Compare & Contrast: A superficial glance at Second Base
by riverfront76 on Oct 27, 2010 10:00 AM EDT
in Off-season
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PrintPosition: Second Base
2010 Innings breakdown: Brandon Phillips - 90%
Chris Valaika - 5%
Paul Janish - 2%
Miguel Cairo - 2%
Willie Bloomquist - 0%
Drew Sutton - 0%
2010 Composite batting line (over 650 PA):
|
AB |
R |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
SB |
CS |
BB |
SO |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS |
|
593 |
91 |
163 |
30 |
4 |
17 |
56 |
14 |
10 |
43 |
83 |
.275 |
.330 |
.427 |
.757 |
|
BABIP |
Contact Rate |
Walk Rate |
Batting Eye |
SBO |
RC/G |
|
.296 |
86.1% |
6.5% |
0.51 |
15.9% |
4.63 |
2010 Composite NL average second baseman batting line (over 650 PA):
|
AB |
R |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
SB |
CS |
BB |
SO |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS |
|
580 |
78 |
153 |
27 |
2 |
12 |
59 |
9 |
4 |
54 |
94 |
.265 |
.333 |
.387 |
.720 |
|
BABIP |
Contact Rate |
Walk Rate |
Batting Eye |
SBO |
RC/G |
|
.297 |
83.8% |
8.3% |
0.57 |
7.8% |
4.21 |
2011 Contract status:
Phillips - signed through 2011, with team option for 2012
Valaika - not yet arbitration eligible
Janish - not yet arbitration eligible
Cairo - free agent
Bloomquist - free agent
Sutton - with Cleveland
Advanced minor league depth:
Chris Valaika - age 24, 738 OPS at AAA
Jake Kahaulelio - age 25, 759 OPS at AA
Jose Castro - age 23, 547 OPS at AA
Relative win increase, 2010 vs. 2009: +0
Brief summary of 2010: In his first at-bat of the season, I was wishing for a hastened end to the Brandon Phillips era. In his last, I was cheering a Phillips' single at the top of my lungs in anticipation of the inevitable game-tying home run to come off the bat of Joey Votto (note: not all inevitabilities are truly inevitable). Somewhere in between, there was a stretch where Phillips carried the team and a stretch where BP couldn't hit a pretentious spectator at Busch Stadium if he fell out of the press box. One of the glorious things about baseball is that over 162 games, these "mini-seasons" are etched into our memories, but by the end of September: the cumulative numbers are generally where you thought they would be...especially for Phillips, whose OPS marks for the last three years have been remarkably consistent: 754, 776, 762
Way too early knee-jerk outlook for 2011: When you have that kind of consistency, the safe bet is to put your money on a repeat. At some point you'll be left holding the bag, but seriously...what's one more year? It seems clear that the 30 home run season of 2007 was an isolated blip not to be repeated. The stolen base total fell below 20 for the first time in Phillips's tenure with the Reds, which-coupled with his approaching age 30-would cause concern if the level of his defense didn't remain so high. He's not ready to fall off the cliff just yet, although with second basemen, the cliff sometimes shows up before the fence that protects you from falling off does.
Bottom line: He is who he is. On a well-rounded team, it's a valuable asset, and as long as his slugging percentage stays north of .400, he's a guy you want on your team. Hold, but have your broker on speed dial to dump shares at the first sign of trouble. It will be too late by that point, but at least you can say you did something.
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As a public service...
FYI, since there’s apparently not a ton of investors in this group: Buy = performance relative to now will be better; Hold = performance relative to now will be the same; Sell = performance relative to now will be worse.
Also, I’m legally obligated to inform you that past performance does not guarantee future results.
/2008'd
Set the gearshift to the high gear of your soul.
by Kevin Mitchell is Batman on Oct 27, 2010 1:10 PM EDT up reply actions
I don't think it's lack of investment experience
Rather, it just doesn’t make sense from an investment view. You may want to buy more Joey Votto, but you can’t. There’s only one of him. There’s only one share of this stock, and if you own it, you can’t buy more.
All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?
not me
I’m a contrarian investor. ;-)
All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?
I said weak buy.
I think that BP will be the same, but I think there’ll be a 2b prospect that’ll knock the cover off the ball and we’ll all be rooting for to one extent for another (my bet is Frazier). The question will be if the prospect will be true or just fool’s gold.
"And then there was the USAID guy in Kandahar who drove a giant pink Cadillac, which the locals set on fire one day. If you wanted to destroy something symbolic during a riot, you just could not do better than that. Good stuff." - Ghosts of Alexander
Have to agree on "hold"
Everyone had artificially inflated hopes after the 30/30 season, but BP’s held steady in terms of production over the last three seasons. And I don’t think I see anyone in the system OPSing close to 800 and playing his level of defense in 2012, let alone this coming season.
Need the number of that store where they make ceramics in an oven made out of damaged circus supplies. It's called Rumpled Stilts Kiln. - Jon Wurster
by RijoSaboCaseyWKRP on Oct 27, 2010 11:20 AM EDT reply actions
I picked weak buy.
But now that I look at his numbers, I should have picked hold or weak sell. I figured weak buy because he was abysmal when he was playing injured, but he could get injured again. His speed fell off a cliff this year and I wonder if that was health-related – by speed I mean stolen bases. I think he’s still a 3.5-4 WAR player next year, so weak sell.
I think the injury thing is important
if only because he seems to sustain something every year that he tries to play through, subsequently depressing his yearly numbers.
I think I’d rather see 130 games of .780 OPS than 150 of .760.
see what I did there with uzr? it’s like a LOL cats saber-pun combo.--Verka Serduchka
The fact that he tends to insist on playing through
and that Dusty lets him, is a liability. But if you don’t think he’s sustained lasting injuries or is significantly more injury prone now than he was three years a go, it could cut both ways. Maybe the thumb and wrist injuries down the stretch the last two seasons held him back from being closer to 800 OPS than 750.
I don’t know the answer to this, but I think, as with Arroyo, we pretty well know what we’re getting – even if it’s an erratic sine curve. The speed thing was a concern, but mostly because he made outs on the basepaths so many times. I think he made slightly less attempts than usual in part because he had good hitters behind him.
Need the number of that store where they make ceramics in an oven made out of damaged circus supplies. It's called Rumpled Stilts Kiln. - Jon Wurster
by RijoSaboCaseyWKRP on Oct 27, 2010 11:42 AM EDT up reply actions
I think he is more prone to injury
Injury often has cumulative effects. Perhaps related, injury seems to be more of a problem as a player ages, and BP will be 30 next season.
Not sure if injury is the reason for the bad SB numbers, though. His problem seemed to be that he was bonehead on the basepaths, not that he was slow.
I wonder if his success in previous years was due to being kept on a shorter leash.
All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?
If I remember correctly
the injuries BP played through the last two seasons were something like a fractured thumb and sore wrist from a beaning. Injuries definitely leave their trace, but we’re not talking about a torn ACL, bad back or other more systemic injuries. I’d need more information to conclude that his wrist/hand was permanently impaired. He still topped 600 PAs the last three seasons and OPSed between 750-780. The injuries seem like more a sidebar to fairly predictable performance.
There may be something about Phillips’ style of play that makes him vulnerable to hand injuries.
Need the number of that store where they make ceramics in an oven made out of damaged circus supplies. It's called Rumpled Stilts Kiln. - Jon Wurster
by RijoSaboCaseyWKRP on Oct 27, 2010 12:51 PM EDT up reply actions
He started the season with a bad hamstring, and that's when a lot of his CS happened.
Then he stopped trying to steal, but got picked off a few times.
" The fact that he tends to insist on playing through and that Dusty lets him"
Is a weakness in our manager, not our 2nd baseman.
by Eastwindquinn on Oct 27, 2010 12:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Can you really separate them out when talking about
the effect of possible injury on Phillips’ performance? Dusty’s going to be around next year too.
Need the number of that store where they make ceramics in an oven made out of damaged circus supplies. It's called Rumpled Stilts Kiln. - Jon Wurster
by RijoSaboCaseyWKRP on Oct 27, 2010 12:53 PM EDT up reply actions
In terms of the SB's
I think it was hitting 1-2, not 4-5 that may be enough of the difference. If Votto’s behind you, it doesn’t matter as much if you’re on 1st base or 2nd or whatever, but it may make a difference when Ramon Hernandez is hitting behind you.
It’s not much of a difference, but we’re dealing with 28 attempts in 10 vs. 34 in ’09, so SSS applies
"And then there was the USAID guy in Kandahar who drove a giant pink Cadillac, which the locals set on fire one day. If you wanted to destroy something symbolic during a riot, you just could not do better than that. Good stuff." - Ghosts of Alexander
He basically got caught a little more and tried to steal a little less
He’s still capable of stealing 20+ bases, but I’m not so sure he should even try given his pretty miserable 57% success rate last season.
Need the number of that store where they make ceramics in an oven made out of damaged circus supplies. It's called Rumpled Stilts Kiln. - Jon Wurster
by RijoSaboCaseyWKRP on Oct 27, 2010 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions
the weird thing is
He’s been much more successful in the past, on percentage basis (CS/SB). He was turrible this year. Just a fluke? Or has Dusty given a permanent green light to a player who can’t handle it?
All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?
He's been below the replacement rate each of the last three seasons
But it didn’t appear to be a case of a permanent green light. He was on base more this season than he’s been since ’07 – with more singles – yet made less steal attempts than he has since ’06.
I think it must have a lot to do with hitting at the top of the order in front of Votto and Rolen. Some of the increased CS is sample size noise (and the sample size shrunk obviously), but he also seemed to make more mistakes on the basepaths, and that difference could also be partly explained by who hit behind him; how that changes his timing and where the infield is.
Need the number of that store where they make ceramics in an oven made out of damaged circus supplies. It's called Rumpled Stilts Kiln. - Jon Wurster
by RijoSaboCaseyWKRP on Oct 27, 2010 3:38 PM EDT up reply actions
I felt like I saw a different BP at the plate this year
With more patience and willingness to make contact rather than to wield the upper-cut swing. But the data doesn’t show any significant differences, other than trading some HRs for doubles:
- BB rate was virtually the same compared to 2009. K rate went up a tick but not appreciably.
- Pitches seen per PA was right in line with prior years.
- His BABIP was up but not by very much (.293, relative to .284 last year), despite hitting more grounders this year.
Either playing hurt the last month really depressed his numbers (true) or the change in the lineup slot didn’t really matter (maybe true).
meanwhile,
Jeff Stevens pitched 17.1 innings of 6.11 ERA ball
"And then there was the USAID guy in Kandahar who drove a giant pink Cadillac, which the locals set on fire one day. If you wanted to destroy something symbolic during a riot, you just could not do better than that. Good stuff." - Ghosts of Alexander
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