Casey McGehee was a middle infield benchie journeyman from 2008 until 2012. In 2012, McGehee washed out of the Pirates and the Yankees with putrid numbers and results. Then he disappeared. Those who remembered McGehee (There weren't many) assumed that he had died or retired into the simple life of a hermit.
McGehee was forgotten, but his baseball life was not gone. In 2013, he lived, beyond league, beyond time, beyond the Pacific Ocean in Sendai, Japan. McGehee awoke in Sendai to a strange new world of baseball. He had a vision: In his own words to the Japan Times:
“I changed my hitting approach after spring training last year in Japan when I saw all the breaking balls they throw. . .The pitchers there throw any pitch at any time. . .I tried to go the other way and let the ball get deep (into the hitting zone).”
McGehee put his vision into practice and immediately became the fifth greatest hitter in Japan. He had a triple slashline of .292/.376/.515/.891 with 28 home runs. The Rakuten Golden Eagles, fueled by his play, and that of legendary Masuhiro Tanaka, won the NPB championship.
But not all was easy for McGehee in his ascent to hitting greatness. One day, he was startled by a BABIP dragon.
It had already devoured two ball players and was ready to consume McGehee head first. A battle was fought that day on the beach in Sendai that was felt on the instrumentation of the tsunami warning center in nearby Iwaki. That day, McGehee slew the BABIB dragon. As its lifeless body began to sink into the waves, McGehee quickly beheaded the beast with a forceful slicing arc as a trophy of his conquest.
That day, McGehee learned to hit line drives to all fields. Consider the following:
The chartreuse dots are the money dots for a baseball player with ordinary power. They indicate a screaming meemie line drive. The pink dots are almost as good. Blue generally equals a can of corn. Casey McGehee hits chartreuse dots often and to all fields. So does another ballplayer I've grown accustomed to. I count 41 chartreuse dots for Cano and 37 for McGehee. Robinson Cano is running a .366 Babip this year. McGehee has similar results, because he does similar things.
It was on witnessing the 9,000th fly ball out by Safeco hitters, and this recent monstrosity, the shift, that I became disenchanted with the blue dot and became suspicious of all hitters who produce them in abundance, and hitters who aggregate all of their good hits on one side of the field or another.
Contrast these spray charts with that of Justin Smoak:
With Smoak, there are more blue than pink dots, and the chartreuse dots are fewer and almost all aggregated in right field, where Smoak has been shifted without mercy by his many enemies. Not to pick on the guy, but Safeco field calendars all balls with abundant hang time for summary judgment.
Cano costs a quarter billion bucks. McGehee is showing some of the same skills, and may only cost a few Tacoma Rainiers. Plus, it is said that he's fast and plays a few different positions. Plus, as Matt said, he'd be replacing Ackley or Chavez. Thumbs up.
Get well soon Doc. If you are stuck in the hospital, we can do our best to churn out some interesting reading material for you.
Look at that hangtime chart for Smoak! No WONDER he's worthless to the Mariners. When he was hitting better in 2013, he hit those high balls but with greater batted ball velocity...but that is hard to do consistently. BRUTAL.
Yes...Gimme McGehee for a couple interesting but unnecessary ballplayers. For that matter...gimme McGehee and Kelly up here now since Kelly does the same thing.
I have no concern about adding a McGehee beyond these two points:
1. He riding the crest of a .395 PAPIP vs. RHP! No wonder he has so many pink dots! If that falls to a "pedestrian" .335, what happens to McGehee's numbers? I don't know...but he's probably cheap enough to find out.
2. He plays exactly where? In his whole MLB career (including Japan) he's played exactly 1 game in the OF, that was in .2009. He has never played a MiLB game out there. But as a platooning on base machine at DH, well he would be interesting. Bat him lead-off against RHP. Then platoon him with Montero, our resident red-headed step-child. That would be a decent combo, way better than Hart and more Hart. In that role, you could use him to spell Seager and LoMo, as well. This would be a good move...but only a complementary one. Also, bring up Kelly to play for Chavez and your team OBP gets much healthier pretty darn fast. Matt's got that right.
Basically...a cheaper version of Ben Zobrist. No experience in the OF but plenty athletic enough to hack it in LF if needed. Get yer mcGehee supersub, drop in Montero and Kelly, DFA Hart, and trade for Rios.
Yep. See my shout, Matt.
To do that means you have to drop Hart and Chavez, re-demote Romero and trade or demote Smoak. I have no problem with any of that. It leaves you with Willie or Ackly as your BU CF. I have no problem with that. When/If Saunders can play, then you may close to roster expansion, anyway.
The point about 'similar skills to Cano' was a showstopper. Like Bat571's (awesome) eye roll about baseball men having to deal with close quarters.
Feel free to put up articles with "Safeco Hang Time Axioms" for all 750 major league players. You may start with each Mariner. We can presume that Kyle Seager's home performance is reflected in chartreuse and pink?
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Would also like to know your projected OBP for him as a Mariner, this year and next. If McGehee really going to OBP .370+, even here, then he could play LF without power ... issue is that if he drops a notch or two, here's another 100 OPS+ corner OF...
Zobrist, for me, is an exception to the "if he drops one notch" problem because Zobrist's slash line is proven stable in a court of law ... it doesn't matter what I believe, Counselor, it matters what I can prove ... ;- )
But if McGehee's OBP holds up, he becomes quite the Zobrist alternative... even Dr. "Stars & Scrubs" Detecto prefers a high OBP-McGehee to Zobrist with cost associated...
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The Cecil Fielder NPB logic itself -- learn to let the ball get deep; get a great look at it before you pull the trigger -- this juror finds that logic 100% convincing in general, and in McGehee's specific case. Whether there is horsepower leakage to the back wheels somewhere in the projection -- something we're missing -- that's tougher, but it's the kind of logic *I* would bet on as a GM.
McGehee as a second bat in, after Stanton or Gehrig or somebody, would be pretty blinkin' cool. We could admire every Mojician Chartreuse Dot in the postgames as they occurred.
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Thath high quality H20
Are you talking about the yellow
I meant the reddish pink dots. I thought that was what chartreuse was. I'm getting my Crayola crayon colors mixed up.
Thanks
Second time you had me laughing and laughing, mojician. "...getting my Crayola crayon colors mixed up." Pure Americana. When I was a kid, I was partial to Burnt Orange. But in the early '60's what kid didn't crave the giant 64-pack with the much-coveted built-in sharpener?! If your parent were frugal like ours (I later appreciated this), we had to be satisfied with 8 or12 and hope for 24.
Man, they were sweet! Built-in sharpener and everything. 12-Packs were good for your average coloring book but you needed a 64-er for the high end stuff. You know, like The Jungle Book or Tom and Jerry.
I wanted one and that would have been the 90s...!
All the kids now have 16 million colors on their iPads now. But they will never know the significance of the built in sharpener!
mojican, you have a fantastic humor bone and great analysis. Keep rockin'!
I had three siblings when I was little (a fourth came later), and the sharp ones were in demand. We didn't get replacements but maybe once a year, so we had to husband what we had. There was LOTS of sibling competition for colors. My mom tended to get us the generic coloring books, I assume they were less expensive.
Your and Moe's point that McGehee had better continue to hit special to man a corner outfield spot with questionable D is a good one. Regression and projection stuff is beyond my pay grade. I can competently predict simple things like: McGehee will hit better than Smoak in 2015. I just know that I like line drive hitters and think they do well at Safeco. That is probably fairly trite, like saying you wish the Mariners had prime Edgar or Ichiro back.
Also, this rumor seems to have died already as the news is saying McGehee isn't for sale. So the answer for Zobrist vs McGehee is neither nor. Boo.
Do you y ' all think that if the Mariners traded for Kendrys Morales he would try to break back into Cuba?