Rockies Rumors
While the M’s basically don’t leak anything and we usually don’t know what we’re up to, it seems likely that the Mariners and Rockies have had a few discussions about matching up in a potential deal the last few days. The Mariners have been tied to outfielder Seth Smith since last week, and in more recent days, rumors have also attached them to third baseman Ian Stewart, with the Rockies apparently showing some interest in taking Chone Figgins as long as the Mariners pay the bulk of his remaining contract.
So, just briefly, I thought I’d give an overview on my view of Smith and Stewart. The short version – yay on the former at the right price, meh on the latter.
Smith is a pretty solid left-handed bat who would upgrade the line-up and could form a nifty platoon with Casper Wells, but he lacks a lot of high end potential. He does everything decently – draws some walks, makes some contact, hits for some power – but doesn’t excel in any particular area, and has historically had significant problems against left-handed pitching. He’s also not a fantastic defender, so his value has to come primarily from his bat, and the bat is more good than great.
For bat-only players, they need to hit a lot to be stars, and even playing in Colorado, he’s yet to show that he can be a big time impact hitter. If the Rockies aren’t asking too much for his services, he’d be a solid low-salary left field option, but it sounds like they might want a pretty significant return for his services, and I wouldn’t see Smith as such a valuable piece that I’d want to give up a real part of the future to pry him away. If the cost is a few guys that the organization can spare, okay, but let’s not go too far overboard for an average left fielder who needs a platoon partner.
As for Stewart, I’d essentially just no thanks. There’s this idea that somehow Stewart has “upside” or “potential”, but I just don’t see that as a position supported by much in the way of evidence. Stewart isn’t exactly a kid anymore, as he turns 27 in April, and he’s been a pretty lousy Major League player during his first 1,500 trips to the plate. He essentially has a fatal flaw – contact rate – that serves to significantly limit his ability to produce at the plate, even though he draws some walks and hits some homers.
When you strike out in 28% of your plate appearances, you have to be ridiculously great on contact to be a good hitter, and Stewart just isn’t – his career ISO of .192 is fine for someone who hasn’t played half their games in Colorado, but given the context, it’s pretty mediocre. Lots of strikeouts and just okay power is a pretty terrible combination, and we shouldn’t be overly surprised that Stewart hasn’t been able to make the skillset work in the big leagues. I know it’s tempting to look at Stewart’s minor league numbers and believe that he just needs to make some adjustments, but remember that the Rockies Triple-A team is in Colorado Springs, and there’s a lot of air in those numbers as well.
Essentially, Stewart is a mediocre defensive third baseman who is among the most whiff-prone hitters in the sport and doesn’t do enough to make up for it. He’s worse and older than Kyle Seager, and since he’s left-handed, he offers no real potential for a job share situation. If he was free, I might consider giving him a bench job, but I wouldn’t have any interest in giving up anything of any value to get him.
Placido Polanco
I mentioned this briefly on twitter, but Ken Rosenthal reported that the Phillies are actively trying to move Placido Polanco to free up room to make a run at Aramis Ramirez. If the Phillies are heavily motivated to move Polanco, he’s a guy who could make sense for the M’s.
With Seager and Liddi around, the team has a couple of interesting young players that could potentially be the long term answer at third base, but Liddi certainly isn’t ready to help in 2012 and Seager might not be either. The team could use a quality bridge at the position, and Polanco could be an option for the team, especially if the Phillies are willing to pick up a couple million on the last year of his deal.
I know it’s pretty easy to look at Polanco and just say that he’s a right-handed Kyle Seager, and that the M’s should just play Seager if that’s the skillset they want, but having both around would actually be pretty helpful. Polanco hits lefties well, while Seager hasn’t shown that he can hit them at all, so the upgrade vs LHPs would be substantial. He’d also offer infield depth and could allow Seager to spell Ryan at short or Ackley at second, or if they’d rather keep Seager playing third regularly, Polanco could be the one to get playing time around the infield.
Health concerns mean he’s probably not a full time player, but the M’s shouldn’t really be in the market for a full time third baseman. A solid guy who can get 400-500 plate appearances and provide the team with depth and the ability to not have to sink or swim with Seager could be a good fit for the organization, however, and if the Phillies are trying to move him, the cost shouldn’t be too prohibitive.
Not saying it will happen, or that the M’s are even thinking about it, but it’s a name to keep in mind at the least.
Winter Meetings Coverage
I’m down here in Dallas covering the winter meetings for FanGraphs, but I’ll also be updating USSM as I have time. There are going to be times when I’m not available to write while I’m here, though, and things may break when I’m away from my computer, so I wouldn’t suggest counting on this place being your spot for breaking news.
If you want to stay on top of the latest Mariners related rumors, you can always follow the Mariners Writers twitter list, as everything that breaks now breaks on Twitter. If you just refresh that page all day, you’ll be in the loop, then you can come here for analysis of stuff after it happens.
Wells and Carp
In talking with folks about the 2012 roster, it seems evident that a lot more people are comfortable playing Mike Carp regularly next year than there are folks who would be okay seeing Casper Wells get a majority of the playing time in left field. This strikes me as weird, because, well, just look at their career numbers in the big leagues:
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casper Wells | 340 | 7.1% | 26.5% | 0.208 | 0.325 | 0.263 | 0.330 | 0.471 | 0.346 | 116 |
| Mike Carp | 419 | 7.4% | 23.6% | 0.171 | 0.336 | 0.273 | 0.334 | 0.444 | 0.338 | 114 |
Wells and Carp have both essentially racked up a little over half a season of playing time in the Majors. In that time, they’ve posted remarkably similar batting lines and showed essentially the same offensive skillset. There’s really nothing to distinguish one from the other at the plate – they’re essentially equals in nearly every meaningful metric you can think of. Walk rate, strikeout rate, isolated slugging, swing rate, contact rate, swinging strike rate, batting average on balls in play… you name it, their offensive numbers are darn near identical.
Where they begin to diverge is on defense, where Wells’ athleticism and strong arm make him an asset in left field, while Carp is essentially the opposite of that. You don’t have to buy into UZR or any other kind of defensive metric to see that Wells holds a significant advantage with the glove, and that you’d have to believe that Carp will outperform Wells by quite a bit at the plate to offset the difference in defensive value.
So, why the disparate opinions on which of the two has earned a regular spot in the 2012 line-up? It seemingly comes down to what fans saw with their own eyes, and perhaps more precisely, Carp’s performance from July 19th (when he was recalled from Tacoma) to August 16th, when he hit .376/.411/.634 over 25 games. That stretch solidified the idea of Carp as the young power hitter the team had been looking for, and even the following 39 game stretch to close out the season where Carp hit .227/.268/.403 couldn’t take the shine off that one great month.
Interestingly, Wells performance in Seattle followed the same pattern, as he was a monster for the first 15 games after being acquired from Detroit (.333/.415/.649) and then fell flat on his face to finish the season (.067/.176/.156 in his final 15 games). Both players had boom and bust stretches, and they basically occurred at the same time, so we can’t really chalk it up to an issue of recent performance. Instead, it seems like Wells’ struggles in his final 15 games are looming larger in the idea of his future potential than Carp’s final 39 games are, and I have to be honest, I find that a little weird.
If you have two similar offensive players, but one is a good defender and one is not, why is there a preference for the inferior player? Personally, I think both are probably best suited to job-sharing next year, and I’d pencil each of them in for 300-400 plate appearances in an ideal circumstance, but I am left wondering why there’s such a vast difference in perception between the two.
The Mike Carp Family Of Hitters
I liked the way the previous post showed what you should expect from Jaso, so while I had the data sitting in a spreadsheet, I decided to apply the same analysis to another guy on the M’s roster – Mike Carp. Given his power spike at the end of last year, I know a lot of people want to see the M’s give Carp a full season to show what he can do, while I’m a bit more skeptical about whether he can sustain success using the approach he showed last year. This is where the “family of hitters” analysis is helpful, as we can see what history shows to expect from this skillset.
Same deal as with Jaso, though with Carp, the filters are obviously different. This time, I set contact rate to be between 70% and 75%, swing rate to be between 46.5% and 51.5%, and Isolated Slugging to be between .165 and .215 – essentially, taking 25 points on both sides of Carp’s average in those categories in 2011. The overall group produced a total line in these categories that is nearly an identical match (72.5% contact rate, 48.4% swing rate, and .192 ISO) to what Carp put up last year. This skillset is a little more common, so going back to 2002 like before, we’ve got 51 players accumulating 21,223 plate appearances in the seasons in which they showed similar skills to Carp. Here is the list.
| Season | Name | PA | Contact% | Swing% | ISO | BABIP | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Matt Kemp | 311 | 0.734 | 0.5 | 0.178 | 0.411 | 131 |
| 2004 | Jason Varitek | 536 | 0.72 | 0.476 | 0.186 | 0.372 | 126 |
| 2003 | Mike Piazza | 273 | 0.733 | 0.465 | 0.197 | 0.301 | 126 |
| 2003 | Eduardo Perez | 289 | 0.73 | 0.489 | 0.194 | 0.319 | 122 |
| 2010 | Jay Bruce | 573 | 0.74 | 0.47 | 0.212 | 0.334 | 122 |
| 2008 | Brad Hawpe | 569 | 0.722 | 0.482 | 0.215 | 0.341 | 121 |
| 2005 | Ryan Church | 301 | 0.737 | 0.484 | 0.179 | 0.354 | 118 |
| 2003 | Matthew LeCroy | 374 | 0.708 | 0.491 | 0.203 | 0.333 | 117 |
| 2011 | Mike Carp | 313 | 0.725 | 0.493 | 0.19 | 0.343 | 117 |
| 2003 | Austin Kearns | 338 | 0.72 | 0.473 | 0.192 | 0.297 | 115 |
| 2008 | Cliff Floyd | 284 | 0.743 | 0.487 | 0.187 | 0.302 | 114 |
| 2009 | Will Venable | 324 | 0.733 | 0.492 | 0.184 | 0.328 | 110 |
| 2002 | Reggie Sanders | 571 | 0.715 | 0.512 | 0.206 | 0.28 | 108 |
| 2010 | Bill Hall | 382 | 0.743 | 0.467 | 0.209 | 0.3 | 107 |
| 2003 | Miguel Cabrera | 346 | 0.714 | 0.506 | 0.201 | 0.329 | 105 |
| 2003 | Carlos Pena | 516 | 0.744 | 0.466 | 0.192 | 0.298 | 104 |
| 2002 | Carlos Pena | 443 | 0.714 | 0.468 | 0.207 | 0.286 | 104 |
| 2002 | Preston Wilson | 582 | 0.711 | 0.468 | 0.186 | 0.289 | 103 |
| 2005 | Preston Wilson | 576 | 0.722 | 0.476 | 0.208 | 0.314 | 101 |
| 2006 | Bobby Kielty | 297 | 0.749 | 0.48 | 0.17 | 0.304 | 101 |
| 2010 | Matt Kemp | 668 | 0.718 | 0.467 | 0.201 | 0.295 | 101 |
| 2008 | Ian Stewart | 304 | 0.713 | 0.478 | 0.195 | 0.362 | 100 |
| 2003 | Wes Helms | 536 | 0.73 | 0.491 | 0.189 | 0.307 | 100 |
| 2010 | Shelley Duncan | 259 | 0.734 | 0.481 | 0.188 | 0.294 | 100 |
| 2002 | Marty Cordova | 513 | 0.729 | 0.466 | 0.181 | 0.295 | 99 |
| 2002 | Damian Miller | 340 | 0.715 | 0.472 | 0.185 | 0.318 | 98 |
| 2005 | Eric Hinske | 537 | 0.738 | 0.489 | 0.168 | 0.317 | 98 |
| 2010 | Ian Stewart | 441 | 0.739 | 0.472 | 0.187 | 0.308 | 97 |
| 2005 | Jacque Jones | 585 | 0.727 | 0.514 | 0.189 | 0.279 | 97 |
| 2008 | Jeff Baker | 333 | 0.739 | 0.504 | 0.201 | 0.327 | 96 |
| 2010 | Brad Hawpe | 346 | 0.729 | 0.466 | 0.174 | 0.308 | 95 |
| 2009 | Marcus Thames | 294 | 0.719 | 0.508 | 0.202 | 0.291 | 95 |
| 2009 | Travis Snider | 276 | 0.708 | 0.479 | 0.178 | 0.316 | 95 |
| 2006 | Craig Wilson | 395 | 0.703 | 0.477 | 0.195 | 0.329 | 94 |
| 2011 | Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 386 | 0.706 | 0.51 | 0.215 | 0.304 | 94 |
| 2011 | Ryan Raburn | 418 | 0.747 | 0.498 | 0.176 | 0.324 | 94 |
| 2008 | Jay Bruce | 452 | 0.716 | 0.512 | 0.199 | 0.296 | 93 |
| 2011 | Jason Varitek | 250 | 0.729 | 0.467 | 0.203 | 0.264 | 93 |
| 2011 | Kelly Johnson | 613 | 0.718 | 0.472 | 0.191 | 0.277 | 93 |
| 2002 | Alex Gonzalez | 568 | 0.713 | 0.489 | 0.177 | 0.302 | 92 |
| 2004 | Josh Phelps | 401 | 0.724 | 0.479 | 0.199 | 0.29 | 90 |
| 2007 | John Buck | 399 | 0.726 | 0.493 | 0.207 | 0.243 | 89 |
| 2011 | Grady Sizemore | 295 | 0.721 | 0.475 | 0.198 | 0.284 | 88 |
| 2007 | Bill Hall | 503 | 0.745 | 0.499 | 0.17 | 0.319 | 87 |
| 2008 | Brandon Moss | 263 | 0.723 | 0.486 | 0.191 | 0.307 | 87 |
| 2007 | Andruw Jones | 659 | 0.725 | 0.481 | 0.191 | 0.242 | 85 |
| 2007 | Richie Sexson | 491 | 0.73 | 0.477 | 0.194 | 0.217 | 84 |
| 2002 | Fernando Tatis | 430 | 0.707 | 0.51 | 0.171 | 0.256 | 80 |
| 2006 | Reggie Sanders | 358 | 0.72 | 0.513 | 0.178 | 0.297 | 80 |
| 2004 | Scott Hairston | 364 | 0.71 | 0.466 | 0.195 | 0.297 | 79 |
| 2007 | David Ross | 348 | 0.711 | 0.475 | 0.196 | 0.225 | 62 |
| Total | 21223 | 0.725 | 0.484 | 0.192 | 0.303 | 100 |
The list of performances is pretty darn similar to Jaso’s comparables, and you’ll probably notice immediately that the wRC+ for this group is actually slightly worse than it was for Jaso’s group, though both collections could both be described as essentially average hitters. There’s a bit larger of a spread in results here, though once again, results are basically driven by a player’s BABIP – Matt Kemp’s crazy good 2007 was driven by a .411, while David Ross’ disastrous 2007 was thanks to a .225 BABIP, and obviously, neither of those marks were anything close to sustainable.
In terms of Carp, his 117 wRC+ from last year was the ninth highest posted by anyone in this “family”, and his .343 BABIP was the fifth highest anyone posted. Like with Jaso, this group suggests there’s significant regression coming if the same package of skills is maintained, but unfortunately with Carp, it’s regression in the other direction.
The conclusion here is hard to avoid. If Mike Carp takes the same approach at the plate in 2012 that he did in 2011, the results are going to be worse, and probably by a good amount. It’s one thing to have a league average hitting catcher (that’s a very good thing), but it’s entirely another to have a league average hitting 1B/DH with no defensive value. If Carp regresses back to the normal production level for a hitter with his 2011 contact rate, swing rate, and power levels, he’ll essentially be a replacement level player.
Of course, Carp has shown better contact rates in prior years, and there are some guys on the list – Matt Kemp, Jay Bruce, Miguel Cabrera, and Carlos Pena aren’t bad names to be associated with, after all – who offer some hope that this kind of skillset can be improved upon. The problem is that most of those guys were a lot younger than Carp was when they showed these skills in the big leagues, and so improvement with experience and natural growth was to be expected. At 25-years-old, Carp is getting close to the point where he should be in his physical prime, so there probably isn’t a ton of room for development left.
If there’s one guy who you could point to as perhaps the blueprint for what you’d hope for from Carp, it’s probably Pena, who didn’t really break out as a big leaguer until he was 29. Of course, a significant part of his improvement can be directly tied to his decision to drastically cut down on how often he swung the bat, as he set a career low 43.1% mark in his swing rate during his monster 2007 season. If Carp is going to follow the Pena path to being a productive slugger while striking out a lot, he’s simply going to have to stop chasing so many pitches out of the strike zone, get himself in better hitter’s counts, and be willing to take more walks.
More likely, though, he pretty much is what he is, and his future looks a lot like Eric Hinske’s career. It’s possible that Carp adds a bit more patience to his game and is able to maintain the power he showed last year, which would make him a useful player. He’ll never be any kind of star with his contact problems, and we probably shouldn’t expect Carp to be more than an average-ish hitter going forward, but there are some reasons to give him additional playing time in 2012. I just don’t agree that he’s shown enough to be handed the full-time starting DH job, however, and I wouldn’t suggest that the organization go into next season with Carp in a starting role and no legitimate alternative in the organization.
As a part-time player or a guy who doesn’t have to be counted on, he’s a decent piece to have around. Given how these types of hitters have generally performed, however, the Mariners better not count on getting a repeat performance from Carp, because odds are pretty good that the 2012 version won’t be as good as the 2011 version.
The John Jaso Family Of Hitters
Since Jaso’s value is primarily tied to how well he hits – and he didn’t hit very well last year – I decided to look and see how players with similar skillsets have fared over the last 10 years in order to give us a better understanding of what kind of results should be expected given this particular blend of abilities. To create a list of comparable player seasons, I isolated players who had shown similar skills in approach, contact rate, and power. More specifically, the list includes 34 players who had at least 250 plate appearances in a season, made contact at least 87% of the time they swung the bat, swung at 40% or fewer of the pitches they were thrown, and had an Isolated Slugging mark between .100 and .140.
This gives us 34 guys who match up with Jaso’s offensive profile very well – they’re patient hitters who lack big time power but offset some of that with an ability to put the bat on the ball with frequency. Overall, these guys compiled 16,866 plate appearances in the season in which they showed similar skills as Jaso, so we’re dealing with a pretty good sample of similar players.
Here’s the table of their performances, sorted by wRC+, which shows how far their offensive performance was above or below the league average (which is 100 by definition).
| Season | Name | PA | Contact% | Swing% | ISO | BABIP | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Joe Mauer | 633 | 0.908 | 0.358 | 0.123 | 0.342 | 132 |
| 2010 | Daric Barton | 686 | 0.882 | 0.349 | 0.131 | 0.316 | 126 |
| 2010 | David DeJesus | 394 | 0.887 | 0.386 | 0.125 | 0.355 | 125 |
| 2003 | Scott Podsednik | 628 | 0.878 | 0.369 | 0.129 | 0.361 | 122 |
| 2010 | Brett Gardner | 569 | 0.906 | 0.31 | 0.103 | 0.34 | 120 |
| 2009 | Denard Span | 676 | 0.898 | 0.396 | 0.104 | 0.353 | 118 |
| 2007 | Joe Mauer | 471 | 0.887 | 0.362 | 0.133 | 0.319 | 116 |
| 2010 | John Jaso | 404 | 0.884 | 0.336 | 0.115 | 0.282 | 116 |
| 2009 | Marco Scutaro | 680 | 0.934 | 0.345 | 0.127 | 0.304 | 112 |
| 2006 | Brian Giles | 717 | 0.933 | 0.372 | 0.134 | 0.272 | 111 |
| 2011 | Marco Scutaro | 445 | 0.947 | 0.376 | 0.124 | 0.312 | 110 |
| 2004 | Scott Hatteberg | 638 | 0.921 | 0.367 | 0.136 | 0.285 | 107 |
| 2006 | Maicer Izturis | 399 | 0.901 | 0.377 | 0.119 | 0.313 | 106 |
| 2010 | Jeff Keppinger | 575 | 0.929 | 0.387 | 0.105 | 0.298 | 105 |
| 2009 | Craig Counsell | 459 | 0.893 | 0.382 | 0.124 | 0.317 | 104 |
| 2004 | Dave Roberts | 371 | 0.882 | 0.383 | 0.125 | 0.282 | 103 |
| 2011 | Brett Gardner | 588 | 0.914 | 0.355 | 0.11 | 0.303 | 103 |
| 2007 | Maicer Izturis | 374 | 0.889 | 0.397 | 0.116 | 0.308 | 101 |
| 2009 | Scott Podsednik | 587 | 0.911 | 0.391 | 0.108 | 0.341 | 99 |
| 2009 | Brett Gardner | 284 | 0.878 | 0.342 | 0.109 | 0.311 | 99 |
| 2004 | D’Angelo Jimenez | 652 | 0.886 | 0.35 | 0.124 | 0.308 | 99 |
| 2004 | John Olerud | 500 | 0.89 | 0.356 | 0.115 | 0.281 | 98 |
| 2003 | Scott Hatteberg | 622 | 0.892 | 0.336 | 0.129 | 0.261 | 95 |
| 2011 | Alexi Casilla | 365 | 0.877 | 0.386 | 0.108 | 0.294 | 95 |
| 2011 | Michael Brantley | 496 | 0.899 | 0.383 | 0.118 | 0.303 | 93 |
| 2006 | Jamey Carroll | 534 | 0.915 | 0.382 | 0.104 | 0.339 | 92 |
| 2010 | Marco Scutaro | 695 | 0.948 | 0.375 | 0.112 | 0.295 | 92 |
| 2011 | Sam Fuld | 346 | 0.901 | 0.372 | 0.12 | 0.276 | 92 |
| 2005 | Craig Counsell | 670 | 0.911 | 0.36 | 0.119 | 0.276 | 91 |
| 2002 | Mark Grace | 348 | 0.881 | 0.399 | 0.134 | 0.258 | 91 |
| 2007 | Dave Roberts | 443 | 0.891 | 0.392 | 0.104 | 0.308 | 88 |
| 2009 | Jeff Keppinger | 344 | 0.914 | 0.383 | 0.131 | 0.266 | 84 |
| 2011 | John Jaso | 273 | 0.886 | 0.367 | 0.13 | 0.244 | 82 |
You’ll note Jaso’s 2011 is at the very bottom of the list. Because we’ve essentially controlled for approach, contact abilities, and power, the variable that drives the differences in results is almost entirely the player’s BABIP in that season. Jaso’s .244 mark is by far the worst posted by any of these players, and so naturally, his overall production comes out worse than the rest as well.
The good news? The weighted average BABIP for players showing this skillset was .306, so there’s simply no evidence that these type of hitters are prone to posting lower than average BABIPs as a group. And, while you might point out that Jaso is a slow-footed catcher who should be prone to low BABIPs due to his lack of speed, the comparable player list is peppered with the likes of similar sloths, including Joe Mauer, John Olerud, Daric Barton, Scott Hatteberg, and Mark Grace. There are some fast guys on the list who were able to inflate their BABIPs by bunting and getting infield singles, but this is certainly not just Jaso and a bunch of speed merchants – this offensive skillset is shared by fast and slow players alike.
The weighted average wRC+ of the group, by the way, was 105 – this is a selection of players that are generally slightly above average Major League hitters. The fact that we capped power production at an ISO of .140 means that there’s almost no chance of a hitter having a great offensive season – Joe Mauer’s 132 wRC+ in 2008 is the closest we come, and he’s obviously the very best version of this type of hitter in the sport – but this skillset also has a pretty high floor. Only three of the 34 player seasons resulted in a wRC+ of 90 or below, which shows how hard it is to be an offensive sinkhole when you make contact this often and don’t chase pitches out of the strike zone.
As long as Jaso is able to maintain his contact rates and the level of power he’s shown to date, history suggests that he’s going to be something close to a league average hitter going forward. His 2011 performance is the absolute floor for a player with his skills, and given some natural bounce in his BABIP, he should easily be expected to be a positive offensive contributor next year.
Jaso is exactly the kind of hitter who shows why looking at process instead of results is important. If you just focus on his slash line from last year, he looks like a bad hitter. If you dig a little deeper, however, you’ll realize that Jaso belongs to a group of players who are almost always productive at the plate, and you should expect Jaso to produce at a similar level again next year.
Mariners Acquire John Jaso
The M’s have made their first move of the off-season, and my initial reaction is that I love this one. They’ve traded RHP Josh Lueke and a PTBNL (or cash, indicating that it’s probably not a very important secondary player) to the Tampa Bay Rays for C John Jaso. Lueke you know about, so here’s the lowdown on Jaso.
He’s a 28-year-old left-handed catcher who worked his way up through Tampa Bay’s system despite not being a scout’s favorite. He displayed a fantastic approach at the plate (career 299/309 BB/K in 2,550 minor league plate appearances) all the way up through the minors, and used his on base skills to compensate for just average power.
After tiring of Dioner Navarro, the Rays turned their catching job over to Jaso in 2010, and he responded by having a fantastic season, hitting .263/.378/.372 in his rookie year. His terrific approach at the plate continued, as he drew 59 walks and struck out just 39 times, and while he still didn’t show a ton of power, his on base skills more than made up for it. Overall, Jaso was a +2.7 win player in 404 plate appearances, and he looked like he had established himself as the Rays primary catcher for 2011.
His follow-up effort didn’t go as well, however, as he ended up hitting just .224/.298/.354 in 273 PA in 2011. His walk rate fell and his strikeout rate increased, cutting his production in the process. However, the main cause of Jaso’s regression came from his BABIP, which dropped from .283 in 2010 to .244 last year. Among the 306 players who got 250+ PA last year, that BABIP ranked 294th, and while he could have just not hit the ball as well, it also suggests that his overall batting line is worse than it should have been, and he could be a pretty good bounce back candidate.
Overall, Jaso’s career line in the Majors is still a decent .245/.340/.365, and that’s with a .266 BABIP, so it’s not like those numbers have been inflated by balls falling in. His exceptional contact abilities and solid approach at the plate give him the ability to get on base, and while he’s not any kind of thumper, he has enough gap power to at least keep pitchers honest.
Defensively, Jaso doesn’t bring as much to the table. He’s thrown out just 22 of 113 attempted base stealers during his career (19% CS%), and his throwing arm can only be described as not great. However, he can actually catch the ball, and while he won’t shut down a running game, he’s a good enough receiver to be able to handle the position. The Mariners will have to put up with the opposing team taking second base a bit more often, but given the offensive upgrade they’ll get from having his bat in the line-up, it’s an easy trade-off to make.
The M’s essentially just acquired Miguel Olivo‘s polar opposite, which considering all of his flaws, is a really good idea. Jaso won’t even be arbitration eligible for the first time until next winter, so he’s going to make something close to the league minimum, and they also control his rights through 2015.
Even if Jaso’s actual talent level is closer to his 2011 skills than his 2010 numbers, he projects as a +1 to +2 win player, and the Mariners got him for a middle reliever with a lot of baggage. If his BABIP bounces back to 2010 levels, he could be an above average catcher, and a guy they could run out there as the starter on a regular basis.
It’s hard not to see this as a steal for the M’s. With Jaso in the fold, the M’s can run a potentially effective platoon behind the plate, and they now have a solid catching option for the future who won’t cost any money for the next few years. If the M’s can make a few more moves like this, 2012 will start to look a lot better in a hurry.
Added point: Just for fun, here’s Jaso’s career line compared with the guy who has been catching for the Phillies for the last five years. They’re almost the exact same player, and Carlos Ruiz has been a vital cog on one of the best teams in baseball. Ruiz is the template for this kind of player, and shows that this skill set can do quite well.
2012 ZIPS Projections
Dan Szymborski is rolling out his ZIPS projections for next year on a team by team basis, and today, he made the Mariners projections public. If you want optimism and hope, you’ve come to the wrong place. In fact, the system believes that there are three people currently in the organization that will be at least average Major League hitters next year – Dustin Ackley (.261/.348/.410), Mike Carp (.252/.317/.414), and Vinny Catricala (.259/.321/.401).
In fact, the system is extremely bearish on most of the guys that the team is counting on improvements from in 2012. It thinks Justin Smoak is going to get worse (.231/.326/.376, 95 OPS+), Ichiro is going to be nearly as bad as he was last year (.278/.317/.354, 87 OPS+), Franklin Gutierrez will still suck (.248/.299/.358, 82 OPS+), and that of the young kids who got their feet wet last year, only Kyle Seager (.267/.323/.372, 93 OPS+) is worthy of any kind of playing time.
Honestly, if you take these projections at face value, this is a 100 loss team. Basically, ZIPS thinks that Dustin Ackley is the only position player who is likely to be an above average player, and while it loves Felix (131 ERA+) and likes Pineda (112 ERA+), it’s not a huge fan of the rest of the pitching staff either.
Like any projection system, ZIPS isn’t perfect, but it has historically done as well as any projection system out there in forecasting future performance. In this case, the Mariners simply have to hope it’s missing the mark on most of it’s young position players, because if these guys perform as badly as the system projects, 2012 will be a miserable year that ends with everyone getting fired.
That said, this is a roster full of players with limited Major League experience, and the error bars on projections for young guys is quite a bit wider than with veterans. If these projections were based on thousands of Major League plate appearances, you could essentially bet that the 2012 Mariners will be a miserable failure. Projecting guys like Ackley, Smoak, Seager, Wells, and Carp is less certain, and these guys have a better chance of besting these numbers than a veteran with similar projections.
If you want a reason to not buy into these projections, you could argue that the lack of Major League experience for most of the position players makes these less reliable, and you’d have a decent case. Still, the fact that the projections are almost unanimously negative mean that the Mariners need the system to be nearly completely broken when it comes to their young players, or else this is still pretty bad news.
New CBA Hurts Mariners In Big Way
Over the past 10 years, the Mariners have had one major competitive advantage over almost every other team in baseball – their international scouting department. Led by Bob Engle, the group has covered the globe looking for young talent, and created a pipeline of prospects that have fed into the system on an annual basis. The Mariners are consistently one of the most aggressive teams in pursuing top amateur talent from other countries, and they’ve invested heavily in international infrastructure that allows them to reap the rewards of signing quality young players.
Well, the new CBA just eliminated most of those advantages. According to Jeff Passan, each Major League team will now be allowed to spend $2.9 million total on international free agents next year – less than what many top prospects have been signing for by themselves – and then in future years, a team’s total international budget will be determined based on their Major League win-loss record. If the organization begins to win at the Major League level, they’ll have even less to spend on international talent going forward.
Major League Baseball essentially just eliminated the value of international scouting. By drastically depressing bonuses and taking away teams ability to invest in amateur talent, the most talented players are now simply going to be weighing similar offers from every team.
This is an absolutely awful decision by Major League Baseball, as they’ve decided to prioritize the lowering of total costs over the ability for teams to compete through different player acquisition strategies. The Mariners just lost one of their best assets, and now are going to have to come up with some way to offset their loss of a low-cost talent pipeline established through years of hard work.
Congratulations, MLB, you just screwed over teams who had worked extremely hard to find alternate ways to win beyond “spend on free agents”. The new rules are so awful that the only way they would make any sense was if they were written by a Steinbrenner.
This Doesn’t Make Sense
In 2007, I went to the Netherlands, and I found myself with a day to waste between trips to Schiphol airport. My wife asked me what we were going to do for 10 hours or so, and without hesitation, I said: “We’re going to Haarlem.” When she asked why, I blurted out something about a Mariners prospect who was from the town, and how he’d come back from a broken hand and was having a great year for short-season Everett, and somewhere in the middle of it, I realized how silly it sounded. “What do you expect to see there? Random baseball games breaking out in the streets?” she asked incredulously. “No, no, I don’t know. It’ll just….it’ll be fun. It’ll make sense when we get there.”
He showed up in Tacoma at a meet and greet with fans and the media in April 2010 in a suit that looked like it came from Miami Vice’s costume department. The Rainiers were unveiling a new logo, but many of the press questions focused on the team’s new uber-talented but mercurial center fielder. Alonzo Powell talked about working with Halman on his approach, how willing to listen and learn he was, and about his prodigious natural talents. In his first game at Cheney, he looked foolish against Jhoulys Chacin for a few ABs, but made a great play in the field. Then, when he made real contact (I think it may have been against his future teammate Chaz Roe) – the bat sounded unnaturally loud, like an over-the-top Hollywood special effect. In April, he looked exactly like you might expect, given his scouting report: like a collection of amazing tools that hadn’t quite coalesced into a great player. He had an up-and-down year, but he showed enough freakish ability that I knew he’d have some sort of MLB career. He wanted it so much (the contrast with the incumbent M’s LF at the time, Milton Bradley, couldn’t have been starker), he had speed, power, defense… yes, his K:BB was bad, but he’d have a week here and there where he’d hit 4-5 HRs with another 4 2Bs. The A’s drafted Michael Choice, George Springer was racking up HRs (and whiffs) in college – who cared about strikeouts? Seriously, just LOOK at this kid. It’ll make sense.
This morning, I woke up to see the photos on Geoff Baker’s blog of Halman smiling and talking with kids in the Czech Republic. All day, I’ve been thinking about what Halman meant to these kids, a guy who grew up in the baseball backwater of Europe who’d made it to the Major Leagues. I imagine he told them how hard he worked to be where he was, and about always getting advice from coaches and teammates. I like to think that he learned something about how to approach the game, and about preparation, from Ichiro – and that he passed along this wisdom to the Czech youth earlier this month. The scene seems completely surreal to me – a young Dutchman, trying to impart the synthesis of Ken Griffey Jr (thesis) and Ichiro (antithesis) to Czech teenagers. Here was a guy just like them who, having fought the curveball to a draw, got to play with his hero, and got to learn from this crazy, monomaniacal Japanese guy who seemingly never struck out. Somehow, I think it must’ve made sense.
My heart goes out to Halman’s parents. I can’t imagine anything about this situation will ever make sense to them, or to any of us. We’ll miss you, Greg.
