Aaaaah!
Griffey rumors just won’t die!
I spent my weekend doing home renovation stuff (new house of older vintage*). I finally get online to discover there are rumors floating around that the M’s may trade Soriano for Soriano, and play Soriano 2 in center. (clarification update, Monday — when I say “floating around” I mean “someone asked me about it and someone else emailed us to comment on it” — this is not reliable sources or something the M’s, as far as I know, are talking about)
I think I speak for all of us here when I say “nooooooooooooooooo!!!”.
Alfonso Soriano is a useful baseball player. His defense is bad but it’s not the absolute disaster it’s sometimes made out to be, and as long as he hits as well as he has, he’s a net benefit there. The problem is that it’s generally been made out that Soriano’s young, talented, and flawed, and a good bet to get much better. Except that he’s not — turns out he’s two years older than everyone thought, and what we’ve seen may well be as good as Alfonso can possibly get.
The other issue is whether he’s well-suited to center, and I don’t see it. Position switches, especially large ones, tend to defy stathead-type analysis: a quick-reflex soft-gloved strong-armed player might make a great third baseman but if he can’t track flies very well and isn’t fast on the run, outfield’s not his place to shine.
I don’t see Soriano’s talents making him a passable center fielder… but we’ll see.
The M’s should not trade for him, though. He’s not as cheap, young, or talented as the Soriano we already have.
* what in the world have I gotten myself into?? Wait, I have an idea **
** The U.S.S. Mariner is now accepting applications for “interns”. Interns can be high school or college students of any kind. Interns will be given research and writing tasks suitable for future careers in sports writing and long-term wise-acre and layabout. Qualifications include ability to hang sheet rock, do complicated electircal wiring tasks, refinish hardwood floors, diagnose and fix roof problems, fix mortar and brick issues, perform large-scale plumbing tasks, kitchen remodeling, and other tasks as assigned. Other required traits include “ability to keep mouth shut about actual work performed on internship” and “unwillingness to give up boss to authorities”. This is an unpaid internship position.
You kids today with your being sick, chef training, and other cool personal stuff I want to mention but am not sure if you’re disclosing! When I was your age I would have loved to be sick instead of discussing lineups!
Reading the posts then, it looks like you were starting a new job.
Also, doesn’t moustache-less Jayson Stark
Look like Swingers-era Jon Favreau?
I must have been sick that week, because I don’t remember it.
Jason, didn’t we already hash out batting orders here? Everyone in the blogosphere spent like a week on it.
Not that, uh, I don’t repeat myself anyway.
Ewwww.
I don’t know how I missed this, but apparently Raul Ibanez is going to hit fourth this season, dropping Edgar Martinez to fifth.
If there’s one certainty in baseball, it’s that Edgar Martinez is going to post a .400 OBP until the day he dies. Moving him down in the order not only gives him few plate appearances, it means worse hitters behind him to drive him in once he’s on base.
At this point you’re probably saying, “So then, smart guy, how would you set the batting order?” I’m glad you asked.
vs. LHP
RF Ichiro (L)
CF Winn (S)
DH Edgar (R)
2B Boone (R)
SS Aurilia (R)
1B Olerud (L)
3B Spiezio (S)
LF Ibanez (L)
C Davis/Wilson (S/R)
Ichiro leading off is a given. Winn has hit lefties well the past three seasons, and showed a willingness to work the count and take walks last season when hitting second. The next two are pretty clear — Edgar’s your best OBP man, Boone your best power hitter. Sadly, Aurilia’s the next-best option against lefties. Olerud vs. Spiezio was a tough call; Olerud can’t hit lefties, but at least he still walks against them. Spiezio hits them a bit better, but isn’t at all patient. Ibanez’ struggles vs. LHP are well-documented, and the catching tandem hits ninth until they show us they deserve not to (though Davis has mashed lefties in limited at-bats).
vs. RHP
RF Ichiro (L)
1B Olerud (L)
DH Edgar (R)
2B Boone (R)
LF Ibanez (L)
3B Spiezio (S)
SS Aurilia (R)
CF Winn (S)
C Davis/Wilson (S/R)
Again with Ichiro. Olerud hitting second is unconventional to be sure, but c’mon, the guy gets on base like crazy against righties and it’s not like you’re wasting his “power” up there. Edgar, Boone, you know the drill. Ibanez slots in 5th; he can hit RHP. Switch-hitting Spiezio gets the nod over right-handed Aurilia. Winn, who doesn’t hit righties that well, drops to 8th until he shows otherwise. Catching duo rounds out the order.
Kevin Jarvis was shelled again yesterday, which I think has to be considered good news. The worse he pitches, the greater the chance the M’s will simply release him and eat his salary for 2004. Neihaus mentioned on the radio yesterday that Jarvis was throwing nothing but junk, and that he still doesn’t appear fully recovered from the elbow surgery that cost him the first two months of the 2003 season. Elbow surgery or no, he’s not a good pitcher. The M’s would be better off carrying a second lefty, or one of the young guys like JJ Putz or Aaron Looper, than Jarvis.
Today’s rah-rah MLB.com piece by Jim Street (“Retooled Mariners can win“) has some of the more standard broad assertions I wanted to point at.
Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi and his staff have assembled a team that should put the ball in play more often and score more runs than last season.
That seems like it’d be true… but not so much. Using Baseball Prospectus‘ awesome PECOTA projections, we can make some good guesses about this.
2003 –> 2004 swaps (remember, that’s 2003 performance against 2004 projections)
Cameron into Ibanez: -25 runs (yup)
Cirillo into Spiezio: +20 runs
Guillen into Aurilia: -8 runs
2003–> 2004 offensive declines
Winn -20 runs (PECOTA really, really doesn’t like Randy Winn
Edgar -40 runs (I’m going to throw this out in a second: no projection system ever gets Edgar right, he’s unique)
Boone -35 runs
Total it up… the team project to lose about 70 runs from last season’s lineup without Edgar’s numbers in there. That seems pretty harsh, but it’s worth considering that this is an old, old team with an offensive core in their mid-30s, way past a player’s standard peak (which around 27-28). I’m not so sure that Boone’s projection is something I’d agree with either, because Boone’s profile is so weird (crap player to annual MVP candidate starting in 2001) that he’s hard to compare to other players.
70 runs is 7 games in the standings. And it’s not as if the bench is going to be contributing. If age catches up to this team — if age even keeps pace with this team — they can hit all the weak grounders to second they want, but they won’t score any more runs than last year’s unit did.
Back to the article. Jim Street presents three things that the Mariners “can win their third AL West title if:”
– Regulars stay healthy (The dropoff from Martinez to the backup DH is substantial).. hey, that’s funny, today’s Prospectus Triple Play includes a blurb on exactly that. Anyway, that’s such an obvious thing to say. That this team is particularly vulnerable to injury points the giant Finger of Accusation at the front office for assembling such a shallow organization
– Olerud has to bounce back. It’d sure be nice… the gap between 2002 and 2003 Oleruds was four games in the standings, maybe more. But he’ll be 35 heading into this season. It seems kind of unlikely.
– Garcia has to pitch like an old ace. Street says “the Mariners almost traded Garcia during the offseason” — to who? for what? They could have packaged Freddy Garcia with Selma Hayek and had trouble getting teams to take a second look. Okay, they actually wouldn’t have had any problem with that, but it still wouldn’t have been an attractive package. Okay, so it still would have been.
That’s still a dumb idea, though, because if Garcia fails, they could slot Soriano in there and be just fine.
In rebuttal, I present the keys to Mariner contention this year
– Ichiro stays in top form all year, even if that means more frequent rest earlier
– Ibanez and Winn play better outfield defense than expected, keeping Franklin from being a disaster, or
– Franklin’s a disaster and Soriano steps into the rotation
– Melvin gets over his platoon obsessions
– Boone and Edgar play at least 80% of the season and are healthy for the playoffs
Injuries in the A’s rotation would also be helpful.
In case anyone’s wondering, I’ve been to Derek’s garage and didn’t see a dragon there. Of course, that was a few years ago, and there were all sorts of weird things going on… like the Angels winning the World Series. Those were strange days.
I agree with Dave. What frustrates me about the criticism of statheads is that people who believe that performance analysis has merit are somehow devoid of human emotion, that we would as much watch someone play Strat-o-matic, or a computer generate numbers, as we would a baseball game. And that’s wrong. Not to pump myself up, but I watch more baseball — more Mariners baseball, even — than anyone else I know outside other Prospectus guys and Dave. No one loves baseball more than those who want to understand it.
Also, Dayn Perry wrote a really good article in the BP Basics series called “Integrating Statistics and Scouting” in which he talks about how the quest for knowledge is really viewpoint-neutral. The greatest advances in baseball understanding have come not from a dogged adherence to any side, but from questioning everything. Is there such thing as clubhouse chemistry? If there is, no one’s been able to prove it, and if it doesn’t show up in the stats, then what effect does it have?
Say I have a dragon in my garage.
You come over to see it, but don’t see anything.
It’s an invisible dragon, I explain.
You produce all kinds of detection equipment that shows nothing.
It’s undetectable, because of magic, I explain.
You ask if it can breath fire.
Of course, I say. Except that it’s odorless, colorless, heatless fire that also can’t be detected and doesn’t affect anything.
At what point does my claim of a dragon become meaningless?
The world of performance analysis has long been neglected in favor of tools and feel, and the rise of sabermetrics has led to many of those who join the cause becoming too attached to the banner — walks at all costs, for instance — and miss the turn as everyone else finds out that for young players, the ones that really succeed take some walks, but are fast and hit for power, and that maybe walking is an almost natural side effect to aging, through experience or loss of bat speed.
Those people aren’t any more use than those who would tell you that Joe Carter belongs in the Hall of Fame for his RBI talent, because they’re not interested in the discovery of new ideas.
Here’s the thing: if I came out tomorrow with a whiz-bang defensive metric that indicated (uh…) players who scored high on a repeatable, easy “makeup test” were superior defensive players, and it was good research, I’d win everyone over: it proves what the old school guys think, and it’s true and provable.
If I came out tomorrow with a whiz-bang defensive metric that showed something really astonishing and contrary to established thought, only the statheads would accept it quickly. It would take years to leak into the mainstream basebal media.
That’s not an overly broad statement, it’s happened before. BP’s articles on catcher defense, and how pitch-calling doesn’t carry over. Voros’ crazy-cool work on pitcher control over balls-in-play outcomes. Work on translating Japanese leagues, or the minors, or… these are things that are true, innovative pieces of work that aren’t just mocked, they’re not even considered as possible by many people.
And while I’m at it, I want to pick up something else: there is no stathead view. There are no stathead endorsements. “Each proposal on its merits,” as my cousin said. Billy Beane is lauded for his ability to deal and make the small moves to help his team win, but it’s recognized he couldn’t win more games than the M’s on half the payroll if Grady Fuson hadn’t given him such great drafts. Beane’s been lambasted for some of his signings (Hatteberg, Long, particularly). There’s huge debate over whether their minor league rewards system is working or is even the correct way to go about things. Beane doesn’t wear some kind of SABR endorsement pin on his lapel, nor should he.
There are countless examples of topics that are openly debated by people who want to find out what the truth is, to better understand baseball so baseball can be better. That those with open minds are viewed as close-minded by close-minded people seems appropriate, but no less sad.