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Now that pic took guts, baby.  

One time Dave Valle hit a home run and took like 25 seconds to circle the bases.  (Usually it took him 23.)  An Angel hit him the next time up.  "It's like he's Babe Ruth when he hits one," the pitcher groused.  You're kinda supposed to know your place in the game.

I looooov eeeeet :- ) ... expecting a tweet from Richard Sherman on this one.

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Saber corner?  "Saber" meaning --- > going by results, performance analysis, outcomes, as opposed to going by the scouting eye.  "Major league organizations pay entirely too much information to what their scouts tell them, and entirely too little information to how their ballplayers have performed." -- Bill James

For whatever reason, the reaction in Seattle seems to be that Shoppach's kind of a joke at the plate, one who excuses his existence by hitting the occasional home run.  Like pretty much the second coming of Miguel Olivo.  Oh, maybe a little better than that.

Let's not be pusillanimous here, gentlemen.  There has, so far, been no important difference between the hitting of Kelly Shoppach and the hitting of these two catchers:

The above guys get about 4.5 runs per 27 outs, which of course is league average.  Miguel Olivo gets you about 3.5 runs per 27 outs, which of course is about 513 runs per season.

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You might ask why Kelly Shoppach does not have a starting job somewhere, making $7M a season.  In my view, his big vulnerability gives him a very high Fangraphs SUNBRN rating; left overexposed he wouldn't be able to maintain the .420 SLG that Saltalamacchia and Weiters can maintain under full pressure.

The big vulnerability is tight-spin breaking pitches moving away from him, and there are a fair number of people on the planet who can't deal with those attacks.  If there were a rule against sliders and power RH curves, like there is a rule against spitters, then I'm sure Shoppach would be a celebrity.

Big Sports Secret:  the difference between a LOT of meatballs, and stardom, is just one some little fatal flaw in their games.  There are tons of guys who are 90% star, 10% jake brake.  Sometimes they run into a genius manager who puts them in the right places at the right times and for all intents and purposes they BECOME stars, part time.  Where is Earl Weaver when you need him .......

Not that we're overselling Shoppach.  But the man has talent.

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We said this was SABR corner but we can't resist ... Shoppach doesn't look like Olivo at the plate.  He doesn't load up his swing, cheat and start it during the windup, doesn't look like some kind of Brandon League who likes to play without an opponent.  He looks a lot more like a hitter up there; here's an example of his strike zone coverage.

You might ax why he strikes out so much.  Well, he does have the big hole in his swing, the pitch breaking off the plate.  You don't EVER want this guy to face Jered Weaver or Yu Darvish.

But spot him against guys with less-than-vicious breakers, guys who don't base their entire games off the slider or curve ball, pitchers who have a little trouble spotting their curves at times ... give him those normal matchups, he's going to cause some collateral damage.

Whale of a benchie.  Whale of a bridge guy - if you want to give Zunino an extra month now, you can.  Whale of a job by Jay-Z and by ThirteenOfTwo.

BABVA,

Dr D