The Legend of Casey McGehee
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.