MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Center Field
October 29, 2010 at 11:54 am | Posted in Matt Kemp, Trent Oeltjen | 33 Comments
Matt Kemp (D-)
.249/.310/.450 .760 28hr 2.3 WAR
Hoo boy. Where do I even start with this one? Remember, Kemp came into the season as arguably the best center fielder in baseball, and most thought that he’d only scraped the peak of his potential. So to say that expectations were sky-high is largely understating it, and he certainly got off to a start that would justify such hype, hitting seven homers in a ten game stretch in April.
I know April 21 is hardly any sort of sample size into a season, but it’s important to remember how in love we were with him at the time:
Matt Kemp may be the single most dangerous hitter in baseball right now, to the point where I’m getting prettttty close to not issuing my standard “non-Pujols division” disclaimer. He’s tied for the MLB lead in homers, he leads MLB in RBI, and he’s one game short of having a hit on every single day of the season. (And even in that game, on April 9 in Florida, he had a walk and three deep flyballs.) He’s homered in 5 of the last 8 games, and his slugging percentage right now is .750. If that number doesn’t mean anything to you, just know that if he was able to keep it up throughout the season, it’d be tied for the 11th highest mark in baseball. Ever.
Of course, no one ever expected he’d keep that up for a full season, but in the back of our minds, we allowed ourselves to remember that this was someone we’d all hoped would break out, not just some no-name who’d had a few fluky hot weeks. Near the end of April, on the 28th, he had a .934 OPS… and then Ned Colletti had to go call him out for his subpar baserunning and defense, which seemed like a ridiculous statement at a time in which the Dodgers were imploding in nearly every way. It’s like I said on April 30:
I think what got lost in Colletti’s comments is that he’s not exactly wrong. Kemp has looked horrendous in the outfield this season, and I can’t put my finger on exactly why that is. I do think part of it is that after years of his defense being underrated, coming into this year he was now overrated, since he never really deserved last year’s Gold Glove in the first place. The Gold Glove voting is such a fantastically flawed process (it often just goes to the best hitter at a position) that it’s barely even worth recognizing, yet most fans still take it to mean something.
Still, that doesn’t absolve Kemp. His play on defense has been lousy, and it needs to change. But being right doesn’t absolve Colletti either; the whole point of yesterday’s post was not that Kemp’s play isn’t a problem, but just that the general manager of a team – one who’s made more than his share of mistakes – shouldn’t be publicly calling out the best player on his team without mentioning the horrible pitching that Colletti himself assembled, or the dozens of other far more pressing issues.
Kemp didn’t quite keep up his scorching April, but he was still quite good in May, getting a hit in 23 of 28 games and ending the month with an .857 OPS. But it was all downhill from there; Kemp didn’t have a month with an OBP over .300 for the rest of the season. In early June, I wondered if he’d been playing too much, but the shit really hit the fan in late June when he got into a confrontation with bench coach Bob Schaefer and was benched. That wouldn’t be a big deal, except that it wasn’t one game, it was three games – and Joe Torre said that it would have been longer if Kemp hadn’t come to him to talk, as though that makes any sense.
Kemp briefly perked up, hitting three homers in his first five July games – and earning Torre a lot of undue credit – but it was short-lived, as his July OPS was just .715. August was even worse, at .694, as the off-field issues continued when he was called out by Larry Bowa and had his agent, Dave Stewart, start to wonder aloud if Kemp ought to be traded. That’s about when people started wondering how to fix what had gone wrong.
ESPN’s Rob Neyer looked at Kemp’s relationship with the coaching staff:
I don’t have any idea, really. But you can understand the coaches’ frustration with Kemp just a little, can’t you? Larry Bowa and Bob Schaefer have been around the game forever, and they haven’t seen many players with Matt Kemp‘s raw talents. And it must be killing them to think he’s wasting it.
Which doesn’t mean they’re helping. Maybe Kemp would benefit from an attitude adjustment, but maybe that process would be facilitated by a coaching adjustment.
Which brings to mind a question that nobody seems to have asked … What’s Joe Torre been up to? In the spring, the general manager ripped Kemp. In the summer, the coaches ripped Kemp. Is Torre waiting for the fall?
Of course, that’s probably too late for the Dodgers, who have already fallen too far. Maybe the solution here is to keep Kemp and find a new coaching staff. Because the old staff doesn’t seem to have accomplished much this summer.
If you know me at all, you know I couldn’t possibly have agreed more with that. Later in August, Chad @ MOKM took a great and thorough look at Kemp’s issues, and settled on his mechanics as the culprit, but Kemp’s September wasn’t much better, with just a .664 OPS.
But there were signs of hope. On September 28, he homered in Colorado. The next day, he left the yard at Coors Field again, and took responsibility for his poor season, saying that he owed the fans more. The team came home for a season-ending three game set with Arizona, and Kemp homered in the opener… and the second game.. and the third game. That’s five homers in five games to end the season, and it was about that time I started thinking that everyone should just let him be:
No one doubts the talent is there, and Ned Colletti claims he has no plans to move him. His clashes with the current coaching staff have been well-documented – though he seems to have a good relationship with Don Mattingly – and if there’s anyone who looks to benefit from the post-Torre era, it might just be Kemp, my early choice for the “No, Chad Billingsley wasn’t dead after one bad year either, now was he?” award next year.
So yeah, Kemp gets that D-, and he certainly earned it with his poor defense (by some measures, he was the worst outfielder in baseball), atrocious base-running (19 SB, but 15 CS), and whifftastic tendencies (shattering the club record for K’s). I’m not defending his performance in 2010, but I think there’s a lot to look forward to in 2011. He ended the year on a great hot streak, Torre, Bowa, & Schaefer are all gone, he’s got a lot to prove after a poor year, he’s playing for a new contract, and he’s still just 26.
Besides, as far as “disaster” seasons go, you can do a lot worse than a 107 OPS+ and a career-high 28 homers. I’ve talked a lot about players I don’t expect to see much improvement from in this review series – like Russell Martin, James Loney, Casey Blake – but as I said in the last quoted piece above, Kemp’s got everything it takes to make 2011 a big year. Now let’s just leave him alone and let it happen.
Trent Oeltjen (inc.)
.217/.357/.348 .705 0hr 0.1 WAR
I just wrote 1200 words on Matt Kemp. Do you really care about Trent Oeltjen and the 30 meaningless plate appearances he got in September? Fine, fine, let’s make this quick. He was released by Milwaukee’s AAA club in July, with me laughing at his choice to join the Dodgers:
For the sake of completeness, let’s note that the Dodgers released Timo Perez from AAA and signed former D-Back Trent Oeltjen, who had opted out of his minor-league deal with the Brewers last week. The Australian native has had minor league OPS’s over .800 in each of the last three years, and had been on a hot streak recently. But it’s not his bat that denied him a call-up:
Oeltjen had been on an offensive tear with the Sounds, raising his batting average to .301 with 24 doubles, two triples, eight homers, 38 RBI and a .851 OPS. But his defense wasn’t considered major-league ready, so the Brewers opted not to call him up and move out one of their players.
“Our reports were that he was coming on dramatically with the bat,” said assistant general manager Gord Ash. “We liked him, obviously. That’s why we signed him. But as a defensive outfielder, he wasn’t what we were looking for.”
So after opting out of his deal, a man who clearly should have signed with an AL team in order to keep the DH option open not only stayed in the NL, but he signed with perhaps the only other team who can top Milwaukee’s level of outfield stackitude. Time for a new agent, maybe?
Oeltjen raked in ABQ, as everyone does, with an environment-fueled .979 OPS. That earned him a call-up in September, where he didn’t do all that much in his limited chances, but he did get four starts in center field, so his defense couldn’t have been all that bad. Honestly, he’s got a pretty decent track record of minor league hitting, and he’ll be just 28 next year; I can think of worse players to stash away in AAA as depth.
******
Next! A tale of two Andre Ethiers! Xavier Paul tries to make his mark! And Reed Johnson‘s ridiculous facial hair! It’s right field!
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Matt Kemp in April reminds me of Cody Ross in October. Maybe Ross will end up a useful player for the Giants next year, but I can already see peopke being disappointed because he isn’t homering every other game like he did in the playoffs.
Comment by Greg— October 29, 2010 #
I would have given Matt a D+/C-. A D- is just one step above failure, and although he regressed at the plate, on the basepaths, and in the field, his season was not a disaster. I wonder if Pentland will be able to find keys for him to focus on so he doesn’t open up his stance too soon. A competent hitting coach would be able to do that. Too bad we didn’t have one this past season.
Comment by The Dude Abides— October 29, 2010 #
Is Pentland the new hitting coach? I hadn’t heard. If so that is another aspect of the new coaching staff that would be good for Kemp, because he did well with Pentland before.
Comment by Gillbert— October 29, 2010 #
Not official yet. However, Pentland was around last year, too.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— October 29, 2010 #
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see Kemp in the Top 5 of MVP voting next season. He can be that good.
Comment by The Cannon— October 29, 2010 #
Kemp can be as good as he wants to be. How much does he want it..being good, not Rhianna.
Comment by SamAdams— October 29, 2010 #
After reading that article where Dave Stewart was complaining about how Kemp gets treated, I thought it was a sure thing he was going to be traded, being as he wouldn’t have said those things if Kemp didn’t want him to. Now that many of the coaches are leaving, however, I’m not so sure. If he was getting traded I would think I’d have heard a rumor by now. I think Kemp does care, and he is disappointed in himself, so I think he’ll do a lot better next year.
Still, it’s kind of funny to think that our expectations of Kemp are so high that giving a D- to the HR and RBI leader of the team seems pretty fair.
Comment by Bip— October 29, 2010 #
You mean to tell me you haven’t heard a Matt Kemp trade rumor?
People are coming out of the woodwork trying to make up trade scenarios involving him no matter how many times Ned says he’s not going anywhere.
Comment by Gary— October 30, 2010 #
i think the rating of D- is completely unfair. That in itself is being negative. i dont know about you guys but i like to get out and play the game. i know i’m not the best but i try hard and it’s a huge damper when my team mates or family/friends (my fans) put me down for a mental or physical error. i think if we want him to be our star, if we want him to be what he has the potencial to be then we need to pick him up. who knows maybe he reads this blog
Comment by leftout— October 29, 2010 #
Geez, (pardon my lack of enthusiasm), but permit me to haver never been on the ‘heffer’ bandwagon in the first place! Talent potential? Sure…I will concede that…but implosion potential in the next 1-3 years…I would say very high! (not in the same vein as Milton Bradley, though).
This KID is an immature 26 year old ball player learning his way in the world…he appears (pay attention ‘wagoners’) to look to others (ie: Manny, Blake, GF, OF ‘hop-hip-jump’ to give him a sense of ‘ya alright, kid. He ain’t no leader…he don’t take suggestion (it’s all criticism to him) well…he daydreams, gives up without effort, and overextends when he is angry/mad. Sounds like a typical ‘kid’, right…well he is…but he’s in a contract year next year…and I urge the Dodgers NOT to sign him to a long term (5-7yrs) contract….you/we will NOT get your $money’s worth…instead, consider trade offers for a front line (mature…not OTH ‘veteran’) player…Kemp (as in K’) is a project in motion…he may never ‘grow up’ or (in my opinion) may never consistently display his ‘potential’ in ways that make Dodgers’ fan salivate with anticipation. I’d see the money better invested in players like Kershaw, Kuroda, Ethier, or that missing ‘closer’ we have long been missing. Thanks for your patience with an ‘alternative’ opinion!
Comment by SaintNick— October 29, 2010 #
I wonder if Jayson Werth was judt a “kid” who had some “growing up” to do.
Comment by DodgersKings323— October 29, 2010 #
Seems to me that I recall that Werth got hurt trying to make a difficult play in the OF. If that wasn’t bad enough, ‘Moneyball Cheapskate” GM Depodumpsta determined that he, and most of the core of the club should either be traded or unceremoniously ‘dumped’ by season’s end. Tracy had a ligitamite gripe about having the ‘carpet yanked out from under him’.
I see where you think there might be a parallel, but certainly not in the ‘kid’ way…Depodumpsta never got anything for Werth….he gave up on him as damaged goods…
Comment by SaintNick— October 30, 2010 #
My bad…Werth sustained the injury (wrist) when hit by a pitch by A.J. Burnett and hung around for two more injury-plagued seasons…
Comment by SaintNick— October 30, 2010 #
Yeah, that’s not true at all. It was Colletti who let him go.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— October 30, 2010 #
Yeah, Depo can’t (but should, hehe) be blamed for everything!
Comment by SaintNick— October 30, 2010 #
MSTI, again love the blog! But you missd this one by a hair. He was an F. A flat out F.
Comment by John Young— October 29, 2010 #
D-??? Really!?? C’mon that’s a little harsh. He was a C maybe a C-. I’ve never seen a player openly bashed in the press the way Kemp was by his GM and coaches. Usually it’s the player that goes off the reservation and runs his mouth to the press. Kemp handled it all with class. He had a bad year on a bad team. He’ll bounce back in 2011, hopefully surround by a better coaching staff.
Comment by Mike H— October 30, 2010 #
I just want to mention before I forget that I went back and read the 2009 and 2008 starting pitching year in review, particularly the parts about Kershaw, and it makes me brim with excitement at what this year’s will say. I have some quotes saved from the 2008 one that I’m planning on posting if you don’t.
Comment by Bip— October 30, 2010 #
Ha! Now I’ll have to double check. But I probably won’t post too much from 2008, since this is a 2010 in review. You’re of course welcome to.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— October 30, 2010 #
I like that I have people here saying that D- for Kemp was both far too harsh and too generous. That makes me think I nailed it.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— October 30, 2010 #
D- is spot on IMO. His moments of brilliance keep him from being an F. Kemp was a major disappointment this year and I don’t see how anyone who actually watched this season (expect the Matt Kemp internet groupies club) can argue this.
That said, I hope he tears shit up next year.
Comment by Juan Pierre— October 31, 2010 #
If student earns a D-, F or any grade it doesn’t mean he will continue to earn those kind of grades forever. Next year is new classroom with a new teacher. The Dodgers need Kemp to play like he is capable of. If Kemp does not it will be another lost season. Go Rangers.
Comment by Adonis— October 30, 2010 #
I object to your grade for Kemp on the grounds that I don’t think he could have earned a C by your reckoning. In other words, expectations crowded out any semblance of objectivity. C is the appropriate grade, and like strict parents we should say it wasn’t good enough. But by the numbers, it really can’t be that low. When your star player is out most of the year, and the heir star apparent gets a C, the team suffers. But he shouldn’t have to go to summer school.
Comment by David Sheridan— October 30, 2010 #
I’m with David Sheridan. Kemp should get a “C.” We all have great expectations for Kemp, but in reality, he was just average. It was essentially a mediocre year, one in which he regressed, which now results in us wondering just what’s up with him. If he performs in a similar manner in 2011, then I’d say it’s time to think about whether the Dodgers should commit to him long-term. If he turns it around and performs anywhere near his potential, then maybe 2010 can be written off as a blip in the career trajectory of a talented ballplayer.
-
It’s all on Kemp. If he continues stumbling around and the Dodgers decide “enough,” someone else will take him (there is always someone else) and he will still make lots of money. But from a Dodgers’ fan standpoint, I’d rather see the team get something in value for an underachiever rather than endure the disappointment of watching someone who could have been much more. I’d rather see another Raul Mondesi or Bobby Bonds in a different uniform.
Comment by SC Dodger— October 30, 2010 #
I think we should sign trent oeltejn to a 7 yr contract for 1$ with some $ deffered !any chance we could bring back jeff reboulet to play 2b next year oh and maybe orozco to b a lefty out of the bullpen while were at it how about tripp cromer juice him up with hgh over the offseason and then we will finally the w/s !oh i almost forgot we need some speed bring back tom goodwin ,some power of the bench u might ask i think billy ashley could acept a hometown discount!
Comment by Pete guerrero— October 30, 2010 #
Olmedo Saenz, WS lock!
Comment by DodgersKings323— October 31, 2010 #
Could it b possible the midgets got guillen to b the giants steriods coach?since frankestein no longer on the giants!how many midgets from the 02 w/s roster were on the mitchel report ?
Comment by Pete guerrero— October 30, 2010 #
lol funny stuff, just try to clean up the grammar compadre!
Comment by DodgersKings323— October 31, 2010 #
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