Friday, February 23, 2007
How Much Leash Will Nook Get?
As usual, Manny Acta's press conference today was full of interesting little tidbits of insight into his thinking thus far. While he didn't give a lot away, he mentioned that Shawn Hill, Jason Simontacchi, and Jon Rauch had impressed him in the limited amount of time he's been able to devote to watching them. Rauch was assured of heading north with the team already, so I'll use Acta's comments as support to move Simontacchi and Hill from "who knows?" to "on the bubble," as far as making the 25-man roster.
What I found most intriguing was Acta's frank admission that Nook Logan's primary asset is his speed, which translates into good fielding, bunting, and base stealing, not hitting. Refreshingly absent was a Boswell-esque reliance on meaningless phrases like "he's a switch-hitter," as if that carried any weight. As has been made abundantly clear, Logan can't hit. He never has been able to hit. And his brief flashes of non-suckiness (if I have to hear how he's a .322 RH hitter one more time...) only serve to highlight how unremarkable his bat has been.
Which leads me to a question. Just how bad with the bat does Nook have to be before Acta realizes that his offensive ineptitude isn't outweighed by his speed? What if he hits .260 but stays at his career OBP of .319? Would a Guzman-esque .230 AVG get him to pull the plug? I guess I just wonder if Acta has told Nook that he must hit for X AVG and Y OBP in order to remain in the starting lineup.
Following on the heels of that runaway train of thought for a moment, Christina Kahrl at Baseball Prospectus (subscribe today!) had some interesting thoughts regarding the Nats position players yesterday. Considering the likelihood that Guzman will not continue to start whether due to ill health and/or offensive stinkiness, Ronnie Belliard is likely to eventually get the starting nod at second when Lopez gets shifted over the short. Unfortunately, as was made painfully obvious last season, Lopez cannot play short (tops in the NL in errors at the position last year). To address this problem, Kahrl offers an interesting solution that I hadn't seen discussed before. Noting that Logan doesn't have the bat to hold down a starting gig, she suggests shifting Lopez to center and putting an actual productive bat in the form of D'Angelo Jimenez at short. An added benefit of this move would be to solidify Ryan Church's spot in left field, a position much more suited to his defensive skill set. While Lopez has never played the outfield in his career, I suspect that he would thrive there even given the more defensively-focused nature of the CF position.
Would Jimenez be a better bet at short than Guzman though? You bet, say the projections:
Furthermore, PECOTA predicts a -0.6 VORP for Guzman versus a 6.0 for Jimenez. While all of the projection systems obviously penalize Guzman severely for his injury history, I don't doubt that a healthy Jimenez would outperform a healthy Guzman. Their AVG is nearly identical, but Jimenez beats him hands down on OBP and SLG.
Oh course, if Guzman is healthy but sucks, it could set up an interesting battle in the front office as Acta tries to make the case to bench him while JimBo wouldn't want to sit the $8.4M left on that contract.
Can't wait for the intrasquad games next week!
What I found most intriguing was Acta's frank admission that Nook Logan's primary asset is his speed, which translates into good fielding, bunting, and base stealing, not hitting. Refreshingly absent was a Boswell-esque reliance on meaningless phrases like "he's a switch-hitter," as if that carried any weight. As has been made abundantly clear, Logan can't hit. He never has been able to hit. And his brief flashes of non-suckiness (if I have to hear how he's a .322 RH hitter one more time...) only serve to highlight how unremarkable his bat has been.
Which leads me to a question. Just how bad with the bat does Nook have to be before Acta realizes that his offensive ineptitude isn't outweighed by his speed? What if he hits .260 but stays at his career OBP of .319? Would a Guzman-esque .230 AVG get him to pull the plug? I guess I just wonder if Acta has told Nook that he must hit for X AVG and Y OBP in order to remain in the starting lineup.
Following on the heels of that runaway train of thought for a moment, Christina Kahrl at Baseball Prospectus (subscribe today!) had some interesting thoughts regarding the Nats position players yesterday. Considering the likelihood that Guzman will not continue to start whether due to ill health and/or offensive stinkiness, Ronnie Belliard is likely to eventually get the starting nod at second when Lopez gets shifted over the short. Unfortunately, as was made painfully obvious last season, Lopez cannot play short (tops in the NL in errors at the position last year). To address this problem, Kahrl offers an interesting solution that I hadn't seen discussed before. Noting that Logan doesn't have the bat to hold down a starting gig, she suggests shifting Lopez to center and putting an actual productive bat in the form of D'Angelo Jimenez at short. An added benefit of this move would be to solidify Ryan Church's spot in left field, a position much more suited to his defensive skill set. While Lopez has never played the outfield in his career, I suspect that he would thrive there even given the more defensively-focused nature of the CF position.
Would Jimenez be a better bet at short than Guzman though? You bet, say the projections:
| Guzman | Jimenez | |
| PECOTA | .245/.288/.339 | .243/.339/.377 |
| Bill James | .258/.299/.366 | .257/.354/.370 |
| CHONE | .249/.296/.354 | .256/.354/.380 |
| Marcel | .253/.301/.371 | .260/.349/.390 |
| ZiPS | .240/.279/.327 | .246/.333/.352 |
Furthermore, PECOTA predicts a -0.6 VORP for Guzman versus a 6.0 for Jimenez. While all of the projection systems obviously penalize Guzman severely for his injury history, I don't doubt that a healthy Jimenez would outperform a healthy Guzman. Their AVG is nearly identical, but Jimenez beats him hands down on OBP and SLG.
Oh course, if Guzman is healthy but sucks, it could set up an interesting battle in the front office as Acta tries to make the case to bench him while JimBo wouldn't want to sit the $8.4M left on that contract.
Can't wait for the intrasquad games next week!
# posted by JammingEcono @ 1:00 PM 
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OK, so we take an error-prone shortstop, move him to the OF where he's never played, then fill in his spot with an inferior bat who's terrible defensively and hasn't played shortstop in about 6 years (not to mention he's someone who has a rep as a clubhouse cancer!)?
Sign me up!
BPro does a lot of things well. And a lot of their ideas make sense. But sometimes they don't know what the @#$# they're talking about.
(I suppose they still think that Jimenez is going to have a better career than Soriano)
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Sign me up!
BPro does a lot of things well. And a lot of their ideas make sense. But sometimes they don't know what the @#$# they're talking about.
(I suppose they still think that Jimenez is going to have a better career than Soriano)
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