Are the Dodgers Going To Have the Weakest Catching Situation in Baseball?
February 16, 2012 at 12:23 pm | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Matt Treanor, Tim Federowicz | 28 Comments
All of us love A.J. Ellis around here. How can you not? He’s the kind of guy you always root for, because after having been in the minors for nine seasons (including four in a row at Triple-A) and seeing small stints with the big club in every year since 2008, he’s finally positioned to be a big-league starter for the first time in 2012 at age 31. It’s the kind of story we can all relate to, and it helps that when he’s actually seen playing time late in the year over the last two seasons, he’s been excellent, putting up a .342/.444/.461 line over 92 September/October plate appearances since 2010. Even his style works, because on a team that has had far too many OBP black holes in recent years, getting on base is exactly his strength, along with positive reviews of his pitcher handling. And selfishly, I’ll admit that any ballplayer who not only has a Twitter account but is interesting with it and follows me, Jon Weisman, and Eric Stephen gets an additional one billion coolness points.
Few of us like Matt Treanor. He’s old. He can’t hit, at all, even a little. That’s usually fine from a backup backstop, because you’re rarely expecting much from the position other than to be a capable defender, but Treanor grades out poorly there as well, not even as good as Rod Barajas was. You don’t ever want to get too agitated over a one-year, small-money commitment to a player who really isn’t going to make much of a difference, but Treanor was never good, and when he turns 36 in two weeks he’s not going to start getting any better. He exists. I’m not sure why.
None of us are really sure what to make of Tim Federowicz. You try not to unfairly denigrate him simply because he was included in one of the most shocking and unpopular Dodger trades in years, because he had nothing to do with that, and his defense is supposedly excellent. However, I’ve yet to see anyone outside the Dodger front office who thinks he can hit enough to be a big-league starter, and if he isn’t more than a backup, then why did you trade Trayvon Robinson for him anyway? Well, there I go again, busting him for a trade he didn’t ask for. Kevin Goldstein ranked him as the 13th best Dodger prospect recently at Baseball Prospectus, and being one spot ahead of Ethan Martin and four below Alex Castellanos isn’t exactly high praise. Maybe he’ll improve his hitting skills, but we won’t find that out this year in Albuquerque; remember, playing in the PCL once made Terry Tiffee look like a stud.
Taken as a whole, the top three Dodger catchers are questionable at best. We like Ellis and are optimistic about him, but can his great-eye, zero-power ways stop pitchers from throwing nothing but strikes, and how many guys are really impact players when they don’t get their first real shots until 31? Is Treanor going to be really bad or just very bad? And is Federowicz really the catcher of the future, or just someone we say nice things about regarding his defense while we hope Gorman Erickson pans out? Or Pratt Maynard? Or someone we don’t even know about yet?
One scout asked BP‘s John Perrotto just that:
“I don’t understand what the Dodgers are doing here. These guys are both number-two catchers, and I can’t imagine either one of them starting 100 games. Maybe they think (rookie Tim) Fedorowicz [sic] will be the answer at some point in the season, but I wasn’t all that impressed with what I saw of him last September. This has to be the weakest catching situation in the major leagues.”
The weakest catching situation in the major leagues. Well, I thought, that seems kind of harsh, but to outsiders who don’t have as much of a soft spot for Ellis as we do, I suppose I can see where they’re coming from. On the other hand, outside of a few teams, catching is a black hole across the sport. But the weakest? Well, I couldn’t let that go by without trying to figure out if that’s true. Of course, there’s no black and white way to solidly identify that, because you can’t just go by 2011 stats; situations have changed, players have moved, players have aged.
Besides, we’re not interested in what happened in 2011, we’re trying to project what might happen in 2012, so for that, I went to BP‘s PECOTA spreadsheet, the most recent version of which was posted on Tuesday. In order to weed out minor leaguers and others who may skew the data, I referenced MLBDepthCharts.com to identify the likely top two catchers for each team in 2012, with some small changes to their guesses. By combining BP‘s WARP score (their variation of WAR) for each club’s top two backstops, we have a quick-and-dirty way of looking at the value of each team’s 2012 backstop duo.
So are the Dodgers the worst? Well, not exactly…
Team / Total WARP / Top Two
1. MIN 5.8 Joe Mauer, Ryan Doumit
2t. CLE 4.6 Carlos Santana, Lou Marson
2t. ATL 4.6 Brian McCann, David Ross
4. TEX 4.2 Mike Napoli, Yorvit Torrealba
5. STL 3.4 Yadier Molina, Bryan Anderson
…
…
25. LAN 1.2 A.J. Ellis, Matt Treanor
26. PIT 1.1 Rod Barajas, Michael McKenry
27. SEA 0.8 Miguel Olivo, John Jaso
28. KCA 0.7 Salvador Perez, Brayan Pena
29. HOU 0.6 Chris Snyder, Humberto Quintero
30. TBA -0.1 Jose Lobaton, Jose Molina
So according to PECOTA, the Dodgers might have merely the sixth-worst catching group in the game. Take that, nameless scout! Of course, this is loaded with caveats, because even if PECOTA was an exact science (which it’s not), a difference in 0.2 points of WARP is so insignificant that it’s hardly worth noting, so think of this more as being “in the bottom group”. Still, expect some fluctuation there. If the Mariners really do play Jesus Montero regularly behind the plate, his bat alone will vault Seattle out of this group, and I’m somewhat surprised to see the Royals ranking so low, considering that Perez was impressive as a 21-year-old in the bigs last season. Not the Astros, though. Good lord, are the Astros going to be bad.
Most importantly, all of this is tied up in Ellis. Unlike most of the other clubs where the two catchers combine their value to reach the total WARP, this represents Ellis at 1.2 and Treanor (and Federowicz, for that matter) at 0.0. I’m cautiously optimistic that Ellis can keep his OBP high enough that along with his plus defense his near-total lack of power won’t prevent him from being a solid starter, or at least solid enough to get the Dodgers through the season and guarantee him a big-league career that could last for several more years. But if he can’t, or if he gets injured, there’s nothing behind him to step in. And you remember what shortstop looked like when Rafael Furcal got hurt in 2008, right?
MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Catcher
October 3, 2011 at 9:01 am | Posted in 2011 in Review, A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro, Hector Gimenez, Rod Barajas, Tim Federowicz | 69 CommentsAs promised yesterday, we’re kicking off the fifth year of MSTI Season Reviews today with the catchers. I’ll probably run 2-3 of these a week through October, working in looks at arbitration choices and other stories as events warrant.
The Dodgers used five catchers this year, the most since using six in 1976, and tied with many seasons for seventh-most in club history. (The team record, eight, was set by the 1938 Brooklyn club. And who doesn’t remember Greek George, Paul Chervinko, and Gilly Campbell from that ’38 crew?) Going from the lows of Rod Barajas and Dioner Navarro early in the season to the even further lows of Barajas and Navarro in the middle of the year, finally rebounding with solid finishes by Barajas and A.J. Ellis, the composite Dodger catching crew finished 17th in catcher OPS, .698. That says a whole lot more about the state of catching in the majors right now than it does about the Dodgers.
Rod Barajas (C+)
.230/.287/.430 .717 16hr 1.4 WAR
Remember how we felt when the Dodgers signed Barajas last winter, or as I called it at the time, “Rod Barajas Turned One Good Week Into $3.25m“? No? Bask in it with me again:
Barajas signed for $500k with the Mets last year, waiting until just before camp opened in February to even get that. He was then so bad that the woeful Mets, you know, let him go to the Dodgers on waivers for absolutely nothing. Granted, he had a great first week or so in Dodger blue – 4 homers, 1.458 OPS in his first 8 games. Yet in his remaining 17 games, he had just 1 homer and a .612 OPS, also known as “Rod Barajas being Rod Barajas“. On the season, he had a .284 OBP, which exactly matches his career mark, because he’s not very good.
Look at it this way – Barajas had never made more than $3.2m, which is what he got from Texas in 2006. He’s now five years older, coming off several lousy seasons bouncing from team to team – making less than $1m in two of them – yet somehow, coming off a year in which he was dumped on waivers and will be 35, he’s all of a sudden worth $
3.8m3.25m. Seriously? In my 2011 plan, when I said he could come back I said that I thought he could be had for $800k. Is this all because of his one good week as a Dodger? I’ve had to deal with a lot of casual fans who got taken in by that, but I never expected the front office to do so.
That have been just a bit harsh, for reasons we’ll get to in a second, and Barajas ended up doing exactly what Rod Barajas does. Batting average between .225-.255, just like it’s been every year since 2004? Check. Terrible OBP, close to his lousy career mark of .284? You better believe it. Solid amount of pop, resulting in 11-19 homers for the fifth time in six years? Natch. Missing about a month with a lower body injury (this time an ankle sprain) for the fourth time in five years? Mmm-hmm. One ridiculously red-hot stretch (1.153 August OPS) surrounded by a season of ineptitude (no other month above .664), just like last year? Damn straight.
He’s like clockwork. Mediocre, uninspiring clockwork.
Here’s the thing, though: the state of catching is so poor that even with all those warts, Barajas was able to provide some amount of value. Only two three NL catchers had more homers than Barajas’ 16, and they all had well 150 or more plate appearances than he did to get there; add that to roughly average defense, and he’s slightly above replacement level, 14th of 23 MLB catchers with at least 300 PA in rWAR. That said, the flaws in his game mean that even with the power, he was tied for 11th in wOBA of the 13 NL catchers who had at least 300 PA. Much like the potassium benzoate in the frogurt… that’s bad.
Barajas is a free agent, and he turned 36 in September. For his part, he wants to return, and if you’re not convinced that Tim Federowicz is ready to start the season in the bigs as Ellis’ partner, you could perhaps make an argument for it simply on the basis of his pop and the lack of viable alternatives. But if he really wants to be a Dodger that bad, toss him an $1m contract offer and say “take it or leave it”. Otherwise, it’s easy enough to move on.
On the other hand… he did do this, which is the greatest thing ever.
Dioner Navarro (F)
.193/.276/.324 .600 5hr -0.3 WAR
AKA, “the guy who always seemed to come up in the ninth inning with the game on the line, always.”
It’s not like we shouldn’t have seen this coming, of course. When the Dodgers signed Navarro on December 8 of last year, I shared this quote from respected Tampa blog DRaysBay:
I think I speak for the entire Tampa Bay community when I say, “Thank goodness that’s over.” Dioner Navarro seemed like he had so much promise when the Rays acquired him from the Dodgers back in 2006, and four and a half seasons later, he hasn’t lived up to any of it. His plate discipline all but disappeared (he used to clock in around a 10% walk rate), his power never developed, his defense never improved, and his attitude got surly when the Rays demoted him to the minors this season. Especially with the unexpected emergence of John Jaso this season, I’m very, very glad to see Navarro head out the door.
While I liked the idea of signing a former top prospect with one solid year under his belt to a “what the hell, let’s take a chance” contract, giving him a guaranteed major-league deal – all but assuring that A.J. Ellis would not have a legitimate chance to beat him out – seemed very foolish at the time, as I asked on February 20:
Put another way, he’s basically been on a downward trend ever since he got to Tampa, except for that one fluke year. There’s no better way to illustrate that than by doing so graphically, so here’s his BABIP and wOBA charts, courtesy of FanGraphs.
Well, look at that. Both metrics are on a pretty consistent downward path, with that one fluke year sticking out like a sore thumb. It makes me wonder what his career line, currently sitting at .249/.309/.356, would look like if his 2008 had followed the rest of his career path. His career batting average would likely be in the .230s, and his OBP would certainly be under .300. So basically, he’d be Rod Barajas (career BA/OBP of .239/.284), but without the power – i.e., the only thing which makes Barajas even slightly palatable. Obviously, you can’t ignore the fact that he did put up that 2008, but you also can’t ignore that he’s been underwhelming at best in every other year of his career and downright awful the last two seasons, which of course carry the most weight.
So tell me, why is it that Navarro has a $1m contract for 2011, while Ellis has bus rides around the PCL to look forward to? Because of that one good year? That fluke year also isn’t fooling the latest iteration of Baseball Prospectus‘ PECOTA projections, pegging Navarro for .243/.304/.336 and Ellis at .256/.364/.321. The numbers just don’t support it, and that’s without even questioning the off-field issues brought up by Navarro refusing to remain with the Rays in the playoffs last year after not making the roster. It’s also without bringing defense into the equation, as that’s notoriously hard to evaluate for catchers, though it should be noted that Ellis has a very good repuation, and the DRaysBay quote above wasn’t exactly glowing towards Navarro. (Update: after this went up, BP colleague and DockOfTheRays blogger Jason Collette added, “enjoy that hot mess behind the plate.” So there’s that.)
And, well, that’s exactly what happened, at least after he missed the first month of the season thanks to an oblique strain. Navarro’s batting average was south of .200 for basically the entire season, and that combined with indifferent defense had us calling for him to be gone by early June, when Navarro’s OPS had sunk to a lowly .483, with no indication he deserved a spot on the team. Even when he was good – two of his homers were the margin of victory in 1-0 wins – he was bad, as he had two throwing errors in the first three innings in the second of those games.
By August, the Dodgers agreed with what we’d all known for nearly a year and finally cut him loose, but even that wasn’t the end of it; as if lousy performance, a poor track record, and a previous clubhouse issue weren’t enough, the last straw was reportedly his lack of a sufficient work ethic, which is why the Dodgers took the highly unusual step of cutting him just a week before rosters expanded. Navarro still doesn’t turn 28 until next year, so he’s undoubtedly going to get another chance somewhere. This is now two strikes for him, however, without the on-field performance that can buy you a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
Good riddance, Dioner. I think it’s telling that no one bothered picking you up after you got cut. See you never.
A.J. Ellis (B)
.271/.392/.376 .769 2hr 0.5 WAR
I hate to say I told you so, but, well, just look at the February 20 quote from the Navarro section above. (Not that I was alone in such an assessment, of course.) Navarro ended up straining an oblique in March, so Ellis broke camp with the club, but got just four starts before being sent down when Navarro returned near the end of April – though don’t forget that we nearly saw him make his season debut as a pitcher when he began to warm in the bullpen as the Dodgers were getting smashed 10-0 by the Giants on April 2.
We were able to put up with the ensuing Barajas / Navarro pairing for about six weeks, until I could finally take no more on June 11:
I hardly need to link you to all of the posts I wrote over the winter saying that a catching duo of Rod Barajas and Dioner Navarro wasn’t going to work, right? Shockingly… it hasn’t worked. Over the last few weeks, they’ve been largely sharing the role, and they’ve combined to put up remarkably similar lines.
Last 30 days
Barajas: 61 PA .172/.200/.259 (.459) 2 doubles 1 homer 14/2 K/BB
Navarro: 60 PA .161/.203/.196 (.400) 2 doubles 0 homer 11/3 K/BBEerie, isn’t it? The only thing that’s giving Barajas any sort of boost in the SLG department is that one dinger, but if I’d waited a few more days then even that would have been outside the 30-day window; it came way back on May 13. What should really stand out there is not that the two catchers have been putting up the same numbers, but that each set of numbers is atrocious. It’s hardly just over the last month, because the season stats tell the same tale. The 35-year-old Barajas is hitting just .213/.251/.372, unable to match even his modest career line of .237/.282/.410. Navarro has been even worse, at .176/.233/.250, continuing his total career flameout since a quality 2008 in Tampa. Neither one ranks within the top 30 catchers by OPS (min. 70 PA); Navarro slots at 42nd of 44. By just about every offensive statistic other than home runs, the Dodgers have the worst hitting catchers in the National League, and their combined OBP of .264 is worse than every team in the majors except for the Twins, who have been without the injured Joe Mauer for much of the season.
Neither one has worked out, and it’s time to make a move. The answer is clear: DFA Navarro and recall A.J. Ellis. Ellis is no more likely to add power than Dee Gordon is, but he’s an absolute on-base machine. In parts of nine minor league seasons, his career OBP is .402; it’s been .400 or better for four seasons in a row and it hasn’t been below .380 since 2005. In 119 AAA PA this year, it’s at .470, and that’s what happens when you have a 8/23 K/BB ratio. That’s a number which would be insane, if not for the fact that he’s on the plus side of that ledger over his entire career (268/309). He’s seen bits of bit-league time over the last two years with injuries to Martin, Brad Ausmus, and Navarro, and in small sample sizes he’s managed to retain that skill – .371 OBP, 20/18 K/BB, in 147 2010-11 PA. Don’t forget, he was also the hottest Dodger hitter in Sept/Oct last year, hitting .417/.533/.500. There’s no question at all that Ellis is the superior option right now.
Eight days later, Ellis did return, but only because Barajas sprained his ankle; he received another 37 scattered plate appearances before sent down again upon Barajas’ recovery. As Navarro continued to struggle, we wondered yet again why Ellis was being kept down in August:
I’ve tried to stay away from the “why is guy X playing over guy Y”, since the day-to-day machinations in a lost season don’t really matter too much, particularly when there’s not a ton of great alternatives. But seriously, Dioner Navarro, after another 0-4 today (along with a throwing error), is now at .193/.276/.324. He’s had his chance to prove that his terrible last few years were the fluke, as opposed to his solid 2008. It hasn’t happened. Why exactly are we not seeing A.J. Ellis play every day for the last six weeks?
Two days later, Navarro was DFA’d, a cause for celebration, and Ellis joined the club for his third stint of the season, which paid off immediately when Ellis hit his first big-league home run (and first professional homer anywhere since 2008) as the Dodgers swept the Cardinals. (He would add his second on September 4.)
Sharing time with Barajas and Tim Federowicz over the last six weeks, Ellis hit .325/.426/.550 with roundly praised defense and pitch handling. That’s in addition to a .467 OBP in AAA this year, and since he’s now out of options, he’s all but cemented his place on the 2012 roster… until Ned Colletti signs Jason Varitek, that is.
Hector Gimenez (inc.)
(.143/.143/.143 .286 0hr -0.1 WAR)
“That picture of Hector seems odd,” you might be saying. “He’s wearing #79, not the #9 he had with the Dodgers, and they’re wearing their home whites, yet that photo was clearly not taken in Dodger Stadium.”
All true: this is a shot of Gimenez hitting during spring training in Arizona, i.e., the only time anyone ever gave a crap about Hector Gimenez. Or as I said during our midseason recap:
I would like to say something witty or insightful about Hector Gimenez, but that infers that I have absolutely any recollection of him as a Dodger whatsoever. Pass.
So pretend you have any memory of Gimenez’ seven glorious plate appearances as a Dodger (including one start!) before hurting his knee in April, and know that you are lying, because you do not. Shockingly, the camp darling who spent 2010 as a 27-year-old in AA didn’t work out, and while he had a decently okay season with Chattanooga after returning from injury, you’ll never hear of him again, because if you can’t make it in an organization that has as little catching depth as the Dodgers, well, you can’t make it period. Mark it.
Tim Federowicz (inc.)
(.154/.313/.154 .466 0hr 0.0 WAR)
You hated the Trayvon Robinson deal that brought Federowicz and two minor league pitchers to Los Angeles at the trading deadline, and so did I. That sentence, right there, is the burden that Tim Federowicz has to deal with. It’s not enough for him to be a quality major leaguer, as though that isn’t difficult enough. He also has to outshine what Robinson does in Seattle, and with Trayvon filling up highlight reels with diving catches in his short time in the bigs, Federowicz starts at a disadvantage. It might not be fair, but it is the truth.
He received only 16 plate appearances in a September cameo, so we learned little about him there, but I’ve seen a lot of people making a big deal of the fact that after he hit .277/.338/.407 for Boston’s AA club, he kicked that up to .325/.431/.627 for the Dodgers in AAA, and the fact that I apparently still need to issue the standard disclaimer is disappointing. But since I do: five of his six AAA homers and a .409/.519/.841 line came in 13 home games, and one homer and a .231/.333/.385 line came in 12 road games. Neither of those are particularly large sample sizes, but again, he’s hardly the first to show ridiculous splits in New Mexico, so take the overall AAA line with a grain of salt approximately the size of Juan Uribe.
So despite the glowing reports about his defense, we’ll expect to see Federowicz starting 2012 back in AAA, with Ellis and [insert Rod Barajas or vaguely-Rod-Barajas-esque-veteran-catcher #X82 here] manning the dish for the big club. Federowicz will hit something like .320/.430/.500 for the Isotopes, because that’s practically league-average in the PCL, and everyone will get excited. Once again, the disclaimer will come out.
******
Next! James Loney‘s wild ride! It’s first base!
A.J. Ellis and Friends Bowl Over Cardinals for Sweep
August 24, 2011 at 2:25 pm | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Juan Rivera | 34 Comments
A.J. Ellis, we’ve been waiting all year; it’s a nice way to welcome you back.
Ellis’ fifth-inning home run was not only the first of his major league career and one of his two-run scoring hits in his first MLB game since July 8, but it also came just 115 miles from his hometown of Cape Girardeu, MO. Over the last 24 hours, Dodger catchers are five for nine with three homers and a double. Dioner who? After not having hit a homer since 2008, Ellis now has three in the last two months, clearly brought about by the fact that he may or may not have been reading our gentle ribbing about his lack of power on the family of Dodger blogs.
Of course, Ellis wasn’t alone in helping the Dodgers destroy the Cardinals 9-4 on their way to their first sweep in St. Louis since 1993. Ellis’ second-inning single merely made him the eighth consecutive Dodger to reach to start the inning against Cardinal lefty Jaime Garcia, which included one of James Loney‘s three hits on the day and Juan Rivera‘s first extra-base hit, a run-scoring double to deep left. Loney’s third multi-hit game in four days gives him 17 total bases in his last 17 at-bats, a fact noted by many, but don’t get too used to it: after a day off Thursday, the Dodgers are back at home on Friday. (To be fair, they do face the Rockies, so maybe it’ll be a wash.)
Rivera followed by hitting a two-run homer in the 6th inning, accounting for the 8th and 9th Dodger runs, and pushing his line with Los Angeles to .322/.367/.496. Since these are the 2011 Dodgers, that merely served to prompt a barrage of “yeah, but how much is Ned Colletti going to toss at him this offseason simply because he’s made a great first impression” jokes, understandable given what we’ve seen in years past with Rod Barajas and others. That’s a discussion for another day; for now, I’m cognizant of Rivera’s somewhat mediocre past (Toronto does not drop value for nothing lightly) while greatly enjoying his upgrade over Marcus Thames, particularly as Andre Ethier struggles mightily.
Eugenio Velez grounded out hitting for Hiroki Kuroda in the eighth to extend his misery to 0-27, but there’s roster moves on the way: Kenley Jansen and Dee Gordon could each be activated by the weekend. (Update: that was quick; right after the game, the Dodgers announced via Twitter that Josh Lindblom had been sent down for Jansen. Your time is still coming, Eugenio.)
You Won’t Have Dioner Navarro to Kick Around Any Longer
August 23, 2011 at 1:58 pm | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro | 48 Comments
Free! Free at last! Confirming rumors we’d heard earlier today about A.J. Ellis being on his way back to the bigs, the Dodgers have announced today that they have DFA’d the utterly useless Dioner Navarro. Since this is something I’ve been looking for since, oh, the moment it became clear Navarro was making the team over Ellis last winter, you can imagine that I’m just a little excited about it. It says a lot about our distaste for Navarro that a 30-year-old minor league lifer with fewer than 200 career MLB plate appearances is headed back to the bigs in his place and it couldn’t make me happier. As absolutely no one needs to be reminded, I’ve been decrying the Barajas/Navarro pairing for months and as the two have continued to flail on a low-OBP team, the mistake had become even more glaring.
I do have to wonder about the timing, however – rosters expand in just over a week. If they’ve stuck with Navarro for nearly five fruitless months, I don’t quite understand why they couldn’t for another eight days, particularly since Rod Barajas is just barely off an injury. (To be honest, when I heard Ellis was coming up, my thought was that Barajas would be DL’d, not Navarro DFA’d.) It’s long been Ned Colletti’s goal to keep as many players under contract as possible, and this doesn’t quite fit into that – unless there’s more to the story that we don’t yet know. (I also wonder if this increases the chances of Tim Federowicz making a September cameo, since teams always want a third catcher when rosters expand. I had figured they wouldn’t since that would mean adding him to the 40-man roster before they needed to, but with JD Closser gone, the only other choices are Damaso Espino or the long-lost Hector Gimenez.)
As for Ellis, he’s continued doing what he always does, hitting .304/.467/.418 in AAA, even connecting for his first two homers since 2008. Take that with the requisite grain of salt, of course, as we always talk about how ABQ stats can’t be trusted, since the environment down there is so offense-friendly. Explain this, then: at home, Ellis has a 11/15 K/BB mark. That’s pretty good, right? On the road, that’s 35/12. 35! It’s the same mastery of the strike zone he’s been displaying for years, with a 283/336 career K/BB mark, and he hasn’t seen an OBP below .382 down there since 2005. Not like the Dodgers need OBP or anything, of course.
Now let’s be fair: A.J. Ellis will never be a star in the bigs. It’s more than likely he’ll never even be a starter in the bigs. But just look at how low the bar is set behind the plate in the bigs right now; hell, look no further than the Dodgers continuing to play Barajas and Navarro. How much do you really have to do to be an improvement there? What they’ve been going with isn’t working, and they have a superior option in-house. Ellis is without question the best of the three at getting on base, and is by most accounts the best defender of the three as well. (I don’t want to put too much stock into this, but go check who was catching during Chad Billingsley‘s late-June/early-July excellence.)
With Ellis being out of options in 2012, the time is now to see if he’s going to help you. They’ve done the right thing by saying enough is enough with Navarro and his “I’m hitting .193 after hitting .194 and .218 the last two years, but hey, I had a fluky good 2008!” act. Don’t play Barajas just for the sake of playing him. Look towards next year, and play Ellis every day right now.
Sell, Buy, or Other? Two Weeks Until the Deadline
July 15, 2011 at 7:47 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro, Frank McCourt, Hiroki Kuroda, Ian Snell, Rod Barajas | 53 Comments
As we head into the second half of the season, the Dodgers stand at 41-51, 11.5 games behind San Francisco in the NL West and 13 games behind Atlanta for the wild card. Their run differential of -33 is the sixth-worst in baseball, with the pitching slightly above average (13th in runs allowed) and the offense near the bottom (26th in runs scored). With the on-field product underwhelming and the off-field battle raging, the chances of them even getting back to .500, much less back into the race, appear slim, and that could potentially set us up for a dreary death march for the rest of the season.
All that being said, there have been some signs of life lately. Entering the All-Star break, the Dodgers had completed their first sweep of the season and are currently riding a season-best four-game winning streak. The starting pitching has generally been good, the patchwork bullpen has largely held together, and the offense… well, Matt Kemp is pretty awesome.
Still, the date to keep in mind here isn’t September 28, the end of the season. It’s July 31, 16 days from today. Depending on what happens in the next two-plus weeks, the Dodgers could go one of three ways. (Sidenote: I’ve seen people reporting what Ned Colletti says in the papers and on the radio about his plans, and I keep having to remind people that it’s irrelevant. Of course he’s going to say they’re still in it. What good does it do him to to say, “nah, we’re F’d”? Worry more about his actions than his comments, for now.)
They become buyers.
AKA, “the absolutely terrifying option.” Let’s say the recent hot streak holds. Maybe Rod Barajas returns (more on him below) to have one of his patented “I’ll be awesome for eight days before being horrible for eight weeks” tears. Maybe newcomer Juan Rivera is so happy to be back in Southern California (and, for that matter, America) that he destroys baseballs with glee. With five of the next six series against NL West opponents, now is the time to make up some ground, and even gaining 2-3 games in that time could convince Colletti that the team is finally getting healthy and coming around. That’s just on-the-field motivation; it’s not hard to think that Colletti and Frank McCourt see the very uncertain future that they may not be around for and want to go “all-in”, no matter what.
Of course, this scares the hell out of us, and rightfully so. With 92 games in the books and 70 left, the Dodgers would need to go 49-21 to win 90 games this year. That’s a .700 winning percentage, which no team in baseball is even close to (the Phillies are nearest at .626), and even then 90 wins is hardly a playoff guarantee. This team is not making the playoffs in 2011; Baseball Prospectus currently gives them an 0.8% chance of making it, and even that feels generous.
Yet you can see it, can’t you? Trayvon Robinson, gone for a 30+ middle reliever. Allen Webster, shipped out for a veteran bench bat. Reports are that Colletti has about $2m to play with at the deadline, and since that’s not enough for anyone worthwhile, any trades for veterans would mean needing to send quality prospects to cover the cost.
Remember how horrified we were last July by the trades that brought in Scott Podsednik, Octavio Dotel, Ryan Theriot, and Ted Lilly? That team, while still unlikely to make the playoffs, had a much better shot than this one. Buying this year could be even more disastrous than you think.
They become sellers.
This is the outcome that an overwhelming majority of us would like to see, and for good reason: why try to reinforce a team that has almost no shot of winning this year by trading prospects for short-term veterans? Might as well take advantage of the veterans you have now to try and build for the future.
But there are problems with this approach too, namely, “who do you trade?” Obviously, Kemp, Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley are off-limits. You can make a good case to trade Andre Ethier, but that seems unlikely at best. Otherwise, injury (Casey Blake [who would have made a very nice corner bench piece for a contender], Rafael Furcal, Jon Garland) and total lack of value (Tony Gwynn, Dioner Navarro, Mike MacDougal) make this a team full of guys who aren’t worth a lot on the market – unless you’re still holding on to the dim hope that you can really sucker someone into giving up anything for Barajas or Aaron Miles.
Really, that leaves you with just Hiroki Kuroda and Jamey Carroll as trade bait with any sort of value. We’ve heard rumors of teams being interested in each, with the most recent being Detroit sniffing around Kuroda. Yet while either one could be a valuable piece for a contender needing to fill a hole or two, neither should be expected to bring back a large return. Kuroda is 36 with a full no-trade clause and a few million left on his deal. He’ll likely need to be compensated to waive his no-trade, in addition to the remaining salary, and while he’s a solid starter, he’s certainly not this year’s Cliff Lee or CC Sabathia. Carroll is 37, and his OBP and versatility would be an excellent fit for any club, though that’s not enough to trade a top prospect for.
All of which raises the question: if the likelihood of getting talent in return is small, should the Dodgers bother selling just to save money? In years past, that may have made sense; if you can save a few million at the deadline, then in theory that money can be saved for other uses, perhaps the offseason free agent market. But this year? Lord knows where that money would go. I’m more than okay with trading Kuroda to get prospects, yet I would not be happy doing it merely to hang on to dollars that will just end up in the pockets of bankruptcy lawyers.
And that’s all without even touching on whether you can trust Colletti to make the right deals at this time of the year.
They stand pat.
This is the most boring option, and it might also be the correct one. If they accept that buying isn’t the right way to go, and there’s no worthwhile deals worth selling for, doing nothing is an acceptable option. It at least allows you to pay lip service to the idea that you haven’t raised the white flag on the season. That won’t thrill the Plaschke types, but who cares about that. If you’re not getting a decent player in return, there’s value in retaining Kuroda if only to maintain rotation depth and maximize your chance of getting him back on another one-year deal for 2012.
Basically, it comes down to this: you do nothing, this team probably goes something like 72-90. I’d rather that than trading away prospects to go 77-85, and I’d also rather that than saving more money for McCourt while going 67-95.
Man, none of those are good options. Is it football season yet? What? Oh, right.
******
As expected, A.J. Ellis was sent back to AAA to make room for Barajas. That the most valuable of the three Dodger catchers is gone is annoying, but in no way a surprise. It’s not just that Ellis is the only one who can get on base; just look at Chad Billingsley’s game logs and see if you can spot the one thing that changed between his early June slump and his recent excellence. If there’s news here, it’s in how Don Mattingly sees the playing time split between Barajas and Dioner Navarro:
Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said he envisions splitting the catching duties more equally now between Barajas and Dioner Navarro than he did before Barajas got hurt, when Barajas got the bulk of the starts. Barajas is 35 and might benefit from more frequent rest, and Navarro has gone a respectable 4-for-15 at the plate so far in July. He is hitting .183 for the season.
Hooray! More Navarro!
******
More good info from Christopher Jackson of the Albuquerque Baseball Examiner: Ian Snell, who ended his short retirement to sign with the Isotopes back in May, has been placed on the suspended list, though the reasons why are unclear. That further weakens the rotation depth, though he wasn’t coming to the bigs any time soon: his AAA stats (11.05 ERA, 11 HR and 17 BB in 22 IP) are mindblowingly atrocious.
******
There’s not enough information to add it yet, but Bill Shaikin’s latest points to another impending addition to the McCourt sin list:
Frank McCourt (pictured above) wants the Bankruptcy Court to approve a loan in which the Dodgers owner has “a substantial personal financial stake,” attorneys for Major League Baseball wrote in a court filing late Thursday.
The league has offered its own loan to finance the Dodgers through the bankruptcy process. By approving the loan arranged by McCourt, the league argues, the Dodgers would be subject to “almost $15 million more in financing costs” while the Dodgers owner “personally benefitted” from the deal. The amount by which the league alleges McCourt would benefit is redacted from the filing.
“Clearly, Mr. McCourt has not allowed these bankruptcy cases to change the practice of using the [Dodgers] as his personal piggy bank,” the filing read.
The language immediately preceding that sentence alluded to another action by McCourt “at the very same time” he was negotiating the loan in question. The language describing that action also is redacted.
The filing also blacks out the exact amount the league claims McCourt has taken “in direct and indirect payments to him, his family, and affiliated entities from the Dodgers.” That amount is close to $200 million, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly. The league also said McCourt had failed to disclose or seek approval of several financial transactions, as required by league rules.
Okay, go: what did McCourt do that has been redacted from public knowledge? I’ll say he tried to get a loan from an illegal South American cockfighting ring.
2011 Midseason Grades: Offense
July 11, 2011 at 6:13 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Aaron Miles, Andre Ethier, Casey Blake, Dioner Navarro, Eugenio Velez, Hector Gimenez, James Loney, Jamey Carroll, Jamie Hoffmann, Jay Gibbons, Jerry Sands, Juan Castro, Matt Kemp, Rafael Furcal, Rod Barajas, Russ Mitchell, Tony Gwynn, Trent Oeltjen | 54 Comments
The All-Star break is here, and that means it’s everyone’s favorite time of the year: midseason grades. It’s been a tough year for the Dodgers on and off the field, though we do of course have the pleasure of a few exceptionally bright spots. As always, the grades are in relation to what was reasonably expected of the player at the beginning of the season, not in comparison to other players in the bigs. Otherwise, Jose Bautista would get an A, and no one else would get above a Q. Fewer than 50 plate appearances or 10 innings pitched gets you an incomplete.
All stats are via baseball-reference. Today we’ll do hitters, and before the break is over we’ll get to pitchers, management, and one new kind of review. As always, these letter grades are subjective opinions and meant more for fun than anything. Except for Juan Uribe’s. There’s nothing fun about Juan Uribe.
Catchers
Rod Barajas D+ (.220/.262/.385 8hr 0.2 WAR)
And right off the bat, our rating system is being tested. Do I give Barajas an F, because he’s not any good, or a C, because we never expected him to be any good? I’ll go with a D+, because even though he’s underperforming his own mediocre career stats, he was still second on the team in homers until the final game before the break. I suppose that says a lot more about the Dodgers than it does about him, though. Due to the low bar for offense from catching in the bigs, he’s actually slightly above replacement, though it’s hard to look at the 46/8 K/BB without getting a little ill. He’s due to be activated from the disabled list on Friday, allowing us to start up the always fun “Navarro or Ellis?” game again. (It’ll be Navarro sticking, of course.)
Dioner Navarro F (.183/.234/.287 2hr -0.1 WAR)
You don’t need me to go back and really find all of the articles I wrote over the winter asking why he was worth a $1m major-league contract and why he was guaranteed a spot over the likely superior A.J. Ellis, right? Navarro came in with the lowest of expectations, yet after missing the first month with an oblique injury, has somehow still managed to underperform. Despite that, he still manages to come up with the game on the line in the ninth inning nearly every single night. The world is a twisted place.
Fun fact: Navarro is the only player in history with the name “Dioner”. Fun fact #2: he’s still looking for his first hit against a lefty in fourteen tries this season.
A. J. Ellis (C) (.222/.364/.222 0hr -0.1 WAR)
I realize I’ve heaped far more praise on a 30-year-old minor league lifer with absolutely no power than he really deserves, but the Dodger catching situation is dire, and his long minor-league record and short major league stints show an above-average ability to get on base, which is exactly what this lineup is missing. Defensively, I won’t insult your intelligence by citing CERA, but it’s hard to think it’s a coincidence that Chad Billingsley’s mid-season slump turned around precisely when Ellis started being his regular catcher. Too bad he’s almost certainly headed back for Barajas on Friday.
Hector Gimenez (inc.) (.143/.143/.143 0hr -0.1 WAR)
I would like to say something witty or insightful about Hector Gimenez, but that infers that I have absolutely any recollection of him as a Dodger whatsoever. Pass.
Infielders
James Loney (C-) (.268/.311/.342 4hr -0.5 WAR)
I feel weird giving Loney a C-, because his line and a grade in that range suggest that he was his normal mediocre self all season. Far from it; by early May, he was the most hated man in LA since OJ and we were all writing articles about how bad his season was going to be on a historical level. Since then, he’s basically been the best non-Kemp hitter on the team. That doesn’t mean he’s good – hooray, a .751 OPS from a 1B since April 26! – and again, that says a lot about the rest of the players on this team, but nothing tells you more about the plight of the 2011 Dodgers than the fact that their punchless overpaid first baseman is no longer even close to being the biggest issue here.
Jamey Carroll (A+) (.297/.368/.366 0hr 1.6 WAR)
Last season, Carroll had a .718 OPS and was largely hailed as the team MVP for stepping in to cover for Rafael Furcal at shortstop for nearly the entire season. For a 36-year-old career backup who had played in more than 113 just once, it was quite the impressive feat. More impressive? The fact that he’s exceeding that this year, currently with a .734 OPS. In a lower run scoring environment, that’s good for a 111 OPS+. Once again, the team has been crushed by injuries. Once again, Jamey Carroll has risen to the occasion and more. I’m not sure what the future holds for Carroll in Los Angeles – this is the last year of his contract, and unsurprisingly teams are showing trade interest – but he has consistently outperformed expectations. I’ll miss him when he’s gone.
Fun Carroll fact: since you know I have no use for RBI, regard this as more of a fun statistical quirk than any sort of value judgement, but he has somehow managed to step to the plate 311 times and drive in just 8 runners. I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t hit homers and you’re either batting leadoff (behind the pitcher and the horrible bottom of the lineup) or 8th (behind low-OBP guys like Uribe, Barajas, and Loney).
Aaron Miles (A) (.318/.337/.381 1hr 1.1 WAR)
Credit where credit is due: Aaron Miles has been a really, really nice part of this team. I hardly need to remind you about all the jokes we made at his expense when he was signed and in the spring, but after being forced into far more playing time than anyone expected, he’s responded by becoming arguably the 4th-best hitter on the team. (Like Barajas and his homers, that says a lot more about the other hitters on the club, but still). We expected absolutely nothing from him – less than nothing, perhaps – and not only has he stepped up where needed, he led the NL in batting average in June.
It’s not all that simple, of course. .300 average or not, he’s not walking and he provides zero power, so his OPS is just barely over .700, and his .344 BABIP, 35 points over his career average, seems unlikely to hold. So let’s not get too caught up in praise for Miles to pretend he’s actually, you know, good. But for a non-roster guy who was something like the 8th infielder entering the season? Well done, Aaron. Well done.
Hey, you think we can sucker some team into trading for him at the deadline?
Ivan DeJesus, Jr. (inc.) (.188/.235/.188 0hr -0.5 WAR)
So far, DeJesus looks to be this year’s winner of the “Blake DeWitt Memorial LA-to-ABQ Frequent Flyer” award, because he saw three different stints with the big club, including the pleasure of flying all the way to Cincinnati for the pleasure of one pinch-hitting appearance in June. That being the case, you can’t really judge his big-league performance too much, though he also didn’t do a lot to change my perception of him as a bench player at best. Back in ABQ, he’s hitting .304, which is nice, though a .758 OPS in that environment isn’t encouraging.
Fun fact: for a guy whose name isn’t exactly “John Smith“, Ivan DeJesus is neither the best Ivan or the best DeJesus to play in the bigs this year.
Juan Uribe (oh holy good lord, F, and I don’t just mean the letter grade) (.207/.273/.306 4hr 0.4 WAR)
Uribe has been so bad that there’s an entire Tumblr dedicated to how sad he looks and makes us feel. He’s so bad that when an obviously fantastical rumor popped up for about five seconds about how the Dodgers might be looking to send him back to San Francisco, we jumped on it even though we knew it was BS, just for the small amount of hope it brought. He’s been so bad that he had a lousy April (.247/.303/.420) and hasn’t come close to even matching that since. He’s been so bad that of all the players in the bigs with at least 200 plate appearances, only three have a lower TAv than him. He’s been so bad that he has just one homer since April turned into May, and even that came off Brad Penny, so I feel like he was just trolling us. But hey, not like we have to stare at him for 2.5 more years or anything.
The funny part is, he’s actually been so good in the field that it pushes him above replacement level. That 0.4 breaks down into -0.4 oWAR and 0.8 dWAR. It doesn’t make him a good player, and it doesn’t justify the contract, but it’s something. I suppose that something should probably be enough to get him more than an F, but… no.
Rafael Furcal F (.185/.227/.228 1hr -0.5 WAR)
How do you even judge Furcal at this point? It can’t be on health, because he’s managed to end up on the disabled list twice more this year (though at least it wasn’t his back this time). It’s hard to do so on production, since he’s constantly either just about to go on the disabled list or just coming back from it. I suppose the fact that he’s not in a full body cast is something, but that line above… yeesh. Anyone who’s still dreaming of trading him to someone at the deadline probably needs to wake up because unfortunately, Furcal’s best days are behind him. As, probably, are his days of being able to obtain health insurance when he’s no longer a ballplayer.
Dee Gordon C+ (.232/.250/.280 0hr 0.0 WAR)
We all knew Gordon was recalled far too soon, and it showed: he was overmatched at the plate and made some critical errors in the field. He also brought the kind of excitement that we haven’t seen in years, if ever. If you have any doubt about that, just head on over to this GIF-heavy recap of the amazing feats he pulled off in just a single game. A lot of players end up with 0.0 WAR because they’ve been boring or barely playable, and haven’t contributed anything either positive or negative. That’s not the case with Gordon; he did plenty of things that hurt the team, but he made up for them with a ton of positives. That’s how it all evens out, and for a raw 23-year-old, yeah, I’ll take that.
Juan Castro A (.286/.333/.286 0hr 0.0 WAR)
Castro gave us the greatest gift of all, retiring this week before subjecting us to a fifth stint as a Dodger. That alone gets the man an A.
Casey Blake D- (.243/.346/.386 4hr 0.3 WAR)
Things the 37-year-old Blake has been on the disabled list for this season: sore oblique, infected elbow, pinched nerve in neck, Legionnaire’s disease, athlete’s thumb, bone-itis, ringworm infestation, osteoporosis. Also, he narrowly avoided a brush with the law for continually yelling at those damned kids to get off his lawn.
Casey Blake is old.
Russ Mitchell (inc.) (.115/.258/.269 1hr 0.1 WAR)
Mitchell has 74 MLB plate appearances in his short career. He has nine hits, and though one was a game-tying homer in the 9th inning against the White Sox earlier this year, that’s good for an OPS+ of 29. That’s an unfairly small sample size, of course, but he’s also hitting .244 in ABQ right now. Russ Mitchell: nope.
Jerry Sands (C-) (.200/.294/.328 2hr -0.4 WAR)
Like Gordon, Sands was probably promoted too soon, and like Gordon, he didn’t really provide results, but did provide hope for the future. All of the stories we heard about his maturity and plate approach seemed to be true, yet so far it hasn’t translated into production. Sands is crushing the ball once again in ABQ, and with the Dodger offense still stagnant, we’ll see him back up in blue before very long.
Tony Gwynn (B-) (.256/.316/.326 0hr 0.6 WAR)
It’s been something of an interesting season for Gwynn. He was his normal Gwynn-like self in April (i.e. bad), hitting .264/.291/.377 before going completely off the rails in May: he managed just two hits all month and received only four starts, as Sands took over the bulk of the left field work. At that point, with his batting average below .200 and with nothing to his name other than two game-saving catches, we started wondering how long he’d stick on the roster, especially when he didn’t get into any of the first three games in June. On June 4, he entered in the 8th inning and got two hits in a game that went 11 innings. He got a hit the next game, and the next, and before you knew it he’d hit in 7 of the first 8 games of the month. It would get better – since June 26, which was two weeks ago yesterday, he’s had five multihit games, including three with three and one with four. Now that Sands and Gordon are both in the minors, he’s effectively taken over as both the starting left fielder and leadoff hitter. Because he owns the only plus glove in what is a subpar defensive outfield, this was the outcome we’d always wanted. Now let’s see if he can really keep it up.
Marcus Thames F (.197/.243/.333 2hr -0.6 WAR)
Injured? Yep, twice, even if only one led to a DL stint. Poor on defense? You better believe it. Unproductive on offense? Well, the line above doesn’t lie, right? I sure hope he’s renting, not buying.
Jay Gibbons F (.255/.323/.345 1hr -0.5 WAR)
Well, he got DFA’d and claimed by no one, placing him back in AAA, so it couldn’t have been that good of a first half, right? You want to feel bad because his vision problems really derailed last season’s feel-good story right from the start… but then you remember he wasn’t really ever that good in the first place. The best part of that -0.5 WAR is that his oWAR is actually 0.1… meaning he’s really, really bad in the field.
JaMarcus Gwybbons, Jr. D-
Remember when the left field situation was going to be a nice trio between Gwynn, Thames, and Gibbons? Sheesh. Until Gwynn’s hot spurt over the last few weeks, they combined to offer absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, if you just went by WAR. At various points this season, we’ve made arguments for DFA’ing all three of them. Count this under “plans that were unlikely to work and then did, in fact, not work.”
Trent Oeltjen (inc.) (.265/.386/.441 1hr 0.6 WAR)
Hey, remember when Oeltjen went 4-4 with a homer in that 15-0 drubbing of Minnesota? That was rad, right? Unfortunately for him, he had 3 hits in 20 PA before that game, and just 2 hits in 20 PA since.
Xavier Paul (inc.) (.273/.273/.273 0hr -0.1 WAR)
Paul’s ultimate contribution to the 2011 Dodgers is managing to grab a left field start before his departure, thus helping us push towards our ultimate goal of setting a record for most left fielders in a season. He’s got an 84 OPS+ for Pittsburgh since being picked up, though he’s improved his OPS in each full month there.
Jamie Hoffmann (inc.) (.000/.000/.000 0hr -0.2 WAR)
The man got four plate appearances. Let’s not infer too much from that. I still think he could be a pretty useful fourth outfielder in the bigs, as he’s a well-regarded defender having another high-OBP season in the minors, this time with a little pop.
Eugenio Velez (inc.) (.000/.000/.000 0hr -0.2 WAR)
Baron Ironglove von Pickoff. Still can’t believe he’s a Dodger. Or a major leaguer. Or a human being.
Matt Kemp (A+++) (.313/.398/.584 22hr 27sb 5.7 WAR)
I know you come here for informed baseball analysis and all (uh, I hope), and I could write 10,000 words on why Kemp is awesome. I will at some point, and 9,990 of those words will probably be about how I always said that he’d have a monstrous season this year, even as half the city was tearing him apart last year. There will be a time for that sort of insight, but for now, let’s leave it at this: 91 games into the season, Kemp has 5.7 WAR. That puts him on pace for about 9.9 WAR over the full season… a mark bettered by just two Dodgers in history. Yeah. His season is that good. Remember when everyone wanted to trade him, secure in the knowledge that he had neither the baseball IQ or work ethic to become a star? Yeah, me neither.
Matt Kemp is a shiny golden god.
Andre Ethier (B+) (.311/.383/.463 9hr 1.9 WAR)
Ethier, without question, represented one of the more difficult grades to give out. 30 game hitting streak? Yes, please. .383 OBP? Delicious. While his OPS is nearly 40 points off his 2008 career high, the lower offensive environment this year means that it’s good for a career-best 141 OPS+, so hooray for that. No, he’s not hitting lefties (.242/.282/.368), but he never hits lefties, so that’s not much of a surprise. All in all, it’s been a very solid year from one of the two main offensive threats this club has.
Yet… it feels like something is missing. Prior to his two-homer day yesterday, he’d hit just seven dingers, and his SLG is down for the third year in a row. It’s certainly not enough of a problem to criticize him, hence the good grade, and perhaps yesterday’s outburst was the start of something new. I just can’t help shaking the feeling that is very unpopular among the casual fans who love him so much: Ethier is a very good player, but not a superstar. We’ll need to keep that in mind when his contract is up. I don’t want to get too down on him, though: right now, he’s the second best player on this team, and that in itself is quite valuable.
******
Don’t forget: Matt Kemp is in the Home Run Derby tonight and will be live tweeting @TheRealMattKemp throughout.
At Least We’ll Get to See A.J. Ellis Now…
June 19, 2011 at 7:18 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro, Rod Barajas | 9 Comments
…and yes, I’m well aware of how depressing it is that I’m excited about the impending arrival of a 30-year-old minor-league lifer who hasn’t hit a homer since 2008 despite playing in Las Vegas and Albuquerque. Well, “excited” isn’t really the right word. “Mildly more interested than usual?” Maybe that works.
In the week or so since I wrote that Dioner Navarro should be DFA’d and Ellis recalled, Ellis has gotten on base eight times in four games, raising his season OBP to .482 with the Isotopes. Navarro has since added nine more hitless at-bats to his resume, sinking his line to .156/.207/.221. Of course, it’s not Navarro heading off; it’s Rod Barajas, who looked to severely sprain his right ankle last night and will be the 19th Dodger injury requiring a DL stint.
I’m happy to see Ellis up, though of course this isn’t the way I wanted it to happen. Besides the obvious issue of never wanting to see someone get hurt, Barajas had five hits in the last two games of the Colorado series before going 0 for his next 11. He’s still not any good, but depending on how long he’s out for the chances of shipping him off to some catcher-starved contender in the next month, even for a minimal return, might have just died.
With Ellis in the fold, the real question for me will be, how much playing time will he get? Navarro is putrid and showing no signs of improvement, and while Ellis offers no more home run ability than you or I, his patience at the plate and on-base skills are a perfect match for a Dodger team that is struggling to perform in both of those areas, as Tony Jackson wrote after Friday’s game. This really should be a 75/25 split in favor of Ellis, though I’m afraid it will be just the opposite.
Oh, and the Dodgers lost last night’s game 7-0 to Houston, after Rubby De La Rosa was effective for four innings and touched for five runs in the fifth (one, it should be noted, was yet another inherited runner that Mike MacDougal allowed in.) I’d say more about the game, but… who cares, right?
It’s Time To Give A.J. Ellis a Chance
June 11, 2011 at 10:24 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro, Rod Barajas | 30 Comments
I hardly need to link you to all of the posts I wrote over the winter saying that a catching duo of Rod Barajas and Dioner Navarro wasn’t going to work, right? Shockingly… it hasn’t worked. Over the last few weeks, they’ve been largely sharing the role, and they’ve combined to put up remarkably similar lines.
Last 30 days
Barajas: 61 PA .172/.200/.259 (.459) 2 doubles 1 homer 14/2 K/BB
Navarro: 60 PA .161/.203/.196 (.400) 2 doubles 0 homer 11/3 K/BB
Eerie, isn’t it? The only thing that’s giving Barajas any sort of boost in the SLG department is that one dinger, but if I’d waited a few more days then even that would have been outside the 30-day window; it came way back on May 13. What should really stand out there is not that the two catchers have been putting up the same numbers, but that each set of numbers is atrocious. It’s hardly just over the last month, because the season stats tell the same tale. The 35-year-old Barajas is hitting just .213/.251/.372, unable to match even his modest career line of .237/.282/.410. Navarro has been even worse, at .176/.233/.250, continuing his total career flameout since a quality 2008 in Tampa. Neither one ranks within the top 30 catchers by OPS (min. 70 PA); Navarro slots at 42nd of 44. By just about every offensive statistic other than home runs, the Dodgers have the worst hitting catchers in the National League, and their combined OBP of .264 is worse than every team in the majors except for the Twins, who have been without the injured Joe Mauer for much of the season.
And we knew this wouldn’t work. We were aghast that Barajas got over $3m based on one good week after over a decade of mediocrity. I liked the idea of signing Navarro as a low-cost lottery ticket in hopes that the former top prospect could rebound – that’s just smart – but hated the idea that he was given a major league deal for $1m rather than the non-roster invite he deserved. (Let’s pause here for a moment and stop anyone who wants to start the “should have kept Russell Martin!” bandwagon; though he got off to a good start, he’s hitting .196 since April 27 and has missed most of the last week with a back injury.)
Neither one has worked out, and it’s time to make a move. The answer is clear: DFA Navarro and recall A.J. Ellis. Ellis is no more likely to add power than Dee Gordon is, but he’s an absolute on-base machine. In parts of nine minor league seasons, his career OBP is .402; it’s been .400 or better for four seasons in a row and it hasn’t been below .380 since 2005. In 119 AAA PA this year, it’s at .470, and that’s what happens when you have a 8/23 K/BB ratio. That’s a number which would be insane, if not for the fact that he’s on the plus side of that ledger over his entire career (268/309). He’s seen bits of bit-league time over the last two years with injuries to Martin, Brad Ausmus, and Navarro, and in small sample sizes he’s managed to retain that skill – .371 OBP, 20/18 K/BB, in 147 2010-11 PA. Don’t forget, he was also the hottest Dodger hitter in Sept/Oct last year, hitting .417/.533/.500. There’s no question at all that Ellis is the superior option right now.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because I raised a similar concern in February, asking if Navarro really should be guaranteed a job:
So tell me, why is it that Navarro has a $1m contract for 2011, while Ellis has bus rides around the PCL to look forward to? Because of that one good year? That fluke year also isn’t fooling the latest iteration of Baseball Prospectus‘ PECOTA projections, pegging Navarro for .243/.304/.336 and Ellis at .256/.364/.321. The numbers just don’t support it, and that’s without even questioning the off-field issues brought up by Navarro refusing to remain with the Rays in the playoffs last year after not making the roster. It’s also without bringing defense into the equation, as that’s notoriously hard to evaluate for catchers, though it should be noted that Ellis has a very good repuation, and the DRaysBay quote above wasn’t exactly glowing towards Navarro. (Update: after this went up, BP colleague and DockOfTheRays blogger Jason Collette added, “enjoy that hot mess behind the plate.” So there’s that.)
Ellis would be an improvement over Navarro right now, but let’s be clear that this is more than about making an incremental change to win ballgames today. The 30-year-old Ellis is hardly a savior, and he alone isn’t going to make the difference between last place and the playoffs. However, since this is his last option year and the other two are here on one-year deals, he’s also the only one likely to be a part of the 2012 club.
So what are the reasons to not do it? Ellis is a righty while Navarro is a switch-hitter, and having a switch-hitting catcher can indeed be a valuable piece. Of course, since Navarro can’t hit, it hardly matters what side of the plate he’s standing on when he whiffs or weakly grounds out. There’s also the issue of depth, because if Barajas or Ellis were to then get hurt, you’re down to JD Closser. That’s a valid concern, but I’m not as worried about it as you’d think; Closser would hardly be worse than Navarro, and as we’ve seen with Jay Gibbons and Juan Castro lately, terrible players get DFA’d for a reason. It’s more than likely Navarro would just end up in ABQ anyway.
Ellis has earned the chance to play in the big leagues. Having him here would improve the team right now, even if it’s only ever so slightly, and it would help identify what kind of role he can play in years to come. Navarro has earned the right to lose his job. Let’s make a move.
Dodgers Appoint Aaron Miles Team Trustee
April 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro, Jay Gibbons, Tom Schieffer | 26 Comments
…or something like that. Bill Shaikin, once again coming up with the scoop, breaks the news today that Bud Selig has appointed J. Thomas Schieffer to be the trustee of the Dodgers while the McCourt mess shakes out.
I don’t know who Tom Schieffer is, and neither, most likely, do you. But according to his Wikipedia entry, he’s done a lot of living in his 63 years. After getting his masters degree in International Relations in 1972, he was elected a state senator at just 24 years of age. He then left public office, got his law degree, and become a corporate oil lawyer, then partnered with George W. Bush and others to purchase the Texas Rangers in 1989. Schieffer was apparently the driving force behind the push to build the new ballpark there, which he did on time and within budget, and served as President of the team from 1991-99. After that, he served as ambassador to Australia and then Japan until 2009, before briefly running for Governor of Texas (as a Democrat, surprisingly) in 2010. Oh, and he wrestled a bear.
I’ve seen people complaining that it’s not Joe Torre or Kim Ng, but neither of them were appropriate for the job. Torre’s a baseball man, while this is a role that requires business acumen, and as great as Ng is, she’s probably too junior for this. (Not to mention how awkward it’d be to make Ned Colletti report to her). Schieffer seems like a decent enough choice, as a man with a wealth of experience both within and outside baseball. Remember, Schieffer is not the decision-maker; he’s there for oversight, making sure that the club doesn’t do anything financially that MLB would deem out of line. He has veto power over any expenses over $5,000.
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Well, Ivan DeJesus is in the lineup tonight, alright, but not how we’d hoped. He’s not in there in place of Aaron Miles, but in place of Casey Blake, as Juan Uribe is still unable to play. Still, it’s a chance, and he’d to well to take advantage of it if we want to see him get at least a share of the time with Miles at some point.
The lineup is: Miles 3B, Carroll SS, Ethier RF, Kemp CF, Sands LF, Loney 1B, Barajas C, DeJesus 2B, Garland P. Yes, that makes an infield of Loney / DeJesus / Carroll / Miles, potentially the least dangerous in the history of baseball.
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Ken Gurnick reports that Dioner Navarro has rejoined the club. There’s been no corresponding roster move, but we all know it’s A.J. Ellis headed back to AAA. (Update: Ellis has been sent down.) Speaking of injured Dodgers, I believe that Jay Gibbons‘ rehab stint ends tomorrow. At that point, he’d either need to be activated or DFA’d. Though I find it hard to believe anyone would claim him if he were DFA’d, my guess is they’ll be able to restart his rehab clock because of his continuing vision problems.
Should Dioner Navarro Be Handed a Job?
February 20, 2011 at 4:47 pm | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Dioner Navarro | 28 Comments
I’m somewhat hesitant to even write this post, because I think we all know that whomever ends up being the backup catcher is about 38th on the list of “will the Dodgers succeed this year?” – and either way, A.J. Ellis is hardly a top prospect that demands opportunity. I’m not ignorant to the fact that this choice probably doesn’t have a whole lot of impact on the season, and it seems more than likely that all three catchers are going to see big league time in 2011 anyway.
Still, the question must be asked: why does Dioner Navarro have a major-league deal and a seemingly guaranteed spot, while Ellis is ticketed for the minors?
I mean, I get the superficial reasons. The switch-hitting Navarro was once a highly sought-after prospect and even made an All-Star appearance in 2008, while Ellis is a soon-to-be 30-year-old veteran of eight minor-league seasons who hasn’t hit a homer since 2008. The idea, I assume, is to hope that Navarro regains his old form and can be the catcher of the future, especially since he’s only just turned 27.
That’s all well and good, and I hope it happens, especially since there’s not much help coming from the minors any time soon. But is he really likely to do that? If not, should he be handed a job as readily as he seemingly has been?
Let’s look a little more closely as Navarro’s Tampa Bay career, which included nearly 1700 PA over five seasons. That’s enough playing time that we can draw real conclusions from it. Here’s his five seasons in Tampa:
One of these things is not like the other, right? Navarro had two atrocious seasons in Tampa (the most recent two), two mediocre seasons (his first two)… and one quite good (for a catcher, anyway) year in 2008. Now let’s look at that chart again, but add BABIP to the equation.
Well, now we have something, don’t we? In three of Navarro’s last four seasons, his batting average on balls in play landed within roughly the same range, yet in 2008 a fluky amount of balls fell for him. I won’t say that his one good year was entirely due to luck, because 2008 was also the one year in Tampa that he’d managed to cut his whiff rate below 13.6%. He was getting the ball on the bat more often, and the balls were falling more often. But his K rate has increased in each year since 2008, and his ISO mark (an indicator of power) has fallen in each year since 2007. With his BABIP regressing to what seems to be his normal levels, it’s clearly not a good trend.
Put another way, he’s basically been on a downward trend ever since he got to Tampa, except for that one fluke year. There’s no better way to illustrate that than by doing so graphically, so here’s his BABIP and wOBA charts, courtesy of FanGraphs:
Well, look at that. Both metrics are on a pretty consistent downward path, with that one fluke year sticking out like a sore thumb. It makes me wonder what his career line, currently sitting at .249/.309/.356, would look like if his 2008 had followed the rest of his career path. His career batting average would likely be in the .230s, and his OBP would certainly be under .300. So basically, he’d be Rod Barajas (career BA/OBP of .239/.284), but without the power – i.e., the only thing which makes Barajas even slightly palatable. Obviously, you can’t ignore the fact that he did put up that 2008, but you also can’t ignore that he’s been underwhelming at best in every other year of his career and downright awful the last two seasons, which of course carry the most weight.
Remember, when he was signed back in December, I shared this quote from the guys at DRaysBay, who’d seen him play everyday for five seasons:
I think I speak for the entire Tampa Bay community when I say, “Thank goodness that’s over.” Dioner Navarro seemed like he had so much promise when the Rays acquired him from the Dodgers back in 2006, and four and a half seasons later, he hasn’t lived up to any of it. His plate discipline all but disappeared (he used to clock in around a 10% walk rate), his power never developed, his defense never improved, and his attitude got surly when the Rays demoted him to the minors this season. Especially with the unexpected emergence of John Jaso this season, I’m very, very glad to see Navarro head out the door.
That’s hardly encouraging, right? Getter back to Ellis, he does indeed have zero power; even playing in high-offense parks in Albuquerque and Las Vegas the last few years, he hasn’t homered in either of the last two seasons. But in this particular situation, that might be okay. The Dodgers have imported high-power, low-OBP guys like Barajas, Juan Uribe, and Jay Gibbons to try and shore up last year’s power-deprived attack. They’ll hit more homers than guys like Russell Martin and Ryan Theriot will, but they’re certainly not going to help the club’s on-base skills. A batter who can get on base, even if he has no power, is certainly a fit – particularly one who was the hottest Dodger hitter in the last month of 2010 (.417/.533/.500).
So tell me, why is it that Navarro has a $1m contract for 2011, while Ellis has bus rides around the PCL to look forward to? Because of that one good year? That fluke year also isn’t fooling the latest iteration of Baseball Prospectus‘ PECOTA projections, pegging Navarro for .243/.304/.336 and Ellis at .256/.364/.321. The numbers just don’t support it, and that’s without even questioning the off-field issues brought up by Navarro refusing to remain with the Rays in the playoffs last year after not making the roster. It’s also without bringing defense into the equation, as that’s notoriously hard to evaluate for catchers, though it should be noted that Ellis has a very good repuation, and the DRaysBay quote above wasn’t exactly glowing towards Navarro. (Update: after this went up, BP colleague and DockOfTheRays blogger Jason Collette added, “enjoy that hot mess behind the plate.” So there’s that.)
Now as I said upfront, I get that Navarro has the prospect history and does have the one good year, and it’s worth it to see if he can recapture that magic and be useful going forward. I’m fine with that; in fact, I love the idea. I’d just have preferred to see it on a minor-league deal, and I don’t understand why he seemingly doesn’t have to fight for the job.
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Totally unrelated: a few weeks ago, I answered five questions about the Dodgers over at Razzball. They were posted today, and spawned some good conversation. Take a look.
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