I would remind the good Doctor ... early in the season, when the team DER was .666, the team ERA+ was in the 80s, too. So, upping the OPS+ to 95 doesn't make headway *IF* the ERA+ drops back to 88.
IMO, one MUST ask the question ... "how large is the impact on the defense LIKELY to be?" before breaking into another versus of "Baby Got Bat" --- (" I love big bats and I cannot lie ... ")
BUT ... you could absolute SLAY this suggestion by looking at the CURRENT UZR numbers for the 4 players in question. Per Fangraphs, the UZR (for 2010) for these guys happen to be:
LROD = +1.0
Kennedy = +0.5 (2B)
Wilison = (- 2.0) -- (2B)
Ryan = (- 2.7) -- (SS)
Small samples and eyes-on scouting aside ... the current read says you improve the DEFENSE by making your suggested swap. In all honesty, I'd accept the premise that Ryan and Wilson are 'better' gloves than LROD & Kennedy, (which would likely bear out over time in a larger sample). But, I'd argue the difference between them is so small as makes no odds.
Personally, I think Wilson is stuck at 2B because they KNOW he's gone when Ackley comes up, so they're trying to pile up innings for Ryan at SS, so he can get comfortable with the team, staff, catcher, etc. until "The Wind" arrives (like a breath of fresh air). Of course, if Ryan continues his quest to make Ronny Cedeno look like a good hitter, LROD could wrest the SS job away from him before that happens. But, I don't expect Jack to see short except in an emergency.
My take is this ... a *LARGE* chunk of the defensive disaster of early April was Langerhans in Center. And, (coincidentally ... I think not), when Langer-no-hands stopped getting lots of PT in CF, the DER started improving drastically.
I completely agree that LROD needs to have his role at short expanded. As for second ... that's less of an issue in my mind, since the expected move there is for Ackley to take over.
While I don't think the move would "really" up the OPS+ to 95, (Kennedy is in no way really as good as he's been hitting ... a tad better than Jack ... sure. But at age 35, you can best expect an 85 OPS out of him, not a 124. Ryan, on the other hand, is simply not a good hitter. He's a poor excuse for a Willie Bloomquist type bench guy, IMO. I think Z thought he saw something that simply wasn't there.
SLOPS TO THE LOST CHANCES AT 32/32 QUALITY STARTS - I was kind of hoping for a 23-4, 1.99 season with 32 quality starts. Reality sinks in and we may have to settle for something more like Justin Verlander's best season (19-9, 3.45). We kid ... probably.
...........
In this March 16th article, we gave our $0.02 as to why anybody would ever score runs on Michael Pineda. :- ) He threw 22 strikes to open the game that day, gave up four or five hard hits, and gave the false impression that he might be something other than a miracle.
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On May 4th, Michael again stuck his fingers too deep into the tiger's mouth -- simply getting too much of the plate, too often. I looked up at one time and he'd thrown 51 strikes and 8 balls, or something like that.
Sully had a great line. 'Most rookie pitchers have to learn to throw strikes. Pineda has to learn to throw balls,' or somesuch. Just so!
In the middle '70's, the Cliff Lee of the day was a guy named Frank Tanana. He used to say, "Man, my ERA would be zero-plus if I could just learn to stop throwing a strike every blinkin' pitch," or something like that.
We've seen the syndrome come up from time to time as super-pitchers develop an Achilles Complex that they don't need armor and shield. They are always around the plate, always in the strike zone, the hitters are always swinging, and once in a while the hitters square one up.
.........
Anyway. Pineda's first four starts, he showed a remarkably mature caution around the zone -- striking out only about 5-6 men per outing, but staying out of the middle of the plate.
Game five, he started playing with fire, striking out nine men in 6 innings but giving up some fly balls.
Game six, he got bit a little, ratcheting up a sick number of swinging strikes but getting stung for a couple of big flies.
..........
We don't say that Pineda's going to get tatered every time he challenges a hitter. :- ) His HR/game goes to what, 0.4 now?
We say only that when runs do score off Pineda, it's going to be because he's always around the plate and they're always swinging. It happened to Randy Johnson. The batters arm-swung and when they squared it up, Randy supplied the power and he'd give up 20 homers a year. It becomes a game of "let the big guy supply the power for you."
Pineda is a Game 7 starter, right now. SSI shudders to think what he'll be, once he gets some weather on him.
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PROPS TO C.J. WILSON who, a few years back, used to be a roto fave. Right now he's looking awfully Bedard'ish.
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SLOPS TO THE M'S 4-MAN BULLPEN. As Geoff Baker points out, the M's have let Ray, Wilhelmsen and Cortes/Lueke nowhere near the mound once they started winning.
He recommends bringing Aardsma up and dropping two RP's in the hope of increasing their usable relievers to five.
The other guys can't pitch in the majors, Lueke not yet anyway, and Tom Wilhelmsen is a starting pitcher. He needs work. They've got three guys in their pen that they believe are useless, so they should do something about it...
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PROPS TO THE M'S ROTATION which needs only a 5- or 6-man pen. Their five starters are averaging over 6 innings per game with a TTO of 160/60/14 in 30 games. They'll provide the seventh reliever themselves, thank you very much.
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PROPS TO THE M'S JUNIOR VARSITY. Want to know how to raise the M's OPS+ from 90 to 95 right now? Lemme show ya:
- 61 - OPS+, Jack Wilson
- 42 - Brendan Ryan
- 123 - Adam Kennedy
- 106 - Luis Rodriguez
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Take a ballgame in which a 100 OPS+ hitter is substituted for a 55 OPS+ hitter. That's 45 OPS+ points (I know, I know, save the quibbles; I know about the jobshare and the way the OPS+ scale works and all that. This is big-picture stuff).
Take your 45 OPS points and divide them by the 9 slots in the batting order. That's 5 points for the whole offense.
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We're just noodling, and there are 9,000 things sloppy about that math, but still. Whether you replace an average hitter with Mark Teixeira, or whether you replace a terrible hitter with an average one -- it is exactly the same thing. You are boosting your whole lineup by 5-8 OPS+ points.
Would you like to replace Milton Bradley with Adam Dunn? Bad example... would you like to replace Bradley with another Justin Smoak? You can do the same thing by replacing a glove-first utility infielder with a bat-first utility infielder.
If you could replace Bradley with Dunn free, of course you would. Why even hesitate to replace a very poor MI with one who can rake?
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Those OPS+ lines don't lie. Adam Kennedy and Luis Rodriguez (1) actually are hitters -- Kennedy always has been -- and (2) they are fitted to Safeco, brethren. Ryan and Wilson are glove specialists. You want offense?, simply play your bats at SS and 2B.
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Brendan Ryan isn't even helping the team defensively. He's -3 runs UZR. (I don't say he's not good. I say his glove is not impacting the game, yet, anyway. You're not losing anything you currently have to sub him out.)
Why is Brendan Ryan entitled to 155 games?! Earl used to pull Belanger when he needed runs.
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Why does Jack Wilson never play a game at short this year? Are they afraid he would ask to play a second one there? Do they have no emergency response plan if he does so? Did Scrapiron Stinson flush his SS glove down the john?
That's an important way to clear AB's for lefty hitters. Give them 30%, 40% of Ryan's AB's for the short term.
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Kennedy and Rodriguez are playing. A lot. Good on yer, Mr. Wedge. But they should play even more. Wilson-Kennedy one day, Ryan-Kennedy one day, Kennedy-LRod another day, and a lot of times those lefty bats will win a 1-run game for yer.
You lucked out and woke up with JV players who are better than your varsity? Well, nepotism is illogical, said Sarek.
If I were managing, either Kennedy or LRod would be in every day, and some days they'd both be in. Until I had a respectable offense.
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95, by the way, was the OPS+ the 2005 White Sox used to win the World Series.
From 90 to 95, right now.
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My $0.02,
Dr D
Comments
"(Kennedy is in no way really as good as he's been hitting ... a tad better than Jack ... sure. But at age 35, you can best expect an 85 OPS out of him, not a 124...)"
The Giants won a World series in part because 33 year old Aubrey Huff posted the 2nd best OPS+ of his career after an 81 the year before.
I know Kennedy is no Huff, and older besides, but guys get freak half-years all the time. Kennedy is 2 years removed from a 100 OPS+ season when he had an .800 OPS against RHP. He was awful against RHP last year, which is what caused his numbers to tank, but his BABIP was .262. I agree with previous statements you've made that a low BABIP consistently can be because you're losing your ability to hit and make solid contact...but does Kennedy look like he's having that problem to you?
He's always been a hundred OPS points better against righties, as you'd expect, and he's always hit them hard (.312 BABIP career against em) until last year.
Ryan, OTOH, has no demonstrated hit skill against either hand. I actually like him, but if he can't hit then he can't play. Period. Wilson's better against lefties for his career, as you'd expect, so work out a job share.
Wilson is not in our future plans. Ryan is showing it might not be a good idea for him to be either. Kennedy's not a long-term guy and L-Rod doesn't have the range for short long-term, IMO, but patch it together for this year.
We have 4 middle infielders, two of whom are hitting. I agree with both of you - play the guys who can hit right now and risk giving up a 4 bounce grounder into the hole.
For as long as Kennedy is seeing the ball well and getting "lucky" let him swing the bat. L-Rod hasn't hit the ball much but when he does it goes for extras, and he gets on base.
Patch the bottom of the lineup into some semblance of an 85-90 OPS and the offense might not gutter out.
~G
vs. RHP:
RF) Ichiro 3B) Figgins DH) Cust (OBP high) 1B) Smoak 2B) Kennedy C) Olivo LF) Bradley CF) Saunders SS) Rodriguez/Ryan (use the defensive guy with your groundball pitchers and the offensive guy with your flyball pitchers)
vs. LHP:
RF) Ichiro 3B) Figgins LF) Bradley 1B) Smoak C) Olvio CF) Langerhans DH) Rodriguez 2B) Wilson SS) Ryan
When Gutierrez gets back, the LHP line-up will get a lot better looking...it would go something like:
vs. RHP
RF) Ichiro! 3B) Figgins DH) Cust 1B) Smoak 2B) Kennedy C) Olivo CF) Gutierrez LF) Saunders SS) Rodriguez/Ryan
vs. LHP)
RF) Ichiro! 3B) Figgins DH) Bradley 1B) Smoak CF) Gutierrez C) Olivo LF) Langerhans 2B) Wilson/Rodriguez (again, you play the better fielder with your groundball pitchers) SS) Ryan
...I would want to go to a 6 man bullpen by optioning Cortes back where he belongs and DFA'ing Ray (in lieu of Aardsma)...which would make our pen CL) Aardsma SU) League SU) Wright MR) Pauley MR) Laffey LR) Wilhelmson (who looked pretty good to me last night and is getting better as time goes on) You'd run a five-man bench with two from Kennedy/Rodriguez/Wilson/Ryan sitting, one of Langerhans/Saunders sitting, one of Cust/Bradley sitting and Giminez.
Oh, I completely concede that Kennedy "could" have a career year at age 35. It happens.
But, I would "expect" an 85 (ish) OPS+ from any 35-year-old with a career 88 OPS+. (I'd "expect" an 80-ish OPS+ from Jack, btw).
But, Kennedy is viewed as help at 2B (primarily), with the R&R duo manning short. Ryan is the only guy signed for 2012. So, whether starting or backing up, Ryan sticks around.
I think a lot more of the decision making going on today is about "who will be paired with Dustin?" than about just the day-to-day games of 2011. Kennedy will NOT be playing short in 2012. Wilson will not be playing short in 2012. That leaves R&R. I think Ryan and Rodriguez are currently auditioning for the supporting role in "The Ack-Man Cometh" play set to open later this year.
The "book" says Ryan is better glove - LROD is better bat. What the club has to do in the next month or two is determine the "relative" differences in those two variable and compute which guy produces more wins. Of course, since SS is one of the Big3 up-the-middle defense positions, defense will (and should) carry more weight than say ... left field. But, if LROD can prove he's "adequate" at short - (league average) - with a plus bat ... then Ryan will need to prove he's EXCEPTIONAL defensively - with a minus bat.
I think Ryan has two shots at losing his slot --- if his bat lingers below .500 OPS for long ... OR, if his defense isn't hands-down NUMERICALLY better than LROD. Personally, I think he's losing on both fronts at the moment ... and the 2-year contract is the only thing keeping his clock ticking.
I think the club sees LRod AND Ryan as part of the solution to pair with Ackley. Deciding who gets to play MORE...well that's yet to be determined, although I think because Ackley is weak defensviely ATM, yoiu will see Ryan there to help him out at least in 2011 far more than you'll see LRod. But I think both of those guys get to stick around into 2012 as a quasi-platoon (but instead of platoon bat it's platoon glove with the defensive-minded guy playing a lot of the time except when the overall offense needs a boost).
Just 0.02 worth
Nice suggestions for offensive help. We do, indeed, need to maximize LRods and Kennedy's AB's. Seeing LRod at SS for a game or two would be interesting.
But our collapsing OF performance is more troublesome to me. Bradley? Not much of a live bat, right now. Not seeing it happening soon either. He looks nearly done as a punishing bat.
Saunders? I'm rapidly arriving at the conclusion that he doesn't even have the bat to play CF and is a 4th OF, Langerhans-style, AT BEST!
A quick look at the numbers is depressing. Against RHP, where he should have the platoon advantage, he is only a bit better than he is against LHP, and he is terrible there. In '10 his split against righties looked like .215-.311-.376, Eeeeeesh! This year it's .196-.255-.333. Double eeeesh! His BABIP has been .263 and .261.....Low, indeed, but about what he deserves considering his lack of LD's and his abundance of weak groundouts.
Going back to AAA, we find a guy who never really ripped the ball at that level (minus one 60 game '10 stretch). In 480 PA's he's hit .274-.346.-.449 with 16 HR's and only 20 doubles. He's not even an .800 OPS guy one level down, and minus one streak he's not even close. I know he's only 24, but I'm not seeing anything near a MLB productive bat skill set.
For me Saunders can't sit down fast enough, right now. Guti? I don't expect any helpful bat production at all from him this year, really. I thought Saunders might hit enough to be a CF-type. That isn't going to happen, it appears. Maybe we can get Carrera back from Cleveland?
Anyway....Right now we get zilch production from LF, DH, CF AND SS & 2B. (and I'm giving Figgy the benefit of his recent resurgence) We can kind of address the SS/2B issues with guys at hand. The other three....we better be creative. Cust and Bradley take care of themselves after the year ends. But this year they still kill us. Saunders? 4th OF at best. I thought one day he could hurt RHP with 20 long balls every year. Honestly, I don't see that anymore. I think I liked the "loopy" effort better. Once in a while the ball flew out of the a park.
Can we really compete this year? R-E-A-L-L-Y? Not with this lineup.
Not sure I want to write off the year just yet, but agreed that Saunders is not a major leaguer. Of couerse I've been saying he's not a major leaguer since 2008. He's uuuuugly at the plate right now. Literally can not catch up to a 91 mph (admittedly well-located) fastball in a hitter's count...let alone a challenge 95 mph pitch right down the middle. He isn't scaring ANYONE right now. Maybe he just looks slow because he's in a slump, but to me...he looks like a lost cause. Bradley is obviously not seeing the ball well...but I don't think he's done...he was seeing the ball better early in the year and hitting with authority at that time. Slumps happen...it's not like his bat is slow or his eye is poor...he's just in a funk. We need to find a legit outfield bat...if we can find someone who hits enough to play LF, Gutierrez can hit like Paul Blair for all I care as long as he plays defense like Paul Blair.
Was never high on him ... but he was the best shot the club had among the Bavasi left-overs.
When Guti is ready, if Saunders hasn't shown "something", I think you have to demote Saunders and let Langerhans continue as the #4 OF. I just don't see much positive in keeping Saunders around if he isn't getting many PAs. But, maybe there is a chance he could finish re-tooling his swing with an extended stay at Tacoma are return later in the year.
Agree also that R&R look like a reasonable duo going forward - just a question of the PT split. Though I also think Ryan, (like Saunders), is moving rapidly toward the discard pile and his only saving grace may be that Nick Franklin is too far away to be a threat just yet.
In his swing, in himself...I hate seeing the deer-in-the-headlight looks when he comes up with runners on. Nothing good can come of it. We know it and worse, he knows it.
A reporter asked Smoak if he was comfortable in the heart of the lineup, if there was pressure from it. Smoak looked at him like he had grown another head. "I've hit in the heart of the lineup MY WHOLE LIFE, so I'm comfortable there. It would be strange NOT to be there. Pressure comes with batting there. We have to score more runs and we should..." and went on to talk about how disappointed he was to have only come up with a sac fly with 2 runners on instead of getting both of em home.
Michael Saunders does not have that reaction. He came from Canada, with its sparse history of major league batters. There have been a few great ones, Like Larry Walker and Matt Stairs. Jason Bay and Russell Martin. Joey Votto is a canuck, right?
After that, the well gets dry pretty quickly. Saunders was always a raw talent that we were trying to mold into a great batter, but he's a slow learner. It always takes him a little bit to get his feet under him. But he's scared at the plate, unable to unleash even when he knows what the pitch is, and can't drive anything. And in pressure situations, he's cracking.
Matt and I had an argument about his potential a couple of years ago, with me thinking he'd be okay if he was playing CF and Matt thinking he wasn't a major league bat at all. Right now Matt looks to have called it.
Maybe he IS Jeremy Reed all over again, and the bat won't play in the bigs. With Michael's slow learning curve, I'm more of the opinion that he'll be an okay bat if someone will let him play CF...in about 2014.
He's about to wash out here for the 2nd time. If Guti comes back for good I don't see Saunders being kept as more than that 4th outfielder you mention.
I don't know how many more chances as an everyday player he's going to get with us to prove otherwise, because right now it's pretty ugly at the plate.
~G
I can live with a Guti as Blair scenario.....as long as we have a Mariner version of Don Buford in LF, getting on base 40% of the time and OPS+'ing 130 or so!
Bradley, by all accounts, is a pretty happy camper right now. But that makes his offensive decline even more concerning. Perhaps he did just "cool off," but he's gone glacial cold. If he could scratch his way back up to .257/.378, like he did in Chicago in '09, I would be ecstatic. But you're looking at a guy who's a .207/.300 guy the last two seasons. We're we on the horse track and looking at the form chart, I'm not sure we'ld be plopping down much cash on win or place for Bradley. Show might be all we can hope for.
There's and interesting conjunction coming up. How long to we keep PA'ing Bradley and Cust if they don't produce and we keep sniffing along the playoff trail? Do you gamble on a new bat that might propel you forward? And if we don't keep sniffing along that trail, when do we jettison them?
All the same, Saunders had some ability to launch last year. This new Saunders doesn't hit it any more often and certainy doesn't have as much "launchability."
Get Guti back (but don't expect any bat), find a Seattle version of Buford for LF (which will require a bit of a dice throw), and stick the hottest of Cust/Milton at DH. But all that requires abandoning two players.....Langerhans (unless he becomes a fulltime LF) and the worst of Cust/Bradley.
I bet there is some debate going on right now on who goes when Guti comes back. A AAA trip for Saunders would essentially be waving the white flag. Keeping him means your 4th OF is pretty offensively ugly. If it's me? You know my answer. Why not....
No quibbles with somebody who projects AK-47 to an 85 type bat.
Thing is, you gotta watch him swing in this park. His normal 4.5 RC offensive game just plays up here.
AK has always been a hitter for a 2B and this park makes him better than he is.
......
LRod may very well be a good hitter now in an absolute sense.
.......
It's not a question you need a lot of math for. AK and LRod are just much better Safeco hitters than the varsity guys are IMHO.
Wedge seems well aware of this, but there seem to be political factors tying his hands as far as Ryan playing every day and Wilson getting 'entitled' PA share.
:daps:
I tell ya G, you have just flat got a feel for the game a' hardball... Pleasure to watch you work bro'....
Not that other commenters here don't, either.... At times ol Dr D just basks in the chatter heah...
"We need to find a legit outfield bat...if we can find someone who hits enough to play LF, Gutierrez can hit like Paul Blair for all I care as long as he plays defense like Paul Blair."
We already have that bat in the system, unfortunately they want him to play 2B. Let Ackley play LF and let him swing his bat without all that stress on working the count because he does not need it.
The only reason he even made the club was the lack fo Guti and the need for a CF (which Langerhans ain't...not full time). When Guti comes back...Saunders has got to go...I'd rather keep Langerhans and hope for a hot streak than let Saunders rot on the pine and never get hot. With Guti back, I'd consider calling up Mike Wilson rather than going with Langerhans...at that point it would make sense, especially against lefties.
vs. RHP:
RF) Ichiro 3B) Figgins DH) Cust (still gets on base...the Ks matter less hitting #3 than further down) 1B) Smoak 2B) Kennedy C) Olivo LF) Bradley CF) Gutierrez SS) Ryan/Rodriguez
vs. LHP:
RF) Ichiro 3B) Figgins DH) Bradley 1B) Smoak C) Olivo LF) Wilson CF) Gutierrez 2B) Wilson SS) Ryan
At Wilson gives you a dice roll at some ability to turn on a gimme strike and hit for power...which is more than you can say of Saunders.
Smoak and Saudners were born 2 weeks apart in 1986.
Smoak is a gifted baseball player.
Saunders is a gifted athlete.
Smoak took a smooth glide path through the minors.
Saunders was pushed up the ladder because the Bavasi regime had no one else to promote.
Smoak first played AA at age 22; Saunders first played AA at 20.
Saunders was called up to the majors in July of '09 at age 22, about the same time Smoak went from AA to AAA.
Smoak was called up in April of '10 at age 23.
Even with all that, Smoak still had to be sent back down last year at 23 because he was lost at the plate.
Saunders is younger than Matt Mangini.
Saunders may never "get it" -- but his career to date has done him a disservice, as he's never had a chance to consolidate his gains; he always just gets pushed back up the ladder.
Way back when he first started making a splash I figured his potential outcome was a LH Cammy, but a few notches down on the glove. LH Cammy is a good thing in my book. I think he could still get there, but he should be where Mangini is now -- just knocking on the door of the majors -- not struggling to stay afloat on his third go-around.
Ghost wrote "Wilson gives you a dice roll at some ability to turn on a gimme strike and hit for power...which is more than you can say of Saunders."
4th OF's are 4th OF's. If they had the whole package they would get 600 AB's. So...you look for a guy that can help you some by hurting the other guy some. Wilson can hurt the other guy some. It's not that he "deserves a shot," he's demonstrated the skills the last two years to earn a shot. Saunders, at this point has that equation exactly reversed.
And I always liked the idea of just making Ackley a fulltime LF. Don Buford, fast forwarded 40 years and come west. dHe could handle the occassional CF, too. However, I suspect we are WAY too far into the 2B experiment (where I think he will be just fine, if we don't expect Bill Mazeroski with the glove) for Z to punt on it right now.
moe
If it weren't for his 7th-grade sulks, you could put Figgins in LF (where he played a fair amount for the Angels) and sub in AK/LRod for Langerhans/Saunders that way. Between LF, 2B, 3B and SS you could have them both in there any time you wanted to win a game.
Actually fancy that more than anything else. If only Figgins had a Mark McLemore "it's all about winning" frame of reference.
Your post encapsulates what I was thinking, Doc, that Kennedy's & L-Rods bats seem to be able to survive in Safeco. A little more pop & doubles power. And just watching them, they seem more aggressive and confident in the box.
L-Rod could also likely benfit from more regular PA's. He hasn't gotten a regular stretch of playing time, and with all the work he supposedly put in with Chambliss last year, you'd think it would help to see regular action.
"And I always liked the idea of just making Ackley a fulltime LF"
Is there's anyone believing that any other organization would have drafted the best college hitter of the decade just to waste a couple of years -- perhaps even more give the present results -- switching him from OF to INF ? Is there's maybe a competition for the Smartest Idea of the New Century ?
But that being said, I would absolutely have done what the Mariners did. If Ackley CAN play 2B (or CF) then you let him. It lets his bat not have to reach his 90th percentile for him to be an impact player.
I've compared Ackley's potential in the past to Mark Grace. Good first baseman, lefty, skinny, from NC even. Great batting average, great eye, terrific doubles power, more than a handful of seasons with single digit HRs and tops out in the mid teens.
Mark Grace was a 2400 hit, 500 double machine with a .300+ batting average career, and a 119 OPS+.
Is that good? Heck yeah it's good. Would I be satisfied with Mark Grace at 1B or in LF for me? We could do WAY worse.
But he'd have a rough time being top-5 at his position that way, at either spot. He'd be very good, but no juggernaut.
If he put up those numbers at 2B or in CF...he's a hall of famer.
119 is also Carlos Beltran's OPS+. Robbie Alomar's was 116 at 2nd base.
If he can play the harder fielding position capably, you let him. When the Astros moved their catcher to second base people screamed it was a stupid move. They could have just put Biggio in LF and used him at the top of their lineup, made it easy on him.
Instead, they got a Hall of Famer at second instead.
If Ackley absolutely cannot stick at second base, then fine. Move him to LF until Guti leaves.
Watching him play the position there's no reason I can see that he'd be incapable of staying there. Is learning the position hurting his offense? Possibly. He'll get over it.
And then instead of saying, "Man, Ackley is good but he just doesn't have the power for the position" - a charge leveled at future hall of famer Ichiro lo these many years - we can just say "Another All Star game for our second baseman" and whistle cheerily.
I prefer that as option A, honestly. I can wait a little longer for Ackley to finish putting his game together.
~G
On cue, Figgins, Cust and Bradley sit. LRod at 3B and Kennedy at DH. There are plenty of AB's for LRod and Kennedy - they don't have to come from the MIF. When your DH and LF are hitting below the Mendoza line, there are AB's to be had all over the place. Just takes a manager that's willing to dole them out.
What the heck is THAT? He asks out of a game due to being stressed out? WHile he's hitting well and the team is winning? That makes no sense...and is a much weaker move than Wilson pulling himself due to not wanting to hurt the club while he was struggling.
What a wuss...Figgins needs to go.
Smoak is indeed a gifted athlete. He's showing great glovework at 1B, more speed than we thought, and terrific hand/eye sork at the bat. He is WAY athletic.
Saunder's had now played a season's wrth of MLB. He's been "retooled," (a mistake, I think, analyzing the results) and penciled in the lineup. Like almost any MLB'er, he is a very impressive athlete. He is more than an adequate CF, which makes him a very nice LF'er. However, all of that is not transating to the ability to hit with regularity and with power the pitches thrown at him by MLB pitchers. Minus that, he is just a piece of some marginal value. He's Langerhans-lite.
The question is, how long to you wait for his "supposed" development? He projects to have "tools," but they don't translate to real-world performance. Even at AAA he has been simply a run-of-the-mill OF.
I hope he finds his bat. I'm afraid it isn't there to find.
That's not the contrast I was trying to draw. Sorry if I didn't make it clear.
Smoak has great skills and could be gifted in other sports, but he was a "baseball guy" from a warm climate all along. Josh Hamilton, same way -- could have been a great football or hockey player, I suppose, but he was a baseball guy. They applied their gifts to baseball, and their gifts are naturally well-suited to baseball.
Not so with Saunders. Not only is he from a northern climate, but he played hockey and he played basketball and he played soccer and he even played lacrosse. Apparently he gained fairly serious notice as a junior hockey player, and that is a pretty big time commitment. Not much time for baseball, even if the weather were suited for it.
So he may not be "late to baseball" in the sense that he's new to the game, but he was not a guy playing baseball every day year-around in a warm climate. He was not a guy playing baseball year-around at all until he was drafted.
All I'm saying is a guy with that background you shouldn't have pushed into AA at 20 even if he was looking good at High Desert, and you shouldn't have pushed him into the majors at 22 even if he was the only guy you had crushing the ball at Tacoma. No way that Saunders should have gotten to the majors before Smoak when they are effectively the same age (born two weeks apart). That was my point.
I don't care that he's had 500 ABs of MLB experience to prove that he's "failed" -- he should have more like 38, which is what Matt Mangini (who is older) has.
He's been jerked up and down and "retooled" and "re-retooled." I do think the plan was for him to get some stability at Tacoma this year, but Guti's problems precluded that.
And, no, he's not Langerhans-lite. At 21 in AA: .290/.375/.484/.858. At 22 in AAA: .310/.378/.544/.922. Langerhans do that? (And that's ignoring Saunders' High Desert-fueled age-20 season with 47 XBH and 67 BB.) Langerhans never had an OPS over .800 until he was 23 at AAA.
All I'm saying is that we can't know what would have happened if Saunders hadn't been pushed into the majors at 22, but I'm thinking he would look a lot less like a failure than he does now, because each time he had a chance to develop at the developmentally appropriate level in the minors he produced (as in, over .850 OPS).
And even Smoak struggled last year even though he was considerably more advanced as a hitter than Saunders will ever be, and was not rushed.
Thanks for clarifying.
At age 24, Langerhans had a full season AAA OPS of .915.
I can't see Saunders doing anything near that this year in Tacoma. It is, however, basically what Saunders did in Tacoma in '09 (1/2 season). So, at their best in AAA they were about equivalent. Might MLB equivalency be about the same?
I hate the retooled Saunders. I didn't really like his loopy approach....but it did provide some dead pull leverage which occasionally reared it's pretty head. This swing ain't working. His FB % is way down, as is his HR/FB %. He's not hitting it in the air and when he does it goes nowhere. His swing % numbers are almost identical to last year...except his O-Zone contact %, which is up 10%. Small samples, I know...but he gets wood on the ball a bit better, outside of the strike zone, but he's turned into a powderpuff hitter. Big, tall, rangy LH guys, who don't hit for average, better hit it into the 12th row in RF once in a while. If they don't, they become Langerhans-lite.
moe
Merry Christmas.
But that's OK.
I don't compare Langerhans' one anomaly season at age-24 in AAA to Saunders' record. Langerhans hit twice as many HR as he'd hit before or since.
Saunders had an .866 OPS at advanced-A at age-20; then an .858 OPS at AA at 21; then a .922 OPS at AAA at 22.
To me, that shows upside. Upside that he might never reach (true enough); but upside that Langerhans never had (in my view). My view is that the fact that he was always pushed up the ladder every time he had success at a level is what kept him from developing a consistent approach -- given that he is not a "natural" who's been swinging a bat every day since age 12 like Smoak.
Just my view.
They've given Saunders chance after chance, sent him in for oil changes and tuneups, have shown him a conviction that is unique in their transition...
Whatever your reasons for believing in Saunders Spec, CPB, gotta be reinforcing to know that Zduriencik's judgment matches yours ...
..........
In the meantime, he's providing quality CF defense and can be viewed as a glove-first player anyway.... he's right at 160 games career, so no harm giving him more time...
Fangraphs has Saunders for 8 out-of-zone catches in only 21 CF games (!) with a +13 runs per season glove ... more grist for Dr. D's mill that any fleet OF would be very plus in CF for the M's...
I appreciate the civil discourse,
Aren't you supposed to push guys up the ladder when they find success at one level? When guys succeed at one level you move them to the next.
I think Saunder's bat peaked in '09 in Tacoma. And I think it then didn't translate well into the majors. This new swing works even less well.
I keep hoping for a glimmer of MLB hope. Last year he deposited a few balls in the RF stands...and I could imagine him doing that 20 times a year. This year? This Saunders? I can't see it.
He'll have some kind of MLB career, but it won't be because of a bat that can be destructive. He's a 4th OF, can play 3 spots and hits from the left side. That has a certain value.
1. a chess master, 2. the parent of a teenager, and 3. a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, would wager... :- )
Occam's Razor being more a political idea that tenured profs sell to the general public, as opposed to anything that physicists use when developing their equations...
We have a little joke in tourney chess, when consoling a loser... 'So you opted for the simple and in-effective' ... :- )
Real life IMHO tends to be complex much more often than it tends to be the first guess you had in mind... nobody was going to be able to guess the structure of an atom in 1500 BC, and I'm not real confident that the origin of matter and energy (the debate in which Occam's Razor became popular) was any simpler ...
Occam's Razor sounds good until you are the one responsible for actually getting Franklin Gutierrez back onto the field and hitting home runs...
When advancing the body of knowledge in a field, fresh data and precision in analysis mean a lot more than a taste for simplicity...
Saunders seems to have a very small "hot zone" right now -- cannot get the barrel to a pitch in, to a pitch out, to a pitch down ... and even when the ball's up and over, his only leverage is right down the RF line...
ML productivity seems a long way off, judging by his plate coverage...
Then I'll be done.
I don't disagree that Saunders is messed up now. My belief is that he would be better off if they had let him develop more gradually in the minors, since he is a "tools" guy getting by on athleticism, not a "baseball guy" with a swing that "comes natrually" and/or was honed over years and years of year-around baseball. (Smoak has both; Saunders neither.)
In that sense, he was a vicitm of his own success, since he looked like he should have been moved up (numbers-wise), but I don't think he was ready, in terms of consolidating his tools so that he could retain some consistency moving up.
All I'm saying is get him a consistent approach that he can be comfortable with, put him in CF everyday in Tacoma, and see what happens. And I think that's what they were going to do if not for Guti's condition.
I'm in favor of him going to Tacoma, and have been. I'm not in favor of writing him off, yet.
That being said, I'm not going to reserve him a spot in LF, and I don't think Z is either. But given the uncertainty surrounding Guti, they need him to improve.