Category Archives: A.J. Ellis

In appreciation of catchers

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Fourteen years after his last game as a Dodger, Mike Piazza still has us all spoiled.

Piazza, arguably the greatest hitter in Los Angeles Dodger history, and without question the best hitting catcher of all time, will no doubt enter the Hall of Fame next year as a New York Met. Thank you very much Rupert Murdoch, Chase Carey or whomever at News Corp you want to blame for the sacrilege.

The batting skill exhibited by The Strongest Man in SoCal (still a great nickname, and one I intend to use forever), to a lesser extent by Paul Lo Duca (cheating bastard) and Russell Martin (briefly), wonderful while it lasted, is far from the norm. Because catchers don’t hit .360. They don’t homer 40 times and drive in 100-plus runs per season. They just don’t.

Piazza was an aberration beyond our wildest dreams, and you should be pissed about being cheated out of half his career. More than half, actually. I know I am.

It’s unfortunate that subsequent Dodger catchers – or catchers anywhere, really – continue to be judged against the accomplishments of a player the caliber of Mike Piazza.

With the Braves beginning a three-game series at Dodger Stadium tonight, I thought this might be a good time to talk backstops, because in Brian McCann, Atlanta has a catcher worthy of comparisons. Catchers don’t hit .360, as I said, but .270 to .300, with 20-some-odd home runs and 80 or 90 RBIs a year sure works, and that’s about what you get with McCann. Plus a smart, savvy presence behind the plate, big-game experience and clutch hitting.

The Braves have another receiver you might remember, guy by the name of David Ross. Play word association with Ross’ name and you’re liable to come up with, “oh sure, name the player who homered against ‘relief pitcher’ Mark Grace” ten years ago in Arizona. Yep, that David Ross, Lo Duca’s old backup, and someone who you might not have expected to have much of a career after leaving town.

But he did, and it’s worth a mention now. McCann plays as much as any catcher, but with two Dodger lefties (Chris Capuano and Ted Lilly) going, you might get a game’s worth of Ross in the upcoming series. And if so, why not a tip of the Dodger cap to the 35-year-old veteran, who after bouncing around with the Pirates, Reds and Padres, has made a name for himself in Atlanta.

He’s hit .273, .289 and .263 in his three full seasons there, playing in 50 to 60 games each year, with more than respectable on base and slugging percentages. Plus fine play receiving the always professional Braves pitching staff.

The Arizona home run occurred in a 19-1 Dodger runaway game, during Ross’ first call-up on September 2, 2002, at what was then Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix.

I prefer to remember Ross for a more significant L.A. highlight, from the 2004 National League West race. On September 30 at the stadium, Ross gave the Dodgers a 4-2 win in extras, with a walkoff two-run homer off Brian Fuentes. With San Francisco winning the same day, Los Angeles held a three-game lead going into their season-ending series with the Giants the following day. Some 48 hours later, of course, Steve Finley cliched the division with that oh-so-memorable grand slam of his.

You’re also going to see another catcher of distinction during the homestand, in A.J. Ellis. Compare him to Piazza, Lo Duca, or even Russell Martin, if you like, but I wouldn’t. But put Ellis up against the catchers available to the Dodgers during the winter, and realize they came out just fine.

I’m happy to go on record predicting these numbers for A.J. Ellis: .265, 10 homers, 50 RBIs and an OBP of .400, hitting in front of the pitcher all season long. Yes, batting eighth throughout 2012.

Dee & A.J. Show Leads Dodgers to 3-0 Start

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In the fourth inning of tonight’s game, A.J. Ellis took San Diego starter Dustin Moseley deep to left field for his first homer of the season. Though it seemed meaningless at the time – it put the Dodgers up 5-0, as Matt Kemp & Andre Ethier each had driven in two by that point – it was still probably going to be my lead story, since it was just Ellis’ third big-league homer in a career that dates back (in small dribs & drabs, of course) to 2008, and Ellis’ near-total lack of power is a crucial ingredient towards whether he can succeed in his first season as a full-time starter.

That is, of course, until the wheels completely came off for Chris Capuano. There was a story out there this winter – I don’t have the link right now, and it’s late – about how while his peripheral stats were decent enough for the Mets last year, he absolutely could not go past the fifth inning, after which his OPS against went from a mid-.700 level straight to a Pujols-on-steroids level afterwards. That came an inning earlier than usual tonight, where after breezing through four scoreless, Capuano gave up a single and three walks, leaving the bases loaded for Jamey Wright. Wright – doing Jamey Wright things, don’t you know – then proceeded to walk each of the next two on eight straight balls, forcing home two runs, before being relieved himself; Scott Elbert allowed another run on a wild pitch and yet another on an Orlando Hudson single, during which the inning mercifully came to an end when catcher Nick Hundley was thrown out attempting to score.

What was a 5-0 lead entering the fifth was 5-5 following it, and suddenly Ellis’ homer was crucially important. That score stuck through the bottom of the tenth, with Mike MacDougal, Matt Guerrier, Kenley Jansen (two innings), and Todd Coffey all combining to shut down the Padres offense. The only reliever not used tonight was Josh Lindblom, as you can see by the rapidly increasing pitch counts on the bullpen chart.

Ellis then led off the 11th with a single – one of four times he was on base tonight, along with two of his trademark walks – and was sacrificed to second by Justin Sellers. After a Juan Rivera pop-out, Dee Gordon drove in Ellis with the go-ahead run, allowing Javy Guerra to finish off San Diego for his second save of the season.

Gordon, it should be noted, reached base five times tonight, including two walks of his own and three steals. Between them, Gordon & Ellis stepped to the plate eleven times and ended up with four walks, two singles, a double, and a homer. Who says you need to import high-priced talent?

It’s the first time the Dodgers have started off 3-0 since the 1999 club did the same, though that team finished 77-85. Aaron Harang hopes to do better in his Dodger debut than Capuano did as Los Angeles attempts to sweep the Padres heading into Monday’s off day and Tuesday’s home opener.

******

Unrelated roster note: the Dodgers have released Carlos Monasterios, who pitched in 32 games (13 starts) in 2010 after being selected as a Rule 5 pick from the Phillies. Monasterios missed all of 2011 after undergoing Tommy John surgery and had an additional procedure on the same elbow last month.

Video: Previewing the 2012 Season with Jon Weisman

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Fun fact from last night’s game, courtesy of “The Green Lantern” in the comments: A.J. Ellis didn’t swing at a single one of the first 17 pitches he saw. Not. Even. One. While that’ll obviously only get you so far, keep that in mind the next time you see Juan Uribe swinging at everything within a ten-mile radius. And since the 2012 stats page is now live, you can now see Ellis rocking a .333/.500/.333 line, while Uribe sits at .000/.250/.000. (What’s this about small sample sizes, now?)

Anyway, prior to yesterday’s game Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts and I got together on another fun video chat, looking ahead to the 2012 season. Is the bullpen going to hold together? Who will surprise us this year? Is there any prayer this team really finishes behind the Rockies? Find out all this and more here…

Mike / Jon MSTI/DT chat 4/5/12 from Mike Petriello on Vimeo.

There’s Only One Right Ellis To Hit High In the Order

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A.J. Ellis is most likely going to bat 8th in 2012. Why? Because that’s simply what non-elite catchers do. Don Mattingly hasn’t quite come out and said it, but in each of the 25 games Ellis has started, he’s hit either 7th or 8th. Ellis is probably going to hit something like .245 with little or no power, and so you’ll stick him at the bottom of the order without a second thought – as you do.

Except… we should know better than that by now, right? Ellis has one real offensive skill, one he could potentially be quite good at: getting on base. Where there’s obviously value in that no matter where in the lineup a batter hits, that particular skill is somewhat less useful in the 8th spot in the order. Think about the various scenarios that could play out if Ellis gets on base from the 8th spot, as we hope he often does.

With two outs
Ellis gets on base. Pitcher (assuming it’s too early to pinch-hit) ends the inning something like 85-90% of the time, thus wasting Ellis’ achievement.

With one out
Ellis gets on base. Pitcher attempts to sacrifice Ellis to second, causing out #2. With two outs, Ellis scoring depends on Dee Gordon (.325 OBP in 2011) or Mark Ellis (.288 OBP) bringing him in, and for both to avoid making outs before Matt Kemp gets up.

With no outs
Ellis gets on base. Pitcher attempts to sacrifice Ellis to second, causing out #1. With one out, Ellis scoring depends on Gordon or Mark Ellis bringing him in, and for at least one to avoid making outs before Matt Kemp gets up.

Assuming Gordon leads off (which Mattingly has already said he will) and Mark Ellis hits second (which hasn’t been confirmed yet, but he’s a veteran second baseman in a lineup without an established #2 hitter, so of course he will), the 8th place hitter is likely to hit directly in front of three of the four worst OBP hitters in the lineup, excepting only Juan Uribe. As you can see, in order for A.J. Ellis, potentially one of the three best OBP hitters in this lineup (and think about that for a second) to be on base for Kemp or Andre Ethier to bring him in, you’re going to need to count on several hitters who specialize in making outs to do exactly the opposite.

It just doesn’t make sense, and that’s not only in thinking through scenarios like the ones above. The numbers back this up, as we can see from XeiFrank over at Dodger Sims, who ran various lineups through 100,000 different games to come up with the most optimal lineup.

And without any further ado, here is the Dodgers best lineups vs LHP and RHP. Note that in this exercise, I used the 2012 Zips Projections for all Dodgers hitters.

vs LHP Lineup vs RHP Lineup
A.J. Ellis A.J. Ellis
Andre Ethier Andre Ethier
Matt Kemp Matt Kemp
Juan Rivera James Loney
James Loney Juan Rivera
Juan Uribe Juan Uribe
Mark Ellis Mark Ellis
Dee Gordon Dee Gordon
Pitchers Spot Pitchers Spot

You can also see that the best spot for Gordon is 8th; not only does that make sense because of his potential on-base difficulties, but it also allows him the best opportunities to steal. With the pitcher following, you can give Gordon an eternal green light, hoping that a steal and a sacrifice could immediately turn Gordon singles into triples. That may not be the same strategy if he’s on base ahead of the heart of the lineup, because the last thing you want to do is have an inning end with Kemp at the plate because Gordon got thrown out stealing.

Now, even though I would put Gordon lower in the lineup, I haven’t spent too much time worrying about it. It hasn’t seemed worthwhile, because we’ve always known that Mattingly would have him lead off; while that may not be logically ideal, I can’t argue that the idea of him flying around the bases as Kemp & Ethier drive him home is pretty fun to think about out, and there’s not an immediately obvious alternative that a second-year manager could really go with.

But dumping A.J. Ellis at the bottom of the order while letting Mark Ellis hit 2nd, well, that’s a pretty less-than-optimal use of resources. For a team that is expected to have all sorts of offensive issues even if everything goes as planned, it’d behoove them to deploy the weapons they have in the best alignment to promote success. Of course, as XeiFrank notes, the overall impact here is probably only around 1-2 wins, since lineup alignment generally doesn’t have as much impact as we like to think it is. But for a team that most expect to be in the 82-86 win range, and especially with the possibility of a second wild card being available this year, one or two wins could be monumentally important. Let’s hope Mattingly has the courage to go against the grain and go with a the more non-traditional lineup that might lead to additional offense.

******

Other notes…

* Andre Ethier’s in camp, and he’s being a peach, as usual.

* Chad Moriyama has a good read on media coverage of the Ryan Braun situation, arguing that those who claim Braun got off “on a technicality” aren’t really being truthful.

* Minor injuries to unimportant pitchers: Dylan Hernandez reports that Shane Lindsay and Ryan Tucker have each been shut down, and Eric Stephen expands that Lindsay is dealing with a lat, while Tucker has a sore neck.

Are the Dodgers Going To Have the Weakest Catching Situation in Baseball?

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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?