Short Hits
Consider this post a place for me to dump a bunch of short blurbs on thoughts that I’ve had over the last few days.
A few weeks ago, we announced a USSM event for the east coast crowd, to be held on May 17th at the Champps Sports in Durham. Due a scheduling conflict, we’ve had to move that back to May 31st. Same location, same deal, just a bit over two weeks from now instead of this coming Sunday. We’ll do another post as we get closer to remind everyone.
Speaking of North Carolina, for those who missed it, Dustin Ackley played a bunch of center field over the weekend for the Tar Heels. The arm looked good enough and the athleticism played in the outfield as most expected. Right now, he’s a pretty easy call for the #2 pick, I think.
While we’re talking about guys I wouldn’t mind having in the organization, can we have Chris Burke back please? Since the Padres re-acquired him from the Mariners, he’s been their semi-regular shortstop, logging 52 innings at the position and totaling 32 plate appearances as a hitter. He’s hitting .259/.375/.409, and he’s drawn four walks and has four extra base hits. In 117 plate appearances, Yuni has two walks and six extra base hits. Oh, and Burke’s been just fine at shortstop defensively as well. There’s nothing that Yuni does better than Chris Burke. We gave away the wrong guy.
Jason Vargas gets his first start for the M’s tonight. I like Vargas, and I think if given a chance, he’ll stick in the rotation all year. I just ask that everyone not judge him on tonight’s performance. The Rangers offense is just ridiculous, and playing them in Texas is as formidable a task as you could face. They’ll probably start seven right-handed bats tonight, and as a team, their RHBs are hitting .342/.384/.564 against southpaws. If Vargas can get through six innings and allow four runs or less, he should be congratulated.
The Mariners outfield has posted a UZR of +15.3 so far this year. The infield has posted a UZR of -6.5. I know the pitching staff will need some attention for 2010, but this really better be the last year I have to watch Lopez and Betancourt. Man, do they suck.
In regards to Yuni and Lopez, I keep telling myself that Jack and the great support staff he has assembled see all the data that we have and know that they are not the answer. And perhaps know it better than we do. As such, the reason moves have not been made is that they are simply waiting to identify the right replacements for the right price. Is this close to how you see it as well, Dave?
Basically. Jack and Blengino guys aren’t up there thinking “man, this Yuni kid is good. These two middle infielders are better than advertised. Let’s build around them.”
They know these two are killing us both at the plate and in the field. They know the team is way too right-handed. They know that they’ve both just refused to adapt to any kind of instruction, and that they’re two of the biggest wastes of talent the organization has ever had.
But, honestly, there’s not that much that can be done. Cedeno has been just as bad as the starters. Most teams don’t want to make trades right now. The best case scenario is that they both start to play better and the team could trade them away this summer, but that doesn’t happen if you stick them on the bench.
So, we wait. Hopefully, come July, Jack’s able to swing a few deals that brings us a new middle infield. If not for this year, at least for next.
Zduriencik did a nice job of fixing the OF this offseason. I assume that he is aware that the middle infield also needs fixing, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. As Dave and others have noted, there are not any middle infielders in the M’s minor league system ready in 2009 or 2010, making the Yuni/Lopez situation quite difficult.
Dave-
Can you please stop lumping Jose Lopez in with Yuni. Yuni’s current level of suck is far worse than Jose’s.
Jose is walking at a greater clip this year. His BABIP is 15 points below his career BABIP (as is Yuni’s), but his non-BABIP depend stats look fine. His RoS ZiPS projection puts him at a .316 wOBA; below league average, but decent for a 2B. His UZR will likely end the season somewhere between -5 and -10 at 2B.
Yuni’s RoS ZiPS projection is .298 and he will likely finish the season (assuming he continues to start) with a UZR between -20 and -30.
Even with his positional value advantage at SS, Yuni is by far and away the bigger problem of the two.
I’m not saying that Jose Lopez is great, not with how he’s started the season, but he’s definitely the lesser of two evils here.
Kelly Johnson has been mentioned and other names such as Ian Stewart and Blake DeWitt are very intriguing. However, Colorado still probably sees Stewart as their 3rd baseman of the future. As for DeWitt, it is the Dodgers. What are some other targets the front office could and should be looking at?
I actually thought that UZR showed Lopez as being off to a pretty good start this year, but I just re-checked the data and man, did he turn that around fast. -1.5 already and with the worst UZR/150 of his entire career. So you said before that the Twins are a team that doesn’t place much emphasis on the new fancy metrics like UZR. Are their any other teams that you think would be dense enough to be unaware of these guys’ shortcomings?
Also, a couple days ago in a post about Dustin Ackley, I saw you say something in the comment section about him playing second base. Is that actually being discussed or is that more like a dream scenario? It seems like a guy with his speed and reputation for awesome infield defense (albeit as a first basemen) could try moving to a more challenging infield position like second or third now that he can throw again. Do you think that’s something that the team that drafts him will even consider or is that just wishful thinking? Getting a Markakis-like bat at second base would be ridiculously awesome. It’d almost be like having our own Chase Utley, although realistically, he’d probably be worse offensively and defensively. Of course, if he could even be close, he’d be awesome.
Can you please stop lumping Jose Lopez in with Yuni. Yuni’s current level of suck is far worse than Jose’s.
“Hey, Doctor, I know I have this giant knife sticking out of my stomach here, but I also go shot. Could you get the bullet out first? I think that’s a bigger problem.”
“Amazingly enough kid, we can fix two problems at the same time. Now shut up and lay still.”
“Amazingly enough kid, we can fix two problems at the same time. Now shut up and lay still.â€
Head amputation time!
If Jack can fix them both at once, that would be amazing. But if you could only get a league average SS or 2B back in a trade mid-season, which one would you want?
I’m not Dave (nor even a facsimile), but from what I’ve read, that’s just a dream scenario, not really rooted in reality. I think some outside observers speculated that he has the physical tools/size/athleticism to play 2B, but as far as I know, he’s always been an OF until recently playing 1B due to his bad elbow (which is now fixed thanks to Tommy John).
We’ll see what Jack does with him when he signs (crossing fingers that Boras plays reasonable and the kid gets to Everett THIS summer). My guess is he plays CF all the way through the minors… And plays LF or CF at Safeco.
It’s fine to lump Lopez and Yuni together…they both suck…what more do you need?
Ugh, I hate that the player we’re about to say is the 2nd best in the nation doesn’t have a definite position and is in the same sentence as Tommy John.
But he sure can hit and run too.
But if you could only get a league average SS or 2B back in a trade mid-season, which one would you want?
Both. Seriously, there’s no reason to limit yourself to one or the other, or trying to figure out which position the M’s need to upgrade more. They need a new second baseman and a new shortstop. There is no artificial limitation on only being able to pick one, so the question is irrelevant.
Yuni is a bigger detriment to the team than Jose Lopez so all things being equal getting a replacement for Yuni is the higher priority. There are other factors to be considered, such as a shortstop may be harder to find than a 2nd baseman, but if one of them was going to tear their ACL tomorrow and be out for the season we all would pick the same guy.
Remember back when a lot of people were thrilled that we had a young, cheap, pair of middle-infielders that were signed semi-long-term and that the middle-infield was no longer a problem?
I was one, and over the last year and a half, I can honestly say that Yuni is very close to being the Seattle Mariner that I hate most…of all time…
Wasted potential…stubborness…laziness…
Sigh…
I was going to argue with Dave about the relative value of Yuni and Lopez, and so went and looked ’em up on Fangraphs.
Both of them are playing below replacement level. Yeah, that’s bad. There’s at least some hope that Lopez might pull it together with the bat. I hold no such hope for Yuni.
So the question is, what should we be willing to give up for a young league average SS and 2b?
Bedard? Beltre? Both?
Is there any chance that the Ms could get a Mulligan on the Eduardo Perez trade?
Dammit man, more morphine!
How the heck does a FO manage to build a team that is too right-handed AND defensively challenged while having Safeco as your home park?
How the heck does a FO manage to build a team that is too right-handed AND defensively challenged while having Safeco as your home park?
Does the name Bill Bavasi ring any bells? What else could Z have done to pull the team out of the fetid quagmire that he left us in?
I’m a baseball commenter, not an obscure 90’s alt-rock/jazz band!
Fetid quagmire. That’s quite the turn of phrase. And unfortunately, it fits.
Since this is a “short blurb” post, here’s the random thought I had the other day when I was looking over some of my aviation texts — and I can’t believe I didn’t think of this in the years that Bill Bavasi was here:
BA could mean “Below Altitude” And VASI is a system pilots use to determine where they are relative to the desired angle of approach to an airport. So to be BA-VASI would mean you are headed towards controlled flight into terrain, ie a crash where the pilot thought he was doing everything correctly, right up to the point where he hit the ground.
Fetid quagmire. That’s quite the turn of phrase. And unfortunately, it fits.
I’ll take that as a compliment. Though probably not all that well deserved considering that I ended the sentence with a preposition.
Is there any chance that the Ms could get a Mulligan on the Eduardo Perez trade?
Sure, if somebody seriously overvalues Russell Branyan at the trade deadline.
Anyone wanna buy my Yuni autographed bat that I bought back when I thought he was gonna be great? I need to stop denying that he sucks, just because I paid $100 for that thing.
Up with which we will not put.
I wonder if anyone has tried to keep track of just how many times the opposing team got a “Fourth out” courtesy of our middle-infield, and then went on to score a bunch of runs? To those who think that those singles that get by, do not matter much, you need to consider what happens next, that is one old school idea that still holds, you can’t be giving the other team four outs in an inning, and expect to win consistently.
Bad news for tonight: Hamilton and Young are both back in Texas’ lineup.
How the heck does a FO manage to build a team that is too right-handed AND defensively challenged while having Safeco as your home park?
Well, considering that several of Zdurencik’s acquisitions were LHB (Branyan, Chavez, Griffey) as well as significant defensive upgrades (Chavez, Gutierrez), onto a team saddled with three backend rotation starters and a rapidly aging catcher making a combined 40 million and basically being the 25 man roster equivalent of a boat anchor dragging behind a speedboat, I don’t really think this is GMZ’s fault (though it is his problem now). Arguably, the Mariners are farther along in cleaning out the Augean stables left by Bavasi than other similar reconstruction projects.
“Hey, Doctor, I know I have this giant knife sticking out of my stomach here, but I also go shot. Could you get the bullet out first? I think that’s a bigger problem.â€
“Amazingly enough kid, we can fix two problems at the same time. Now shut up and lay still.â€
I’d actually argue the M’s biggest problem after SS in the infield is C (and it’s possibly 1 and 1a), THEN 2B- if they’ve given up on Clement being the answer there, they have to realize that Johjima and Rob Johnson aren’t it, either. So really, the M’s have a bullet wound, knife wound AND a compound fracture when it comes to their infield, so they’ll need to fix all of these.