Brad Wilkerson
DMZ · July 20, 2008 at 11:48 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Since being picked up by Toronto, May 9th on: .222/.313/.326, somehow even worse than he was doing when the M’s tossed him.
Here’s what’s crazy: that’s better than Johjima (.233/.269/.342) and Vidro (.230/.269/.323) over the same period. And it’s close to Betancourt (.262/.274/.371).
Defensive scarcity aside, I’d argue that it’s better than Betancourt.
Defensive scarcity aside, I’d argue that it’s better than Betancourt.
I agree. The extra base hits are essentially the same, but Wilkerson is making fewer outs. Hits are worth more than walks, but not enough to make up for a 39-point OBP differential.
In other news..Cha Sung Baek pitches another decent game AND hits a home run….
*sigh*
“Defensive scarcity aside”
Well, Yuni’s defense has been pretty scarce this season.
Wilkerson has been consigned to be a part time player/pinch hitter under new manager (or is it old manager?) Cito Gaston. I’m pretty sure his numbers were slightly better under Gibbons in a more or less full time role.
Brad Wilkerson was not the problem back when they released him. But then we knew that. I don’t know what the FO was really thinking with that one. Did they toss him overboard as a gesture? Maybe they didn’t realize they could shift him (or Raul) to DH if they brought up Reed or Wlad.
Before Wilkerson came here, he had some pretty decent seasons.
True, Wilkerson wasn’t impressive during his time here, but he was better than a lot of other people on this team.
He was let go since he had been around for such a short time.
I didn’t see this mentioned in the game post from yesterday. I was at the game, and my kid was whining that he was too cold, so we moved to some seats in the sun where I could see the pitch count board. At the time, Lee had thrown something like 35 strikes and 6 balls.
Yuni was probably the worst of the hackers, taking something like 11 strikes and 1 ball during the game. It’s brutal to watch the guy hack at everything. It’s so bad, even Steve Kelley has noticed.
That’s how the M’s do roster management – LIFO. It explains Greg Norton’s departure as well.
I thought it was nice he’d managed to wander out to the ballpark
Dumping Wilkerson and Norton was a joke. In fact, the dumping of Sexson follows the trend. They don’t know how to use the vacated roster space for rebuilding.
So what does it matter, they could dump 2/3 of the position player on the roster and replace them with a flock of geese. It wouldn’t make much difference.
Brad Wilkerson is currently tied for 8th on the M’s in BB’s with 10. At his current pace, Betancourt will have less BB’s for the season than Wilkerson had in the month or so he was on the team.
And, Wilkerson’s .323 OBP for the season would rank behind only Suzuki, Beltre, Ibanez, and Bloomquist on the M’s right now.
Here’s the thing about Wilkerson.
He’s a patient guy who WILL NOT swing at pitches until he has figured out whether the pitch is a ball or a strike, (of course, sometimes he figures wrong).
This TYPE of player is one who is particularly horrible when played in a PART-TIME role. He is a player who MUST play regularly to keep his particular skill set sharp.
He’s tends to start slowly, get in a groove, but will lose that groove at different times during the season.
He also has a fairly neutral split vs. lefties and righties. This makes him a bad hitter to platoon. It makes him a bad hitter to play part-time. And it makes a particularly horrid player off the bench. His CAREER OPS as a sub is .442.
After getting to Toronto, (he had a 10-day lay-off before getting snagged), he had a fairly predictable initial slump. BUT, after about a 10-game spell where he struggled, he proceeded to hit at an .870 clip for several weeks. THEN, the decision was made to make Lind the primary – and Wilky ended up as a sub.
The generic sequence: .652 OPS leaving Seattle.
9 game slump lowered OPS for season to .554, (May 18).
He was a regular for the next month.
On June 18, his OPS for the season was up to .690.
He lost his full-time job, and his OPS has plunged since then to .643.
Is he a great hitter? No.
He’s an adequate low part of the order OF with a lot of patience, some speed, who can hit the occasional dinger. As a full-time 7th or 8th spot hitter, he’d probably be posting a .750+ OPS. But he’s likely one of the absolute worst hitters in all of baseball coming off the bench.
He’s the begger’s version of Mike Cameron. He was utilized completely wrong by MacLaren. He was being utilized well, (with fair results), with Toronto, but only while injuries had managed to make him a full-time player. As a bench player, however, he makes Vidro and Joh look good.
Some players, you maximize their production by platoon. Wilky was NEVER one of them. He was terribly managed in Seattle, and while reasonably effective for a month in Toronto, he’s now a major detriment to them.
You could pretty much put those statements to any player. Contact hitter? Needs to stay in the lineup to keep their swing going. Patient? Needs to keep their eye sharp. Gets in a groove and then gets out of the groove. That’s all meaningless.
Except the starts slow thing, which is just not true. Go look up his splits: he hits .260/.357/.420 in April-May, a hair shy of his career line. He hits a lot worse in July, for example.
Interesting points there. My impression was that at a macro level there wasn’t much evidence to support the “plays well as a starter, struggles as a part-timer” thesis – though it is certain a frequent anecdote. That said, I could certainly see how some skill sets would not be covered by the macro data. Is there any data out there to suggest that this type of skill set is more adversely affected by platooning than others? I did some google skimming but didn’t turn anything up on point.
He’s an adequate low part of the order OF with a lot of patience, some speed, who can hit the occasional dinger.
Brad Wilkerson’s SB/CS since 2005: 18/18. Also, there’s a fair amount of evidence that he’s just done: his road OPS’s in TX in 2006-2007 were .719 and .679. Plus his OPS splits are higher in the first half (.801) than the second (.776) for his career.
That being said, it’s pretty sad when the corpse of Brad Wilkerson is outhitting your DH/occasional 4th place hitter, and the C you just resigned for three years.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare Wilkerson to a catcher or a shortstop, since he can’t play either position. But a DH, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. Vidro has to look up at “replacement player.” He needs to be replaced.
Amen. But, who replaces him? That’s the problem…the organization doesn’t have a clear candidate who would be an upgrade.
Felix! With him as DH, every day could be Felix day!