CF (playing left tonight). Dodgers fans must gnash their teeth with every swing.
And nice of the Mariners to call him up in LA where his home town people can come to the games. Well done, kid. Good coupla games so far I gotta say, showcasing what he can do.
Have heard the debate over bat weight, but this is a new one on me, the length issue in isolation vs. weight...
.
=== Three Swings: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ===
Trayvon's first AB, he lined a hot shot up the middle that was juusssst snared by the second baseman. Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhhh! The BABIP on it woulda been .800. Not this time.
That's the bad. If you're a Mariner fan.
***
His second AB, Trayvon showed me the first swing on which I went, "Ah. That's the 150 strikeouts in AAA, right there."
On 2-2, the pitcher simply came 93 mph, out and over, not even a "ladder" pitch above the zone. Just a nice high, you-against-me pitch.
Trayvon watched it and watched it and then, wayyyyy too late, took a Babe Ruth swing. The ball was almost in the catcher's mitt when he came through the zone.
I had to replay it a dozen times. What happened?
... what happened was, Trayvon was too casual about reading the pitch, trusted his reflexes too much, and by the time he launched, the fastball surprised him.
This goes hand-in-hand with his wonderful stylistic habit of making sure that he sees a pitch before he acts.
That's the ugly.
***
That HR to the off power alley, with a swing that short and quick, off the bottoms of the knees .... right there he is in a group with what? 30 hitters in the game? Are there that many?
Trayvon waited so long on that pitch I thought it was by him, just like the second AB; I was annoyed as the ball was in flight.
I thought Trayvon was going to swing behind it, like on the strikeout ... and then he flicked the bat out there and it was gone, left-center. Rewound that one a few times, too. He was not only comically short to the ball, he was short on the follow-through, like Paracorto talks about.
I guess Carlos Peguero could do that, but am not sure if he could do it taking the ball out of the catcher's glove.
That's the good, we s'pose.
***
The BB's, the K's, the controlled anger and the 440-foot shots aside ... I love guys who think during competition. Trayvon Robinson is one poised athlete. Carlos Peguero with track cleats and a determination to study baseball.
Granted, Trayvon's arm isn't the 5th tool, but the power/speed combo tantalizes. It's from field level that players like Bo Jackson look so mesmerizing. Sitting behind our monitors, we don't "get" Bo Jackson. Or the Uptons, or Curtis Granderson ... we wouldn't have gotten the young Willie Mays, the way Leo Durocher got him.
This is what they're talking about with the idea of a 5-tool player, and this is why ballclubs chase the dream. Other than Griffey, am not sure the M's in 35 years have had a power/speed player of Trayvon's magnitude. Check me on that.
.
=== Intangibles, Dept. ===
For those who haven't watched TV the last few days, Trayvon has charmed the socks off the entire clubhouse, especially off Eric Wedge. Who volunteered, on a TV interview, that Trayvon reminded him just what a privilege it is to be in the major leagues.
The last time Dr. D heard this kind of buzz around a rookie, from a personality standpoint, was in 1989.
***
Guess here is that Trayvon --- > will need some up-and-down bounces to AAA, a la Mike Carp.
But debates about K's aside for two seconds, can'cha, Trayvon Robinson is a freak.
I'm becoming more positive that his minor league K's are due to his terrific patience and his willingn ess to wait until the last moment to commit.
That is no huge fault. He's something pretty cool.
Be afraid, Guti....be very afraid.
moe
Why...oh why...is Gutierrez still playing almost every day while hitting .195 with no power and no walks?
I want to see Robinson in CF...but noooooooo...we have to keep trotting out the corpse of a ballplayer in CF because...why? He's paid a lot? No...we benched Figgins permanently and he's paid a heck of a lot more. So why...why is Guti still playing?
I love Erik Bedard more than most (except maybe Dr. D), and have found myself being his personal defense lawyer in most casual baseball conversations with friends.
But the last few days of watching Trayvon play baseball, have been nothing but joyful, exciting, positive, electrifying, etc. That smile is infectious, and I can only imagine what it does in the clubhouse.
Like you say doc, wouldn't be surprised if he makes another trip down to Tacoma before he's fully baked. But I wouldn't be surprised if he stuck around, either. Kid's got a great sports personality and similar to Ackley, Carp, and even Wells - when he's at the plate I expect him to do something good. Unfortunately, I've lost that feeling a bit with Smoak.
Baseball should always be this fun to watch.
This is what they're talking about with the idea of a 5-tool player, and this is why ballclubs chase the dream. Other than Griffey, am not sure the M's in 35 years have had a power/speed player of Trayvon's magnitude. Check me on that.
The other power/speed guy that comes to mind is Cameron.
Cammy was a .250 hitter with 32/5/23 and a 25/7 steals rate per 162, and a .089 ISOW, .195 ISOP.
Griffey was a .285 hitter with 32/3/38 and an 11/4 steals rate per 162, and a .086 ISOW, .254 ISOP, though it was high-teens/early-20s on steals for his first decade.
I think Trayvon is more Cammy - nobody's Junior, obviously. But Trayvon's been surprisingly high with his batting average. If he's a .285 hitter for average (just taking Griffey's average instead of Cammy's) with Cammy's power he'd exceed Cammy's power slash line by quite a bit. It'd look like 36 doubles /6 3B /27 HRs just with the extra average.
That'd be scary - that's basically Carlos Beltran. I wouldn't see Trayvon as Beltran. Anything in the Cammy/Matt Kemp ouvre is just fine. Kemp has a higher average and traded a couple of doubles for HRs, both guys swipe lots of bases...
I like that just fine.
~G
Was a 40/40 guy in 1998. 42 HRs and 46 SB to be exact.
Good catch Rick...
For whatever reason, I always thought of ARod more of as Hank Aaron playing SS (and Henry stole some bases too) than a Bobby Bonds type, but he did wind up with some serious SB's for a few years.
:daps:
Right here. Here are some excerpts:
Robinson has no specific pointer to the improvement. "I'm just starting to play to more of my potential," he said. "I didn't necessarily want to bat .300, I just wanted to stay consistent. It's not all about performance, it's consistency that moves you up."
Not that there weren't some changes, beginning with Robinson's bat. "I picked up a bigger bat this year, 35 inches," he said. "I was just using this little 33-inch one before�a little twig." Additionally, a change in roles led to the power increase. "I was never really trying to hit for power, I just want to put the ball in play and run my ass off, but then they started hitting me third at Inland Empire," said Robinson. "I started seeing more pitches�two years ago I was just a hacker�and realizing what I can drive and what counts I look to drive ball in." With the power also came a career high in strikeouts, but that doesn't overly concern Robinson. "I didn't even notice it until the end of the year," said Robinson. "Then I saw it and was like, 'Damn! I struck out 143 times?'," he added, while taking an almost sabermetric approach to the number. "Strikeouts will come, it's the same as a popup or a groundout, it's just an out."
As for the stolen bases, the more than doubling of his previous career high can be explained with one simple change. "I had the green light all year," Robinson noted. "They just told me to go, so I went." With those 47 stolen bases came 20 times caught, but that's part of the minors for Robinson. "Every time I got thrown out, it was a different situation," adding, "and every time I learned something." Clearly that's the case, as Robinson was safe on his last 12 attempts for the 66ers.
Asked for a scouting report on his game, Robinson pauses, stammers, and finally says, "Look, I don't know anything about those 20-80 scores or anything like that. You find a guy that has seen me the whole day, from the time I show up to practice to the game, and I want him to tell you I play hard - unbelievably hard - every second I'm out there."
Good stuff on his time in Mormonville, death of a friend, struggles with switch-hitting... I still don't know if he WILL succeed in a big way, but I know I'm definitely rooting for him to.
And he could wind up being really special. For our sake, I hope he is.
~G
Ordinarily, Trayvon might be the guy left out of the 2012 picture, per your "6 rookies" research ...
However, in this case his path to the starting lineup might be verrrrrrrrry streamlined with the hole in CF ... Dr. D's own bumper sticker reads "If TR
Or do you fancy Casper Wells in CF with Justin Upton in LF...
With Trayvon the backup plan if Wells is only a 4th OF or too bad a CFer to last (or Trayvon is just better, which could very well be possible). I think we keep Guti and see if he can heal up over the offseason, which makes him the CF next year with Wells as Mr. Fill-in until it's Trayvon's gig should Guti continue to not work out.
I still think we added a bunch of guys for that eventual bat trade we'll likely have to make. We couldn't get the lumber we needed this year. Jack talked after the deadline about how insanely crazy the prices were for lumber in June and how it was exponentially more expensive to buy extra weeks of a player.
The offseason is less crazed and the prices more stable. If he can get an Upton for the price of a few prospects, I don't see why he wouldn't. Wells can slide to CF, many of our positions are duplicated in the minors...this is what minors depth is FOR: to enable you to give up 4 guys without losing anyone you were really counting on for future ML production.
I think Carp stays at this point. He's out of options so any team that traded for him would have to keep him on the 25-man. What we do with Wells, Trayvon, Chiang, Martinez and all our sudden flood of arms, on the other hand?
Much, much more murky, because I think you build that depth to make the trade you need in order to make your major league club function.
I'm not getting attached to any of the minor league kids or new trade acquisitions right now. Jack may just have traded for a bunch of movable pieces instead of future Mariners. Much easier to make a deal when you say "pick any 3" and the list is 10 names deep in quality prospects instead of 4.
This is the most important offseason we've had since about 2005. We cleared 20+ million in payroll to use, and could be closer to 30 depending on where we stick the payroll line next year. 20 more mil comes off with Ichiro after 2012, then Figgins and Guti after 2013, and Felix after 2014. We have a really good revolving money situation setting up at this point.
Just gotta see where we go with it.
~G