Looking Ahead: Francisco Cruceta, sort of
So, last week, I decided to writeup Francisco Cruceta as the next in the Looking Ahead series, but I just hadn’t gotten around to writing it. This morning, when I woke up, I discovered that Jeff Sullivan beat me to it.
Jeff nails Cruceta’s strengths and weaknesses perfectly. Summing up:
Francisco Cruceta is a lesson in why you can’t just automatically apply some general ML translation to minor league statistics and come out with a reliable performance projection. He’s been able to succeed by taking advantage of the one thing minor league batters do significantly worse than their Major League counterparts, and now that he’s in Seattle, he’s having a hell of a time trying to adjust. Obviously he’s not five-runs-in-one-inning bad, but he’s not nine-strikeouts-in-every-game good, either, despite what some people might’ve been hoping for as they tracked his progress in Tacoma this year.
This is the simplest way of putting things: Francisco Cruceta is not a starting pitcher. At least, not a good one, anyway, not in Seattle…
Cruceta is out of options next spring, so he’ll have to stick with the team out of spring training or the M’s will have to attempt to slip him through waivers. So, really, the M’s need to decide pretty soon whether he’s going to get a legitimate chance to make the team next spring, and his best chance to do that is as a reliever. The team is extremely crowded in the bullpen, however, so there’s a decent chance that Cruceta could end up as trade bait.
Anyways, read Jeff’s piece on Cruceta, while I go hunting for someone obscure enough that he can’t steal my thunder. Maybe I’ll do a Looking Ahead: Michael Hrynio. That’ll show him.
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There have been a lot of studies done on catcher defense. Keith Woolner has written several of them. In general, the best catcher in baseball saves something like 10-15 runs per season over an average catcher, and the worst is something like 10-15 runs below average. So the total spread from best to worst was generally in the 20-30 run range.
Kenji’s not the worst, and no catcher in the AL West is anything close to the best, so its nowhere near 20-30 runs. 5-10, probably.
I’m talking specifically about the situations we’ve gotten into with players who probably could contribute but aren’t going to be stars, and who may not fit into our roster plans very well. If you don’t wait too long, they can sweeten a bigger trade or be exchanged for other, more useful chips. We at least managed the latter with Choo and Cabrera. But when the player isn’t that valuable alone and you leave yourself without the flexibility to figure out a package deal that works, other teams will just wait you out or pursue other options.
You know why they’ll pursue other options? Because guys like Matt Thornton are everywhere, and they don’t have any value.
The M’s didn’t drop the ball on Thornton. He was a worthless player who was exchanged for another worthless player.
I don’t see anything that makes Kenji a glaring weakness. His PB count’s a bit high, but everything else seems tolerable. Is defense his strength? No. That’s fine. You know why? We went from having a .566 OPS from our catchers last year to a .743 OPS, and that’s with Rene Rivera being a complete waste of plate appearances comparable to letting the pitcher bat.
But look at, say…Paul Lo Duca this year. Lousy fielding percentage, lousy CS rate (almost 80% success against him). Wonder why people aren’t saying “gee, he sucks at catching”. Oh, right, it;s because the Mets are likely to be the NL representative in the World Series. Nevermind.
I seem to remember Thornton got off to a good start in Chicago. I’m assuming he reverted back to his old craptastic ways after that?
I seem to remember Thornton got off to a good start in Chicago. I’m assuming he reverted back to his old craptastic ways after that?
No, he’s actually had a pretty solid year. But that year hadn’t happened when the M’s traded him, and trying to give him retroactive trade value because of what he did after he got traded isn’t realistic.
The M’s didn’t drop the ball on Thornton. He was a worthless player who was exchanged for another worthless player.
I wouldn’t say “worthless”. More like “replacement level”. Which isn’t worthless, per se: if you don’t HAVE a lefty guy who meets that description, picking one off of the trash heap from another organization’s not a bad idea. Just don’t get attached and sign them to a three year, 13 million dollar deal if he has a decent season or three.
But seriously:
Mariner Bullpen ERA: 3.73
Matt Thornton’s ERA: 3.48.
In other words- he wasn’t going to add THAT much value to our bullpen, even if he duplicated his 2006 season in our uniform instead of pinstripes. It’s nifty he’s having a decent year in Chicago, but the proper lesson is that assembling a good bullpen’s not that hard, not that “OMG WE GAVE AWAY THORNTON”.
Kenji’s year so far: .298-.339-.457
Dan Wilson’s best seasons
1995: .278-.336-.416
1996: .285-.330-.444
Surprisingly, it’s not all that different. So, yes, Kenji is having the best hitting season ever for a Mariner catcher, it’s only about 10 points in OBA and in slugging.
So, I wouldn’t say “a season Wilson could only dream about”.
Dan Wilson played in the Kingdome.
Adjust for park Paul.
We should bring back Dan Wilson!!!! OMG he’d be just what this team needs!!!! Gritty!
/*sorry. I’ll go back on my sedatives now.
Hey, I stole your thunder again.
I have always thought that those positions [hitting and pitching coach] have less effect on players than people generally credit them.
I tend to think that pitching coaches can be huge difference-makers for some pitchers but that the effects of hitting coaches are almost always overstated. It seems like there are examples every season of a pitcher improving one of his skills with the help of a different pitching coach whereas I have trouble finding examples of hitters who really benefit from different coaching.
For instance, we have Matt Thornton, who couldn’t find the strike zone to save his life last year, and when he did, the ball landed over the outfield fence a lot more than you would like. He did have a solid strikeout rate, though. He gets sent to Don Cooper, a rather good pitching coach over in Chicago, and he cuts his walk and home run rates in half. I wouldn’t credit all of that improvement to Cooper, but I think there’s little chance those improvements would’ve been realized if Thornton stuck with the M’s.
In a similar situation, the Twins picked Dennys Reyes off the scrap heap last winter and gave him an NRI. He was one of the most extreme groundballers out there, could miss bats (7ish career K/9), and was left-handed to boot. His main difficulty was walking hitters too much. Rick Anderson, a solid pitching coach in Minnesota, got a hold of him, and he cut his walk rate in half, and now he’s arguably one of the best situational lefties in baseball. Anderson similarly helped Eddie Guardado and LaTroy Hawkins to lower their walk rates when they were with the Twins.
Anyway, both of those coaches have had difficulties with other pitchers, and a couple of examples doesn’t prove my position, but I tend to think that pitching coaches can have a real effect on a staff, perhaps particularly with bullpen arms.
I think this just goes to show that relievers are kind of like corner outfielders who can hit….they just aren’t as rare as some GMs would have you believe….
58
..and year. The American League posted an ERA of 5.00 in 1996, where as it is closer to 4.50 this year.
People also need to give up on the idea that Johjima is calling the wrong pitches too.
In every game I’ve seen he looks over to the dugout, gets the pitch from there, then relays it back to the pitcher. This is becomming more and more popular with MLB clubs recently.
50 “Among batting title qualified C’s Kenji is in the middle for stolen base percentage, and also in the middle for fielding percentage, and has 6 errors.”
And of the 53 stolen bases a goodly portion are balls that sail towards the right of second and are flagged down by Betancourt.
Mentioning him with Pudge is like bringing Lucy into a discussion about Uma Thurman.
I think this just goes to show that relievers are kind of like corner outfielders who can hit….they just aren’t as rare as some GMs would have you believe….
I would argue that corner outfielders who can hit seem to hit wherever they play, whereas relief pitchers seem to have more (though certainly not all) of their success/failure tied into coaching, but I fully admit that this is just an impression that I have, not something that I can back up with a boatload of evidence.
I definitely agree that there are quite a few GMs who believe good relief pitching is a lot more rare than it really is, but I think that is partly because GMs seem to get tied up too much with relievers’ results like runs scored against the pitcher, big save totals, etc., rather than just evaluating relief pitchers on their skill set.
You know why they’ll pursue other options? Because guys like Matt Thornton are everywhere, and they don’t have any value.
I think that’s a bit of an overstatement, but in any case it’s an overstatement that could be made about Cruceta as well. I didn’t mean to turn this into a Matt Thornton thread, he’s simply an example. I do think we should have looked to trade him earlier than we did.
If we go to spring training with Cruceta, it needs to be because we expect that he can make the roster. If that seems unlikely, we should look to trade him after the season to another team that thinks he can make theirs.
“Among batting title qualified C’s Kenji is in the middle for stolen base percentage, and also in the middle for fielding percentage, and has 6 errors.â€
And of the 53 stolen bases a goodly portion are balls that sail towards the right of second and are flagged down by Betancourt.
Mentioning him with Pudge is like bringing Lucy into a discussion about Uma Thurman.
Lucy Liu? Not a bad choice…but I have electic tastes in women…
Do you have something substantive to bring to the table?
Having a hot flash for Lucy Lieu does not demonstrate the eclectic nature of your taste in women. JADP.
Having a hot flash for Lucy Lieu does not demonstrate the eclectic nature of your taste in women.
The guys who have dated both have told me different….
0 “Among batting title qualified C’s Kenji is in the middle for stolen base percentage, and also in the middle for fielding percentage, and has 6 errors.â€
And of the 53 stolen bases a goodly portion are balls that sail towards the right of second and are flagged down by Betancourt.
It’s funny that none of this incredible craptasticness of Johjima that makes people hate his defense actually gets caught in the statistics (aside from some passed balls), but that’s the funny thing- stats for guys like Simmons and Torre (who were also much better offensive players than defensive players as catchers, and regularly got flack for their defense) don’t make them look awful compared to their contemporaries. They just don’t look GOOD (Bench clearly blows them away, just like I-Rod’s in a different class of defensive player from Johjima).
So, yeah… love those subjective impressions. So, when do we start Rivera every day so he can bat .220 with no offensive contribution and we can rave about his defense, because that’s what’s required when you have a no-hit catcher?
The American League posted an ERA of 5.00 in 1996, where as it is closer to 4.50 this year.
Actually, the better way would be this: League average runs per game for the AL in 1995/1996: 5.06/5.39.
League average (so far) for 2006: 4.95
So, yeah… you have to adjust for park AND league when doing a comparison.
The quick and dirty comparison:
Dan Wilson’s peak OPS+ (adjusted for park and league as a percentage of league):
2002: 98
1997: 95
1996: 94
Kenji Johjima’s OPS adjusted for league and NOT adjusted for park (because I don’t have Safeco’s park adjustments handy)
2006: 103
I would guess it’s probably at least 105 once you adjust for Safeco. FWIW, Kenji has an .852 OPS on the road.
So, uh, yeah. Johjima > Wilson. By a fair piece, since Wilson NEVER was a league-average hitter, and Johjima’s considerably better than one.
It seems to me that this article by Dave Gassko at THT comes into play in this discussion. (I’d be interested in Dave and Derek’s comments.)
A fair amount of bases got stolen on Johjima?
Um, didn’t we just get through the stats on curve balls called? And isn’t stealing a base easier with curve balls than fast balls?
(Now, that’s something you can fairly pin on him, but it’s offset by the reasoning that you call for your pitcher’s best pitch).
That being, of course, the discussion of Cruceta, not of Johjima.
I agree that Johjima > Wilson (and by extension, any other catcher the Mariners have ever had.
I was just trying to point out that the difference is not as bad as it might seem to some of us at first thought — because we all remember the end of Wilson’s career (when the performance slide just seemed to go on and on and on year after year after year) and forget that for a couple of years he was actually a decent hitter.
Never mind . . . It’s an interesting article, but it’s actually the discussion of it on BBTF that would bear on Cruceta.
I’m heading towards Corco territory, here . . .
TAM, you might want to work on your linking skills.
Anyways, I’ve seen Gassko talk about chaining before, and honestly, I think he makes too big a deal out of it. And, as always, he really needs to learn to make less conclusive statements. He has a bad habit of showing somewhat interesting information and acting as if he’s closed the case. His data work is almost always better than his writing.
Kinda off topic, but thinking about next year are there any Japanese pitchers other than Matsuzaka that the mariners should be looking at? Uehara maybe?
No, I need to work on my thinking skills; or at least, on not posting when half-asleep. Sorry about that.
From the pictures of Cruceta throwing the only real difference I noticed between his Fastball and Splitter (body wise) is that he seems to fall more towards first base on a Fastball delivery. I’m obviously not an expert. I look forward to reading your perspectives every day(if you’re reading this and post daily I mean you.)
I don’t know about him being next years closer, but I have liked the idea of Soriano and agree Woods could be an option. If Bavasi/Other decides to groom a new closer every year, to trade for other needs the next year, I’m all for it. I thought they should have traded Guardado last offseason with the arms available to replace. This year I’d say it’s more of an ‘if’. There’s no certainty that Soriano will ever pitch the same competitively. I mean look at the shot Holman took that he never looked the same after and that was just a HR after 8 2/3 Perfect. At least we had Buhner instead of a perfect game. Most of us know there have been pitchers who got hit by line drives that, though they physically recovered, were never the same on the field. Herb Score is a different example because of the busted eye socket
From an interview with Yogi Berra Was there a pitcher that gave you trouble? Any pitcher you didn’t like?
No. Well, Herb Score. I remember Herb Score was a tough man. I had a tough time with Alex Kellner in Philadelphia, ’til I got the hang of him. But he gave me a little rough time. But Herb Score could have been another Sandy Koufax, I think, if he didn’t get hit in the eye with Gil McDougald’s line drive.
On the Johjima front I’ve been wondering if the idea is to keep him at catcher long enough to ease a Japanese pitcher or 2 in before Rauls contract is up and Clement may be ready for the show. If Clement comes around defensively, and Johjima was happy and productive as a DH this could be a great way to implement both. Having a productive backup catcher at DH is a luxury I’m sure any Manager could enjoy.
Score’s problems had nothing to do with McDougald’s line drive, as he told everybody he could — it was the standard story, arm damage from overwork. The other is one of baseball’s modern myths.
How is it a Myth? I’m not saying Holman was a future HOFer…
No, no, “the other” story of the demise of Score’s career — the idea that Gil MacDougald’s line drive was what ruined him as a pitcher.