Seattle Sports Insider

PTI on Russell Branyan

Posted by

3/25/09

The muscled young toughs of the barrio protest that Russell Branyan maybe CAN hit lefties. Good stuff, amigos. :- ) Even while spray-painting my warnings about bringing RB into the LHP house, we were laughing wondering whether half the local monstas would argue that maybe he can hit lefties.

Maybe he can. Wouldn't that be cool, to pull a .380 OBP, 35-homer, 110-RBI star off the shelf at Branyan's salary... If Oakland can do it with Jack Cust, why not us with Russell Branyan?

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1. If a thoughtful analyst, let's say Don Wakamatsu or one of you amigos, believes that Branyan could do fine vs LHP given a fair chance... I do respect that. Maybe Wok is thinking exactly as you guys are.

So, fine, will spray-paint in smaller font, in deference to youse guys' interest in seeing what happens when Branyan gets his chance.

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2. And as you guys are quick to argue back, Branyan has a career .285 OBP vs LHP but a pretty good SLG against them. In other words, he gives you blizzards of outs but also stings lefties with homers. San-Man argues that this creates an overall .730 OPS effect that is completely acceptable (as opposed to the Greek tragedy that Dr. D forecast).

True, true ... most guys look weak if you just look at them with the platoon disadvantage. A lot of good lefty hitters would show 730 or worse, if you just talked vs LHP.

We acknowledge San-Man's most fundamental point, here, that Branyan's weakness vs LHP shouldn't be overemphasized. :daps:

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3. But let's talk 730 OPS's.

As a graduate of the 1970's Kingdome, I loathe [.285 OBP's with homers to compensate]. Steve Balboni never did my numb backside any good up there on the steel planks of the Kingdome.

The .730 OPS may look all right, but if Branyan is actually going to show you .200/.280/.450, I predict that you will toss your cookies by June. :- )

That's going to be a whale of a lot of outs, right in the middle of rallies. Time after time after time. With a few homers thrown in. You won't like the look of it, it sez here. Neither will the W/L column.

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4. Should we compare Branyan's .730 OPS to what the Mariners as a team did in 2008, while losing 102 games? Or should we compare it to what Chris Shelton / healthy Mike Sweeney would hit, at 1B, with the platoon advantage?

Let's say that it turns out that Branyan could defend himself a little bit against lefties. The point of reference here is still Mike Sweeney *with the platoon advantage.* How in the world would RB ever outhit that?

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5. But you amigos are thinking that at 33, he can develop his game against lefties. :- ) Here's the real killer, Dmitri:

169 - Strikeouts per season, Russ Branyan, career

Branyan is a TTO player. He whiffs by the bucketload. Those 169 K's are WITH the platoon advantage: he fans 170 times a year VERSUS RIGHTIES.

Branyan's swing, and deep counts, and pitch stalking, are going to have him constantly in 2-strike counts against lefties who can leisurely decide whether to butcher him with curves or fastballs -- exactly as Kershaw did last night.

In other words, the stats show signs of LHP-hitting potential, maybe (the 450 SLG). But does Russ Branyan show that potential in the batter's box? I argue no. Pitch-stalking isn't going to work against lefties who gleefully pump sidearm strikes in there against a guy who's barely ever seen them.

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6. I like Branyan -- have argued for acquiring him, in Safeco, for three years.

But let's not get carried away about his level of talent. Jack Cust has hit for a 140 OPS+ the last two years. Russell Branyan's career OPS+ is 109 -- in 2,300 PA's. Branyan isn't a star in camoflage, like Cust was. He's an underrated hitter who can play major league baseball.

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I love TTO guys, but a lefty-on-lefty pitch-stalking game can get pretty ugly. The good news is, Branyan's 90-100 OPS+ against LHP's might turn into 100-110 in Safeco, since the park favors lefties so much.

If Wok, and the smart guys in the barrio, want to see Branyan get a chance against LHP's, I respect it. But I want it on the record that I predicted a very avoidable train wreck on this one. ;- )

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

statistically, a .730 OPS

statistically, a .730 OPS that's mostly SLG is indeed less valuable than a .730 OPS that's mostly OBP (McLemore-types). And I was not arguing that I would prefer to see Branyan hit lots of lefties...nor do I anticipate the Mariners going that route. What I was saying was that you could spot him against the kinds of lefties he could hit (junkballers and below average talents) if you needed to (e.g. if your righty platoon bat is injured)...and you're not talking about an automatic out up there just because you don't want ot pinch hit the righty in the 6th inning when you might need him in the 8th.

Agree with Matt, that .730

Agree with Matt, that .730 OPS alone doesn't tell the "whole" story. I'd prefer a .730 guy tilted toward OBP myself. But, it's not like the world fell in love with Willie B when he was posting his .380ish OBP last season.
Balboni was posting a 4.7 RC/27 with Seattle in 1988.
Willie B was posting a 4.8 RC/27 with Seattle in 2008.
This was their OVERALL total.
With Branyan, we're discussing how good/bad he is when disadvantaged.
His career picture says that he is mid-4s RC/27 producer in his WORST situations. This isn't a recommendation to start him over someone who can produce 5.0 against lefties. It's an acknowledgement that Branyan's production in this situation isn't a slam dunk call, (though this depends on the other options available).
My own belief is that part-time play has a suppressing effect on production. Branyan doesn't have 400 PAs against lefties in 10 years -- so I look at the .730 against lefties quizzically. I don't know what the reality is. Maybe more time against lefties could improve that to .760. Maybe, because of the small sample size, he's actually been lucky, and he's less than a .700 hitter against lefties.
I'm trying to acknowledge the doubt of assuming perfect knowledge of what a hitter is, when he's barely managed to get playing time for 10 years -- but has mostly averaged 6.0 and up RC/27 in the PT he's gotten. Ibanez RC/27 the past three years was: 6.4/6.0/6.1. Branyan posted a .75 for Milwaukee last season.
I'm wondering, if you let him produce his 4.5 against lefties, does it help keep him sharp against righties? I dunno. I don't think anyone CAN know -- until you give him a shot. Maybe trying to work on his game against lefties will hurt him against righties. (In 2002, his most active season against lefties - 62 PAs -- he posted an .841 OPS against lefties, while only managing a .764 against righties).
In point of fact, he posted a higher OPS against lefties than righties in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2006.
What does that tell us about 2009? Not much -- other than his actual production does NOT indicate a slam-dunk-hopeless-against-lefties reality.
Ultimately, he's an UGLY, but effective, hitter. And based on my knowledge of the game, it is actually the fact that he's an ugly hitter, (.230/.330/.480) that has kept him on the bench. Managers don't like hitters who whiff a lot. Managers don't like low BAs, (**REGARDLESS OF OBP**). And the fans have grown up with the same bias. Striking out "feels" like more of a failure than grounding out to second. But, Seattle assembled an entire team of guys incredibly proficient in grounding out to second.
In truth, the sabr guys seem to like the TTO guys on paper a LOT more than they like them when forced to watch.

Branyan's hitting profile

Branyan's hitting profile isn't one that usually succeeds against same-side pitchers. At 33 I'd be suprised if he could even repeat his career lines.

That's something that a new

That's something that a new manager needs to SEE though...that's why Branyan is starting against lefties more this spring. Wak is also acknowledging the complexity of the problem as Sandy would and is getting as much info as he can.
He learned from that start against the ace lefty that Branyan can't hit ace lefties...check. Now we can move on to checking other lefty types.

What's the over/under on the

What's the over/under on the number of AB's Branyan gets against LH pitching? Or Griffey, even?
It's really too bad that the club has to go with a four man bench. Sweeney and Shelton would make an interesting 1B/DH platoon for those two.

one of those two (or both)

one of those two (or both) are going to have to see significant time against leftie.s..there's no way around it.
I'd rather that one be Griffey because even against the lefties his eye ratio, while not great, is not tragic. Branyan, on the other hand..........
The Mariners, if they're going to score enough to win, are going to have to put together 15 hard at bats a day. Grind it out...get to the bullpen a lot...take lots of pitches. They weren't well built to do that but Z got as many guys as he could who would help in that regard (Branyan, Shelton/Sweeney, Griffey, Gutierrez, Chavez (yes Chavez...his P/PA is not bad for a slap hitter))...they're going to have to hope they can become patient and tough enough at the plate to cover their other weaknesses.

My desire would be to keep

My desire would be to keep both Sweeney and Shelton on the roster, and then you could keep both Branyan and Griffey on the bench against most lefties. But, I think it's a slam-dunk that 99% of managers are going to bench Branyan against lefties and keep Griffey in the lineup.
I think it could be argued "at this stage in their careers", that Junior and Branyan may be practically the same numerical production against lefties -- and that Griffey would probably benefit more with the off days than Branyan would, (if it came down to a choice between the two).
Maybe Griffey/Branyan vs. lefties is a coin flip situation. Maybe not. But, any way you look at it, the roster (as it seems to be coming together), is going to be pretty juicy against RHPs, but will require some unfortunate decisions when a lefty is on the mound.
If Wlad takes a step forward, I'd be THRILLED with a Branyan/Sweeney platoon at 1B and a Griffey/Wlad platoon at DH, (with just enough days in LF to keep Griffey happy).

Yeah...sounds like the

Yeah...sounds like the Mariners are going to take Wlad north as the other left fielder to go with Chavez...Wlad would probably start like half the games in left and Chavez and Griffey would share the other half. But when you're not using Wlad, you could stick Chavez in left for his glove against left handed pitching and put Wlad in for Griffey...something like:
RF) Ichiro
2B) Lopez
3B) Beltre
1B) Sweeney
CF) Gutierrez
C) Johjima
DH) Balentien
SS) Betancourt
LF) Chavez