Seattle Sports Insider

Hideki Matsui, Nick Johnson

Posted by

11/15/09

Jason at Prospect Insider suggests that the M's may be Hideki Matsui's second-most-likely landing spot if he does not return to New York.

Putting aside the questions of PC Seattle's emphasis on character guys, and Godzilla's penchant for extreme 'misogynist' literature in the locker room, let's suppose that Capt Jack were interested ... hey, I'm not judging here. :- ) I'm just mentioning that it could be an issue for Howard and Chuck.

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

Matsui is a legit #3-4 hitter -- a #6 hitter in a great lineup, or a #3-4 hitter in a weak one, like ours.

He's 280/370/500 like clockwork -- the little dip in 2008 was second-half only, and due to the bad knee. It's walks, doubles, and lefty homers, with a rock-solid EYE, so you're paying for a left fielder who hits cleanup in Safeco.

I'm not saying that he's Albert Pujols, but if you're talking Godzilla, you're talking (in effect) a second Russ Branyan-level contributor from the left side.

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

Among his most-comparable hitters, per b-ref.com: Jason Bay and Raul Ibanez. HEH!

Seriously, if you're intrigued by Jason Bay but concerned about the match for the park, you should be a Hideki Matsui fan. You couldn't spit for the difference between the two skill sets, and Matsui couldn't be a better match for Safeco Field.

Matsui is a perfect Safeco Field both in theory and in this particular case: he's .312/.361/.541 in 21 games there. Matsui pulls a lot of HR's right down the RF line, and as an acclimated, home player would probably SLG .541 or better at Safeco.

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

As compared to, say, Nick Johnson, Godzilla is more money, a few less walks, a ton more power and relatively healthy prospectus.

Those of you who like Nick Johnson, I respect that, but there are two reasons I want no part of him:

(1) You're talking about a Chris Snelling-class injury type here. From Shandler prior to 2009:

It's Nick's Anatomy, Season 9! After thumb ('01), knee, wrist ('02), hand, back ('03), back, cheek ('04), heel ('05), hand, leg ('06), leg ('07), and wrist woes, you'll thrill to all-new injuries. See what part Nick hurts next!

It's just one body part after another.

.....

(2) Long before I ever met Nick Johnson, I loathed slow 1B's who walk a ton and who don't hit for power.

EXPLANATION: True, by the formulas we use to measure these things, Johnson's incredible walk totals produce sky-high RC/27's and wOBA's.

In theory, he produces a huge number of runs. But on the field, he does not drive in or score runs. He averages 86 R and 80 RBI per 162 games played, career.

It just doesn't do much for your team, if Ichiro's on 2B with 2 out, and you walk, and you boast the 0-5mph time of a South American softshell turtle. Guys whose entire games are WALKS + VERY SLOW BASERUNNING can go "star" for other 100-loss team.

Johnson is far, far overrated per RC/27, EqA and wOBA. Guess Johnson's SLG last year? .405! That's a FIRST baseman.

I don't want Nick Johnson for free, much less for $7M. Well, I'm overstating to make a point. But y'know. I'd rather give AB's to Saunders, Carp, etc., than to an Old Forest tree that walks 100 times a year.

...........

Godzilla? That dude is money. But I wonder if PC Seattle is going to be in on him.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

The Nick Johnson question is

The Nick Johnson question is very close to the Chris Snelling question:

How much do you bet on a guy who is always injured?

There's a difference, though.

Snelling has a career .302/.392/.456/.849 minor league line.

Johnson has a career .273/.402/.449/.849 MAJOR league line.

No matter what happens to Nick, if he's in the lineup he's not gonna Carl Everett you a season. I agree that his OPS+ numbers are inflated as far as his effectiveness, since he was not hitting with power last year, but Edgar and Ole had "over-inflated" OPS+ numbers as well, since they couldn't exactly haul themselves around the bases with speed and precision either. Gar taking a walk instead of a hack with a RISP was frustrating.. but there are worse problems to have.

Still, can you keep Johnson at the plate? His last 3 relatively healthy years were 05, 06 and 09. His OPS+ those years is 137, 149 and 122. Is this 122 indicative of a loss of power (since he wasn't a total slap hitter before...) or just a recovery year? And aren't ALL his years recovery years?

Nick Johnson is an interesting case study. Personally, I'd pay Nick, and then Griffey can play more if/when Nick gets injured. Bring me Johnson and Branyan, for that matter. Odds are one of em makes it out healthy, and we have Carp in AAA as insurance (Carp dreams of being Nick Johnson in the pros, Doc - he's as close as you're going to get to a free Nick Johnson, but it would be the .250/.350/.400/.750 Nick Johnson of Age 23).

But that's just me. I'd rather bet with the pro with the ridiculous OBP, let the kid have another year before throwing him to the wolves (and give us the ability to withstand the potential long-term debuts of Tui and Saunders) and have Nick standing on 1B 40% of the time when Russ Branyan is up. Easier to do more damage with those homers when someone's on base...
~G

Um before you use SLG to downplay nick johnson

Realize that the SLG statistic by defination doesn't account for Walks. I'ts kinda substantial for Nick Johson since his SLG is actually LOWER then his OBP in 2009. That's hard todo especially if your OBP was .479 in Florida this year....
Factor in he was most of the time with a not very high scoring lineup and batting 2nd. The RBI total shouldn't be high. As for runs, it will be higher in 2k10 once he gets healthy..
Also nick johnson is minor league career obp is .446 which very few players in the minor league have that level of batting discipline. I don't know I think your extremely short selling Nick Johnson here...

I dunno that I'd expect Nick

I dunno that I'd expect Nick to "get healthy" in 2010 - "more healthy" is all I can ask for - but as for his slugging:
ISO by year:
2002: 159
2003: 188
2004: 147
2005: 190
2006: 230
2008 (100 ABs): 211
2009: 107
So - 2009 was BY FAR his worst slugging year. You could bet on 150 for his first 3 years in the league and then around 200 for his next couple.
Would you bet that his slugging is gonna be 107 again, or that it's probably going to go up to at least what he was as a wet-behind-the-ears rook (again, assuming some skewed version of health)? I don't think his injuries permanently robbed his power, any more than Sexson's did when we signed him. He broke his femur (not a power risk) and tore his ulnar ligament (potential power risk, but more likely a 2 year injury recovery timetable). By way of comparison: our new CF of the future, Ackley, tore his UCL and had Tommy John surgery. It sapped his power his first year back, but his second year after surgery he clubbed a ton of HRs. Everything was back to normal. Nick didn't have any problems making contact, he just wasn't clearing fences. I expect the fences to clear at previous rates going forward.
Now, even if we split the difference, give Nick the benefit of the doubt and call it a .175 ISO for next season, that's still the bottom 3rd of 1B bats.
2008 ISO:
Konerko .212
LaRoche .211
Butler .191
Helton .164
Murphy .161
Cantu .154
Loney .118
Nick Johnson

On the other hand...

M's do have Chris Shelton sitting in minor league. I mean Chris Shelton is orders of magnitude cheaper and his career numbers suggest Nick Johnson with 4% less OBP careerwise. That's not bad. So for about 95% less you have a virtual Nick Johnson clone with less mlb experience.

Or not.

Considering the Mariners looked at Shelton briefly and decided he wasn't a major leaguer and the Tigers, Rangers, and at least one other team also had Shelton up and agreed with the Mariners that he was not a major leaguer...it should be recognized that the MLB judgment of him is that he can take a walk in AAA, but is too often fooled by big league pitching.

fooled by big league pitching?

His Major league CAREER numbers are
.345 OBP based on ~900Ab's
.457 SLG

Ok those aren't exactly eye popping numbers but THEY ARE at least major league numbers.
Now considering that his minor league Career numbers are
.409 OBP
.509 SLG. So yeah Shelton has plenty of opportunity to grow. He also hit well in tacoma.

Take one one single month.

Take out the month where Shelton went bananas early on in Detroit and he's a .330/.420 major league hitter.

Right

There's a reason why A) Detroit gave up on him three years ago and B) no one else in baseball has cared to give him any meaningful playing time since then. He's simply a bad major leaguer. The guy will turn 30 next year so his minor league numbers are thoroughly underwhelming for someone his age.

Comments continued

rat cheer