Thank you for not managing
We’ve carped about Hargrove’s instruction of Lopez for — well, it seems like years. I still don’t understand why he ever got it into his head that Lopez would be better off grounding out weakly to the right side every time he came up to bat, but I don’t know anyone who followed the whole saga without seeing their blood pressure tick upwards with each out.
We ranted about this repeatedly here — a random sample from this pre-season Q&A:
Q2: How do you see the next couple years for Jose Lopez panning out?
There are two things that happen. Either he keeps grounding out to the right side to Hargrove’s applause and he sucks, or either he rebels or they let Lopez be Lopez and he hits really well. If you get the latter, he’ll be a pretty good player.
Jose Lopez, hitting for some power, is a really good piece of the team. He gets his power when he really turns on a pitch, which is not that frequent – but it’s never when he’s concentrating on grounding out to the right side.
I don’t know if Hargrove’s been distracted, or if at ground-out 100 he patted Lopez on the shoulder, told him he’d proven himself and moved on to other tasks. I don’t really care. Because it’s meant that Lopez, once again yanking balls over the fence and off the walls in left, is a good second baseman. Offensively, he’s in with the second tier of AL second basemen (Hill/Castillo/Pedroia). He’s not Upton, but then he’s not carrying Upton’s glove. Which is good.
At home, all three of his home runs are dead pull, two of his four doubles are in almost the same location (the other two are down the left and down right field lines). And it’s the same story on the road: almost all his extra-base hits are pull. His singles are better-spread out, and that’s always been the case. It’s interesting that the way he’s doing it aren’t much different – his ground ball/fly ball rate’s about the same, he’s not hitting any more line drives than we’ve seen the last few years. But he’s getting more for his contact dollar at the same time the strikeouts are down and he’s walking more.
Even if he’s been a little lucky on the home runs, this is a far, far more effective version of Lopez, one that plays to his natural ability: Lopez has never been a guy who walks 10% of the time, but he’s always had good power potential pulling the ball (, and a second baseman who can field his position well and hit 30 doubles and 15-20 home runs is quite valuable. Certainly more than a weak-hitting ground-out machine who happens to be “going the other way”.
Having Lopez contribute to the team, rather than just make outs, has been a big part of the team’s improved offense. I’ve been hoping that I’d see some quote explaining what’s going on Hargrove or Lopez to look at and test, but I haven’t seen it. So whatever it is – whether it’s negligence or preoccupation or if the team made a conscious decision to let Lopez be Lopez – I’m glad to see it.
I’ll just call it part of the lucky streak we’re having, and hope it has lasting results.
I may not be remembering this correctly, but did Hargrove’s meddling with Lopez’s swing coincide with his move to #2 in the batting order — and Hargrove wants the #2 guy to concentrate on hitting into the hole created by having Ichiro on base?
If Grover can be a “hands-off” manager, then he may have learned how to be successful. I’m not sure if I buy into Beane’s theory fully, but the manager can do more damage than he can help.
Hell, even the “speak-and-spell” approach LaRussa runs isn’t as bad as “bad Grover.”
*By speak-and-spell I mean LaRussa is a big L-R matchup guy. He uses the probabilities, but just not as well or accurately as he could.
Derek, do you think that his dead pull power is a function of his age? That is, because he’s young and his bat is still relatively quick…
I’m wondering if he’s pulling the ball to left field b/c he’s able to see certain pitches better than others, and those that he does…he turns on very quickly.
If that’s so, would you say that younger players typically have a tendency to do so?
For the last two weeks, all I’ve heard on TV is how Lopez is doing so much better after his benching for hitting at high pitches.
DMZ. I’m, wondering how much room you allow for major-leaguers to improve by, say, changing their swing, their stance, their mentality at the plate, etc.? Don’t we want average players to become good players and good players to become great? I understand the idea that you play to your strengths but if we are dealing with players that have holes in their game why wouldn’t they want to fix them? Thanks.
also with lopez….
With his range being what it is (my understanding is avg) , is his defensive value tied to making minimal errors?
Gee, this is interesting. I never knew the coaching objective was to get Lopez to ground out to the right side. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that hitting the other way was to 1) deal with the impossible-to-pull fastball outside that pitchers rely on to get dead-pull hitters out and 2) wait on the pitch to gain a couple of milliseconds of pitch recognition.
Are they pitching him differently now? Is it possible that the coaching has made Lopez a better hitter who now forces pitchers to use both sides of the plate, and thus gets the occasional pitch he can turn on?
It seems that Hargrove or some near to him has heard the ussmariner mantra that games are often won and lost in the 6th and 7th innings. While I hate seeing our bullpen be used so often , I blame the starters not Hargrove for that one.
#6: eternal Says:
For the last two weeks, all I’ve heard on TV is how Lopez is doing so much better after his benching for hitting at high pitches.
I’m pretty sure it was Betancourt, not Lopez, that Hargrove sat on the bench for swinging at high pitches.
Soooo:
- I’m all for trying to improve players, but there’s a tendency to say “Ichiro doesn’t hit for enough power for a right fielder, let’s get him to hit more line drives and lengthen his swing” or whatnot – to try and pound the square peg into the round hole.
If Lopez gets his power from being able to really turn on a pitch, and when he concentrates on pushing the ball he turns into a sucky hitter, I think you let him pull the ball.
- Is it a product of pitchers approaching him differently? No. It’s not. Lopez the ground to 2b/1b guy is an easy out, and without power when he’s not an out. The rest of the league would probably love to see him go to that.
When Lopez was moved to #2 (while Hargrove was out of town BTW), he made a comment to the media along the lines of “The #2 hitter is expected to take a lot more pitches, and that’s a big part of the reason I’ve been successful there.”
I wondered at the time what was preventing him from taking a lot of pitches when he was batting 9th or anywhere else for that matter, and I’m still baffled by the comment.
13
He’s asked to take pitches in the second hole to let Ichiro steal…
totally unrelated:
[deleted, totally unrelated]
I’m not sure how this relates, but I felt there was a bit of a sea-change when McLaren managed the team for a couple of games. He seemed to shake things up a bit, the team responded well, and it seems to have had an affect on Hargrove. Crazy?
I’m not sure if I agree with this post. The problem with Lopez of the past was that he kept on trying to pull every pitch he saw- reguardless of whether it was on the inside or outside part of the plate.
If you go and look at his hitting chart this year for safeco field, it shows that yes, he does have 3 pull homers, more pull doubles, but his singles are pretty evenly spread, but definietely leaning towards up the middle.
If you look at his ground outs, they by and large are at the short stop– very few to the right side, comparitively. His fly outs are evenly divided between down the right side and left center….
I don’t see a pattern here that suggests he’s trying to hit it to the right side and failing at a constant pace.
Uh huh. You’re not seeing a pattern that he’s trying to hit it to the right side and failing because – and this is the point of the post – he’s not doing that, and enjoying some success.
I have to remind myself every once in a while that Jose is 23 years old. He’s got some good years ahead of him.
17: I think the point of this post was that Lopez /wasn’t/ using the flawed “hit it the other way no matter what” philosophy anymore.
So it’s natural that this year’s data would bear that out.
Nevermind, DMZ beat me to it! Silly work interfering with my USSM posting.
Year Age AVG OBP SLG OPS
2004 20 .232 .263 .367 .630
2005 21 .247 .282 .379 .661
2006 22 .282 .319 .405 .724
2007 23 .295 .338 .438 .776
I’m really having trouble finding much fault with the coaching, here.
Lopez has opened up his stance quite a bit this year.
I’m really having trouble finding much fault with the coaching, here.
You’d have a lot less trouble if you looked at his splits before and after the All-Star break in 2006.
24 – Exactly.
If you followed Pez’s 2006 season at all you know Derek is exactly right.
“You’d have a lot less trouble if you looked at his splits before and after the All-Star break in 2006.”
Not trying to excuse the coaching staff here, but I seem to recall that Lopez suffered a pretty bad thumb injury sometime in the middle of 2006 that he played through. I also recall reading that this hampered some of his ability to drive the ball with authority. I’d say that his injury played at least a partial role in the poor post ASB splits last year.
I thought the thumb injury was before the season started in 2006.
Yeah, there was also that trip to Venezuela for “personal business” that turned out to be his newborn son.
One other thing to consider, too, is the effect that Vidro may be having on him. I’ve heard some buzzings from behind the scenes that Vidro’s mentoring Lopez quite a bit. Maybe Vidro’s veteran presence between Lopez and Hargrove is finally allowing Lopez to become the player he’s meant to become, and not the player Hargrove sees him becoming (and those players are two different players, of course).
I’m not sure if that’s indeed the case, but I can see how Vidro providing some mentorship isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Especially if he’s acting as a buffer between Hargrove and Lopez…
I’m not saying Derek isn’t right about Lopez. I’m just saying the results we’ve seen in developing a young player at the major league level belies the stupidity implied by “I still don’t understand why he ever got it into his head that Lopez would be better off grounding out weakly to the right side every time he came up to bat.”
I think the OP should lay off Hargrove. If Grover’s taught Lopez to be more patient, it’s working. He’s garnering more walks, and swinging at better pitches. Everything isn’t always Hargrove’s fault.
30: If you insist on only looking at full seasons without regard to the monthly breakdowns and how they corresponded with things the coaches actually said, sure.
Is memory really that short that people don’t recall what Derek is talking about? Just read through last year’s entries if you doubt it. Lopez was tearing the cover off the ball, Hargrove made him take a different approach, and Lopez’s hitting collapsed. That’s a matter of record. Now Lopez seems to have gone back to his old approach, and he’s hitting again.
31: Is it okay if we blame Hargrove for the things he demonstrably has done?
#27 – Nope. It was actually in June 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/39ocw2
31
YES!
Also in August.
Scraps, when did Hargrove or any coaches actually say their goal was to develop Lopez into Willie Bloomquist, or that they didn’t want him to hit for power? Are we assuming that instructing Lopez to make contact the other way was somehow an end in itself, rather than the means to an end? Given the suddenness with which Boonie’s collapse brought Lopez to the big club, can we fault Grover for having him work on a different approach once the M’s were out of contention in 2006?
Evaluating the development of Lopez in monthly splits is “small sample size theatre.” Hargrove and his staff have made Lopez into a big-league hitter at an age many players are still adjusting to wooden bats. If he had been A-Rod at age 20, then hands-off is the obvious approach. But if you go back to the posts from ’04 and ’05, you’ll see that wasn’t the case. Job well done, I say.
Given the suddenness with which Boonie’s collapse brought Lopez to the big club, can we fault Grover for having him work on a different approach once the M’s were out of contention in 2006?
Actually, yes, given the results of this coaching and given the age of the player—loss of power and little rise in batting average or OBP.
The results look more like a substitution of a batting strategy as opposed to a supplement to a batting strategy.
In other words, you want to give Hargrove and the coaches credit for his hitting talent, and you don’t want to blame them for pointlessly limiting it.
Hargrove could not see past his idea of the kind of hitter he wanted Lopez to be, to see that Lopez was in fact a superior hitter. Of course he didn’t want to make Lopez into a groundball out machine, but the fact is that because Hargrove has a blinkered overvaluing of traditional productive-out-making baseball and traditional roles, he emphasized things that made Lopez a less productive hitter.
Lopez isn’t A-Rod. But he’s still better than the hitter Hargrove wanted him to be, and that was clear last year. It’s not hammering Hargrove to note this: it’s just having your eyes open.
The point of this post is, Hargrove’s insistence on getting Lopez to hit the ball more to right field, which he DID state was a goal (I don’t have a citation for you but I know I’ve seen a quote from him in that regard), made him a less productive hitter.
This was because it was based solely on what kind of hitter Hargrove thought that he SHOULD be, rather than an appraisal of what Lopez’s talents already were. The two were diametrically opposed, so changing Lopez’s approach made him suck.
You could be right, scraps, and by extension, DMZ too. I don’t really know how to search the web for quotes of Hargrove describing the kind of hitter he thinks Lopez should be. But if someone links to them I promise to read them with my eyes open.
39
Stating the goal made him a less productive hitter? Do you really have that insight in to the clubhouse?
In May and June Lopez started to get pounded middle out, (I don’t have a citation but I remember).
He did pull those pitches and grounded out to ss consistently, and if pitchers attack him that way and he tries to pull everything he’ll ground out a lot to ss.
I’m just curious why “we” think that Hargrove refuses to change his strategy or advice in the face of visible evidence. THe man is not an idiot–if he notices Lopez having better results trying to pull the ball, one would think he might say to himself, “Grover, this kid seems to be doing pretty well pulling the ball, I think I’ll lay off him/tell him to keep it up.”
Maybe that’s the point of your post… but it sounds like you’re saying Hargrove (and by extension, Pentland) have no (postive) impact whatsoever, that they are counseling him completely wrong… that they are basically stupid. Do “we” really think that to be true?
I also recall Hargrove was a pretty fair hitter in his day, and I’m sure he didn’t do it by concentrating on “grounding out to the right side.”
No. But you don’t need to. Just use the results.
And even then, I’m pretty sure he was more productive as a hitter than in August and September–lower BA, but much higher slugging.
I’m pretty sure that if Hargrove was stating to the media that he wanted Lopez to pull more pitches to right field, then the coaching would have been in a similar vein.
Hargrove is not enough of a mastermind to think to himself, “We’re going to make them THINK he’s not going to be a pull hitter anymore, so we can sneak up on them for the first couple pitches when they still believe that! Muahahaha!”
No particular insight into the clubhouse is necessary to follow the logic.
Errr, hit more pitches the other way to right field, not pull to right field.
You get the drift.
Well, his comments after the last two months of the season don’t quite match up with that.
Good points on either side. What’s important to note is that Hargrove had Lopez bunting waaaaay too often last year. That at least implies that he didn’t totally have an idea what kind of hitter he could turn into.
Note that this was when Lopez was leading the team in RBIs and slugging; a particularly egregious event was when the team was down by one run, with two men on base. The comments he had were along the lines of “this is what a #2 hitter does.” That’s what makes us think that Hargrove is not especially astute as to talent recognition.
#48 – “That’s what makes us think that Hargrove is not especially astute as to talent recognition.”
You could leave off the last four words and have a much more broadly applicable statement.
Funny thing is on the PI blog today there were people criticizing Hargrove for not bunting enough. Specifically in the 8th inning last night. With Sexson batting. Yes, the Richie Sexson who has never had a sacrifice in 11 big-league seasons.
If the M’s were out of contention, I’d be rooting for Sexson to bunt, just because I think it’d be hilarious to watch.
In the context of the season going reasonably well, though, I cannot imagine what possible case you could make for that being a good idea.
Unless you want him to hurt himself and get benched so that they can move Broussard into 1B, Ibanez to DH, Jones to LF, and Vidro to the bench…
Heck with it, I’m behind that idea, too. BUNT RICHIE BUNT
Along those lines, a thought experiment: Suppose Vidro had come into home with a slide, like everyone thinks he should have, allowing Barrett to keep his eyes on the ball and make the tag. Meanwhile, Vidro gets hurt in the collision, and the Mariners go on to lose when O’Flaherty finally gives up a run in the bottom of the inning.
After the game, the team determines Vidro will be out for months with a broken leg, so they call up Adam Jones to replace him. Jones becomes the regular left fielder with Ibanez taking Vidro’s spot as DH. Even though the Mariners lose the game instead of winning it, are they better off?
52: I’d have a tough time seeing that happen, because if someone goes down, we already have supersub Willie Bloomquist – who needs ABs!
Not only did the Mariners state it was a goal for Lopez to learn to hit to right, they sent him back to Tacoma until he learned to do it.
The contrast with the team’s approach to plate discipline is a stark contrast – despite the Mariners talk about how they believe plate discipline to be, the Mariners will never hold a player back at a level until he learns better pitch selection.
I think there is a middle ground to this whole argument. Lopez does not have enough power to only be a dominate pull hitter, like Ortiz or Griffey. He needed to learn to spread the ball around the field, he needed to know when to knock that outside pitch for a single or turn on that inside one for a XBH when he gets it. Hargrove’s intention was not to have him hit every single pitch to the right side.
What bhs said. Hargrove wasn’t teaching Lopez to hit to the right side just because: there was a lesson to that whole exercise that is now beginning to manifest itself in a better rounded Jose Lopez.
The “better rounded” Jose Lopez is *exactly the same hitter he was in the minors*.
Really. When he was in the minors and people raved about his bat, he pushed singles all over the place and most of his power was pull. He came up, Hargrove decided he didn’t like Lopez’s approach, and turned him into the ground-to-the-right-side guy.
The Lopez you’re seeing now has the same approach, the same strengths and weaknesses he had when he enjoyed success hitting in the minors. There’s no pitch he’s hitting now consistently that he couldn’t hit consistently before the futility training. I don’t know where this is coming from, but there isn’t.
So now, I guess, the argument is that he wouldn’t be the same hitter as he was before if Hargrove hadn’t decided it was in his best interest to flail at the plate for however long. I disagree.
This is like… I decided to drive to New York, but for no reason thought it would be a good idea to get out and push the car all the way through Montana. When I get back in and start clocking along at 60 again, that’s not because I got out and walked before.
I am happy if Lopez hits like Edgar Martinez, not quite there yet but getting closer.
And Hargrove – Hargrove’s career line is .290/.396/.391 – he was a singles hitter with a good eye. Getting a hitter like Lopez to emulate him isn’t helpful to Lopez, since Lopez already can hit for contact, but doesn’t have the eye, and drives the ball a lot better than Mike did.
You’d be happy if he hit like a borderline Hall of Famer. Yes. Who would not be happy?
Mike still wants Lopez to hit to the opposite field, I heard him say it on an interview a week or two ago. I don’t know if Lopez is just doing his own thing or what.
#55 “Lopez does not have enough power to only be a dominate pull hitter”
The word is dominant.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/dominate.html
Ichiro could be a dominate pull hitter I think. That guy is amazing in batting practice and I am not sure I have ever seen anyone better than him.
oops sorry dominant.
Here’s basically what I remember about the early José Lopez, particularly near the bottom of the comments in a delightfully well-written exchange between Dave and Bela Txadux covering the prospects for Lopez’s development. I can see where learning to hit the other way has been a key to resolving some of these issues.
That he made it from there to here, while spending most of the time on the big club, evidences some pretty good development work. You can believe Mike Hargrove’s management played a part, or you can believe it happened all by itself. I simply choose to give the manager some credit.
If Hargrove STILL wants Lopez to hit the other way, and if Lopez’s hitting pattern now is the same as it was in the minors, I can’t see how you can give the credit to Hargrove.
And the discussion you’re citing doesn’t have that much to do with the discussion right here.
I have no idea how you would read that discussion as being supportive of Lopez needing to learn to hit the ball to right, on either side.
It was a discussion about whether, in 2005, Jose Lopez had any business being in the major leagues or not. Most of it had to do with his defensive shortcomings at shortstop, which is why he is now at second base, and pitch recognition/knowing pitchers. In what I read, him being primarily a pull hitter is mentioned very peripherally, if at all.
Maybe I missed something?
Discarding that for the moment, the salient point that has been repeated in this thread multiple times is that the recent improvement in Lopez’s hitting is that he has gone back to his prior approach of NOT worrying about hitting the ball to all fields, and instead doing what he’s always done well.
The only thing you could possibly give credit to Hargrove for would be recognizing that he was trying to force a square peg into a round hole, giving up on that, and letting Jose hit how he is naturally inclined to; but that not only presumes that that is what has happened, which we have no idea about, but also absolves Hargrove of responsibility for trying to force the square peg into the round hole in the first place.
I don’t think it unreasonable for Grover to try; I do think it unreasonable to be happy trading 20-30 points in batting average for 80-120 points in slugging.
I don’t mind him trying to do his job; but part of doing his job, or at least being good at it, is recognizing when he’s wrong.
And he’s never really shown any ability to do that, at all.
Hargrove was correct to get Lopez to think about hitting the other way. Only a handful of major leaguers succeed as extreme pull hitters, because they can be pitched around. The idea that it was bad to teach Lopez how to hit the other way is insane.
Perhaps…..Hargrove is smart enough to help him round out his game by getting him to concentrate early in his career to use the opposite field.
I do find it funny that when someone fails, it’s because of Hargrove. When someone succeeds, it’s in spite of him.
Kinda sounds like the crazy guy pointing fingers at everyone else, calling them insane.
Yeah all his power is to left, but he has to be able to hit outside pitches too. If he couldn’t slap an occasional outside pitch to right, pitchers would just throw him all outside pitches and he’d start grounding out to the left side of the infield 4 times a game. Look at JJ Hardy. Once pitchers realized he couldn’t slap it the other way, they started throwing him all outside pitches. If he took it to right every now and then he’d still be batting .325 and my fantasy team would still be in first place.
Well, if you think we never give Hargrove credit for success, you’re not reading us closely enough.
Hargrove didn’t teach Lopez to think about hitting the other way. Lopez can, and always has, gotten his share of hits to the right side. My point was that having Lopez focus exclusively on it, to the utter destruction of his offensive game, did nothing for him, because now that he’s hitting for some power again, he’s exactly the same hitter he was before.
He hit for power in the first half of last season…..while he was having success hitting to the opposite field. His trip to the All-Star game was aided by those extra hits he got to right field. So, I’m just a little confused. Are you saying that Hargrove told him to hit EVERYTHING to right field, AFTER the All Star Game?
Maybe Lopez himself, in trying to make himself a more complete ballplayer, concentrated on it….but why not, he was having success early on.
Also, hitting behind Ichiro using traditional baseball tactics, means sacrificing at bats to move him over. That’s why I have no problem with Vidro being here, because it allows Lopez to move down in the order and work more on driving the ball, than getting Ichiro moved down to second.
Lookout Landing did a great job tracking Lopez’s changing approach last year. We’ve put a couple pointers out there to Jeff’s outstanding stuff on it, and if you want, you can check it out. I’m not going to parrot everything Jeff did, but it’s a persuasive case.
Or you can keep believing what you wish. Whichever.