Just Say No To Miguel Olivo
The rumor of the day surrounding the Mariners is all about Miguel Olivo. Everyone I talk to brings his name up. At this point, it’s gone from weird speculation to “they aren’t really thinking about this, right?”
There are parks where Olivo can be kind of useful, as he showed with his +3.2 WAR season last year. As it is for most hitters, but especially fringey right-handed pull power guys, Coors Field treated Olivo well. He hit .318/.349/.556 at home and a miserable .211/.276/.322 on the road. If you eliminate Coors Field from the list of parks that Olivo has hit in during his career, his line is .239/.276/.415 in over 2,800 plate appearances. That sucks. And that’s in an average park, not Safeco Field. Olivo’s home run chart from 2010:
Where is it hardest to hit the ball out in Safeco? Left and left-center, of course. Where is all of Olivo’s power concentrated? Left and left-center.
Even if you put aside Adam Moore and the money it would take to get Olivo, he’s just absolutely wrong for this park. He’s Jose Lopez with more strikeouts, and we all just celebrated getting rid of Lopez. Olivo can help a Major League team in the right circumstance, but Seattle is not that team and not that circumstance.
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11 Responses to “Just Say No To Miguel Olivo”
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Even before you mentioned Lopez – the first thing I thought of when I saw the graph of Olivo’s home runs was its striking similarity to the graph you’d posted a while back of Lopez’ 2009 home runs, but with fewer dots.
I have a difficult time believing there’s much of anything to this rumor under the current FO regime. Jack Z has taught me that anything he’s seriously involved in wouldn’t even cross the radar until it was done or all but done, so the fact that there’s much chatter suggests to me that — even if the M’s are generating it — it serves some purpose extrinsic to the M’s roster (e.g., baiting some other team into pulling the trigger prematurely on Olivo and eliminating a rival destination for Zaun, but that is admittedly VERY speculative). As sophisticated as this front office is, I can’t believe they too don’t realize what Dave has pointed out, that he’s Lopez with more K’s. Add to that that the M’s faithful already has a bad taste in their mouth from the first time the guy played for Seattle, and he has none of the benefit of the cock-eyed optimism we once entertained about Lopez, Betancourt, et al. Once he inevitably began to struggle, the fans would be all over him, and then it would just snowball from there.
Dave, I’m applying your smell test, and there’s something malodorous about this rumor, methinks.
In addition to having no plate discipline and not being right for Safeco, as far as not being able to catch the ball, Miguel Olivo was Rob Johnson five years before Rob Johnson came along. A check of the numbers shows he’s improved at this important skill, but not much. Olivo, the guy who had 14 passed balls in 103 games with Seattle has led his league in passed balls in four of the past five seasons! That includes a staggering 16 passed balls for Florida in 2007 and three other seasons with 10 passed balls. Just Say No!
Ok, I agree Olivo is a bad option–just use moore and you may get better production anyway. However just for the sake of argument, don’t the distances on that home run chart suggest that Olivo hit almost all of his home runs far enough to be out at safeco or anywehere?
Someone please forward this to someone that matters in the organization. Also, please hire Dave. Posts like this are why I follow this blog.
I seem to recall that it is not just that Safeco is deeper to left/left-center than other parks but that the park effects depress the distance the ball will carry there. Perhaps it is the prevailing wind currents, maybe it is a curse on all things traveling towards where the Kingdome used to stand, but balls don’t seem to carry as well to left field in Safeco.
It may have been a small sample size, but given his career since then and the overall lack of development in his game, I feel it necessary to recall the first time we tried Miguel Olivo behind the plate at Safeco.
If you don’t remember how that went I’ll give you a refresher course: He sucked.
Miguel Olivo is not the answer now, nor has he ever been for the M’s. I was horrified to see his name even come up today – and can only hope that there is absolutely nothing to it.
It’s also good to keep in mind that the home runs he hit in Coors Field also carried farther because of the thin air in Colorado. Some of those home runs on that chart wouldn’t have landed as far as they did if they’d been hit in other parks.
Will you guys be working on a “Just Say No To Luis Valbuena” article next?
Soooo…they finally dump one right-handed pull hitter whose skill set is completely unsuited for Safeco (Lopie) only to go after another guy with the same skill set who’s not only older and has weaker career numbers, but is not even as good defensively at his respective position and was terrible in his first go-around with the team (Olivo)?
Man, if the M’s need a “veteran” catcher that badly, I’d rather see if some old geezer like Ausmus or Zaun — who can actually catch — is available.
Olivo doesn’t have the softest hands (more like hooves), but the negative value of 10 passed balls does not offset the positive value he adds with his mobility and arm. Despite the canyon of mystery between a catcher’s metrics and his true defensive value, the various metrics are in agreement when it comes to Olivo – that he has been one of the most valuable defensive catchers in baseball over the past three years.
Not that I support a 2/7.5 deal for a player that grows on trees, just pointing out that he’s better on paper than he appears on TV.