2nd base - 2006

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

As with Ordonez in '00, the Mets have lucked out here, getting saved from their dumbness and CYA-policy of playing the inferior but highly paid infielder through the sheer happenstance of him getting injured.

This is not how a smart club operates. A smart club looks at the inferior infielder, and says "This guy can't play for us, whatever the numbers on his contract are" and shitcans him the second they come to this point of view.

The Mets OTOH play the inferior player, even groove his position for him against all logic and common sense, unless he gets injured. With just the right injuries, and none of the wrong ones, this club can contend in 2006. I'd prefer to have the Mets, and not the Fates, making their own personnel decisions.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I read something the other day (I wish I remembered where; Newsday, perhaps?) that one reason that Keppinger has little chance is because Willie only evaluates second basemen on defense; offense doesn't enter into the picture.

If that's the case, though, then why was Matsui considered the front runner up until he got injured? If Kaz brings anything to the table, it's his bat, not his glove. It's obvious that the $8 million would have dictated his playing time, and still may, once he recovers.

Of course, despite what Bret repeatedly says, the Mets are hardly unique in trying to salvage something from a high-salaried player. Like him, I wish the Mets would make their determinations more on skill than salary, but clearly they don't.

Meanwhile, I don't have a clear preference in the race between Hernandez and Keppinger. May the best man win. I do know that I'd rather see one of those two than Woodward or Valentin. Let's get on with the future, whatever it is.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

When did it become clear that Matsui was the "inferior" of the 3 candidates?

ZiPs projections:

Matsui 270/339/385 7 HR, 26 2B, 8 SB, 49 BB

Keppinger 294/342/367 6 HR, 17 2B, 29 BB, 7 SB

Hernandez 268/307/343 5 HR, 15 2B, 26 BB, 26 SB

Defensively they would rank:
1. Hernandez
2. Matsui
2a. Keppinger

Versatility:
1. Hernandez
2. Matsui
3. Keppinger

[Elster88]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: When did it become clear that Matsui was the "inferior" of the 3 candidates?

Well, Keppinger and Hernandez BOTH have hit over .300 in AAA.

And Keppinger is hitting over .300 this spring.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I read something the other day (I wish I remembered where; Newsday, perhaps?) that one reason that Keppinger has little chance is because Willie only evaluates second basemen on defense; offense doesn't enter into the picture.

And how dumb is that policy?


"Of course, despite what Bret repeatedly says, the Mets are hardly unique in trying to salvage something from a high-salaried player."

This is kinda like arguing that you shouldn't be punished, Yancy, because all the other kids peed in the lemonade, too. If all the other MLB clubs jumped off the Empire State building, young man, does that mean that you had to?


"Like him, I wish the Mets would make their determinations more on skill than salary, but clearly they don't."

And that's self-destructive, to my mind.

] Meanwhile, I don't have a clear preference in the race between Hernandez and Keppinger. May the best man win. I do know that I'd rather see one of those two than Woodward or Valentin. Let's get on with the future, whatever it is.

Well, if enough bad players get hurt, there's a chance to make some progress this year. Have we been reduced to rooting for selective team-improving injuries?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

If all kids pee in lemonade, I'd stick to drinking water. But I wouldn't identify one of the kids as more evil or ill-mannered than any of the others.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah, ZIPS seems to be drawing conclusions from broader data than that.

The main problem with Matsui is that he's been getting hurt a lot. It's good that they have alternatives.

It was less than a year ago that Anderson Hernandez was widely looked at as the punchless failed prospect the Mets traded Vance Wilson for.

I searched for the thread noting the trade but couldn't find it. I did learn, however, that Dickshot lives in his parents' basement.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Let's get serious for a moment, Yancy. As a Met fan, you want the Mets to gain an edge over the other teams, right? You want the Mets to make better, smarter choices on which players to sign, to bench, to send to the minors, etc., in the hope that these smarter and better choices will result in a competitive edge. If 29 other MLB clubs say "This guy's no good," but you think he is good and you sign him and play him, that's a good thing if he plays well, correct?

So why justify a move that you think foolish by saying "That's what some other MLB clubs' policy is"? The essense of competitive edge is to do things differently from your competitors, and better, too.

In the Mets' case, their policies are more exteme than other clubs in CYA-ness, but it's hardly sufficent in any case to say that other teams have C'ed their A's so the Mets should too.

[Elster88]

]In the Mets' case, their policies are more exteme than other clubs in CYA-ness

I love how shaky theories have somehow become facts over the years.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

JD--

ZIPS focuses on this year, correct? The marginal edge they're giving Matsui is in 2006, right? Not beyond?

I think (if I'm correct) that Hernadez and Kepp have longer-range futures than Matsui. They may have growth potential further down the road (and the Mets control them longer down that road) than Matsui, who at best is a Met through October.

So a small edge in this year ZIPS projection may be outweighed by future considerations. At a small cost in OPS for 2006, which could get outweighed by defensive considerations, the Mets may be able to develop some useful players for 2006 and beyond.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I'm not justifying the move at all. Anytime they choose to play a player for salary rather than performance reasons, I lament it as you do.

I do wish they'd be smarter than other teams. But when they're not I don't then decide that they're more foolish or evil than other teams.

I'm not cutting them slack for it. I'm not saying it's okay because others do it. I'm just saying that that's the way it is, and I'll save my outrage for things more important than who plays second base for the Mets.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I was only pointing out the careless use of the word "inferior" when you meant, "better long-range futures."

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Elster88 wrote: ]In the Mets' case, their policies are more exteme than other clubs in CYA-ness I love how shaky theories have somehow become facts over the years.

The way this works, Elster, is that if you disagree with my conclusions, or my theories, shaky or otherwise, you get to argue them with me. I'm always happy to talk baseball. But I think everyone understands that that's my opinion--do you really want me to specify in every post that the opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone, and that I realize not every CPFer agrees with my opinions, bbbyyy, at interminable length in every post?

I mean I'll do it, if you really want it, but I've had some calls to shorten my posts (and some to eliminate them entirely).

[Elster88]

*sigh*

Edit: Wow. Wally is scary looking in that picture.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I was only pointing out the careless use of the word "inferior" when you meant, "better long-range futures."

And in the context of the Mets' overall interests, which I assume applies to all personnel issues, the word "inferior" is anything but careless.


What's careless, by the way, is your using the phrase "better long-term futures" instead of what I presume you meant, "worse long term futures," either of which would apply to Matsui and not to some mix'n'match combo of Matsui and Keppinger/Hernandez.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I didn't presume anything.

[Vic Sage]

]This is not how a smart club operates

agreed.

Now, a separate exercise: Name the "smart clubs" that operate differently.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Vic Sage wrote: ]This is not how a smart club operates agreed. Now, a separate exercise: Name the "smart clubs" that operate differently.

Maybe this would work as a separate thread, but I'll start here. The Yankees did very well to take starts away from their veteran pitchers (like Bud Daley and Bob Turley) and give them to promising young (but unproven) kid pitchers like Al Downing and Jim Bouton around 1962 and 1963. It would have been easy to claim that Turley, especially, was a former Cy Young winner to justify starting him for years and years, but they just saw that, while Downing and Bouton were risky, and could call their judgment into question, they seemed capable of pitching better than Turley and Daley into the future.

Is this what you had in mind?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

How about a modern-day example, where there's a greater salary disparity?

I doubt that Bud Daley and Bob Turley were making that 1963 equivalent of $8 million.

Didn't the Yankees continue to play Giambi even when he was pathetic? (And, unfortunately, that ended up working out for them.)

[seawolf17]

I'd bet he was thinking about a team operating currently, or at least under a somewhat more modern financial/free agency/media overload structure.

[Vic Sage]

thats my point, Yancy.

If you want to use examples from 40+ years ago, you're ignoring the other factors that "smart teams" have to deal with in order to compete in 2006.

Its all well and good to say cut or bench Matsui and play Keppinger, but Matsui still, in my view (at least until his latest injury), had more UPSIDE than Keppinger, or at least Keppinger has neither the power, speed nor defense to outplay Matsui in any significant way, so why WOULDN'T you give the incumbant the benefit of the doubt, since you're paying him $8m anyway?

If Matsui gets hot, and plays as MANY scouts thought he would (not just the Mets) you've got a 2bman who can give you 20hrs/20SBs, and a chip to trade (if the Mets are out of it). If he flops, you still have a mediocrity like Keppy (or Woodward, for that matter) available.

Burying him in ST would've rendered him worthless and untradeable, to no great end. Unless you really believe in Anderson Hernandez... but i don't. Not be a longshot.

Where we differ is (1) our assessments of Matsui to date, and (2) that you seem to think any decision to play Matsui over Hernandez (or Keppy, or whoever) is, by definition, strictly a CYA move. I, on the other hand, understand that its their job to know more about these guys' potential than i do, and since Omar's and Willie's jobs depend on winning, not just covering their asses, they'd want to play anybody over Matsui if they thought they'd get a significant upgrade at the position.

Or if they thought that maximizing Matsui's playing time early could make his contract (or some portion of it) more moveable, allowing Omar more room to make subsequent moves at the deadline (since Wilpon apparently has him working on a pretty firm budget), this too seems something a "smart club" would do.

What doesn't necessarily strike me as "smart" is handing the position over to a low-walk, low-slg, low-speed, singles-hitting 2bman with limited range, or to turn it over to a guy with 1 good minor-league season (which many scouts have concluded was "fluky"), unless they absolutely had to. Now, with Matsui's injury, it appears they may have to, and if either of these guys play well, i think it unlikely that Matsui will get much of a chance to get his job back, regardless of his contract.

[Elster88]

You're missing the most salient point in that coherent, intelligent post, Vic:







MATSUI SUCKS!!!!!!!!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="Vic Sage"]If he flops, you still have a mediocrity like Keppy (or Woodward, for that matter) available. .

And herein lies the CYA-ness of the Mets' position. The call asto when they decide he's flopped occurs precisely when his contract is drawing to its final few hours or days. Two years, and one ST, of suckitude, and you're still holding onto Matsui's potential to hit 20 HRs for you? (But why have you given upon him as Gold Glove shortstop? That, I don't get at all.)

The problem with using contemporary ballplayers is that their ultimate suckitude is still open to argument. I could cite Matsui or Ishii as examples of players whose salary needed to be eaten, and there will always be those (like you) who'll say "No, he's still capable of great baseball--you don't know in the strictest ontological sense of that term bbbyyyy...." And once they're far enough in the past to draw safe conclusions, the argument always goes back to "That's not how baseball is played in 2006."

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Do you really have to go back 44 years to find an overpaid player who's since retired?

Find an example from within the last twenty years. An example from well after the beginning of free agency would still be valid.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Okey, dokey, I'll find you more recent examples. But before I do, I want to point out how the principle is not really influenced by financial structure changes. Veterans make a lot of money and have long track records, compared to younger players. Always been true, always will be true.You'll never convince me that George Weiss felt any easier wasting $40,000 of salary than Omar Minaya does about wasting 8 mil. Nevertheless, he gave( or Stengel convinced him to give) Bouton and Downing starting jobs while they had no track record to speak of.

[Guest Matt Murdock, Esq.]

1) the difference in salary between a rookie and a veteran has widened geometrically since pre-FA days.

2) the proportional amount of a team's personnel budget consumed by such veteran salaries is wider, as well, and "eating" a salary today can paralyze a team, whereas eating one then may have reduced profitibility, but not by much, and certainly didn't prevent teams from making such decisions.

And even THEN, they preferred to go with veterans, by and large, so your hunt for examples will likely be more difficult post-FA, but not so easy pre-FA either.

[nymr83]

I disagree with the proposirion that eating a modest salary (less than $10 million for one year, 8 over 2, 6 over 3, etc) would "paralyze" a team like the Mets/Dodgers/Yankeea/RedSox/Cubs/WhiteSox/Orioles/Rangers/etc.

I'd say about half the teams in the majors could eat such a salary without it having a big effect on their ability to afford players, and some more teams could do it with only a modest effect. I'd say that only 3 or 4 teams would be close to "paralyzed" by it (the Marlins, Pirates, and D-Rays come to mind.)

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Also, that George Weiss didn't fundamentally believe that every five dollars in a negotiation came directly out of his hide. That's the crucial thing, what GMs and owners felt about money, not what we now know the value of their franchises, and the puniness of players' salaries, to have been.

Nonetheless, the single best example of a smart franchise voluntarily doing without the services of a highly-paid superstar-- first burying him in a lineup whose star attraction he had been signed up to be, then benching him, then cutting him-- would be George Foster in 1986.

As with Rey Ordonez, I'd also remind you that I'm not necessarily calling for the Mets to cut Kaz outright: first I'd have them try to trade him (even for a fraction of his so-called value: when you're trading him from the position that he's a 20 HR shortstop instead of a mediocre bad-fielding 2b man, you're not really trying to move him, are you? ). Then I;'d have them turn him into a utility infielder/pinch-runner/ pinch-hitter type and play Hernandez or Keppinger ahead of him. Then I'd cut him, if it was clear that another player could replace him easily in that role.

As George Weiss and Frank Cashenunderstood, you' ve already paid him the frickin' money. The only thing he's doing in the starting lineup is covering the fact that you paid him too much money.

Another thing that bothers me is this: Vic says that Matsui is still capable of hitting 20 HRs and stealing 20 bases. Let's forget about the hallucinogenic drugs Vic obviously mainlining for a moment, and pretend he's serious. If this has any chance of being true, then don't you think maybe there's one GM out there who'd be willing to obtain such a fabulous player at a nice price, in exchange for some semi-valuable property? And if Vic is indeed headed for 60 days of detox, and there's no way on God's green earth that Kaz is hitting 20 MLB HRs in a season ever, then why can't the Mets recognize the limits that 29 other GMs are telling them exist?

Why?

$$$$$ and CYA, is why. I don't go to ballgames to watch Fred Wilpon's fat wallet or his fat ass being covered up.

[Guest Rotblatt]

One of the daily rags says Hernandez is all but assured of the 2B job.

Personally, I think that's ridiculous. Hernandez's line is .286 AVG/.306 OBP/.286 SLG/592 OPS, with 4 K's, no walks, and no extra base hits.

That's not good.

Keppinger, meanwhile, is putting up a perfectly respectable .265 AVG/.324 OBP/.471 SLG/795 OPS with 3 BB & 3 K, with 5 doubles in only 34 AB.

This sucks for Keppinger, and frankly, I think it's bad for the Mets as well--and maybe even Hernandez. He looks like he could use another few months at AAA.

[Guest abogdan]

Just throwing this out there because you know the rumors will be starting up again. Soriano Refuses to Play Outfield:

]VIERA, Fla. (AP) - Alfonso Soriano refused to play the outfield for the Washington Nationals in what was supposed to be his spring training debut Monday night, and general manager Jim Bowden said his biggest offseason acquisition will go on the disqualified list if he doesn't agree to switch positions this week. "The player refused to take the field, which we believe is a violation of his contract," Bowden said. Soriano, a four-time All-Star second baseman, was listed as batting leadoff and playing left field on a lineup sheet posted in the Nationals' clubhouse before Monday night's 11-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. But when the Nationals took the field in the top of the first, Soriano wasn't out there. With play just about ready to start, left field was empty. Confused players and fans looked toward Washington's dugout. The only person to emerge, however, was Nationals manager Frank Robinson. He approached plate umpire Mike Estabrook and made a defensive switch, moving Ryan Church from center field to left and putting Brandon Watson in center to replace Soriano at the top of the lineup. The Nationals already have an All-Star second baseman in Jose Vidro, so they told Soriano they want him to move to the outfield, and he indicated he doesn't want to do that. But Monday provided his most concrete - and visible - objection. "I just hope they can fix the situation," Washington outfielder Jose Guillen said. "That's up to the people upstairs and Soriano. I think everybody's a grown-up man here. I just hope for the best for the team and those guys, and that they can fix the situation. But that's pretty much not my business." When Soriano first reported to camp last month, the question of whether he would accept the switch was left open until his return from the World Baseball Classic. Soriano played for the Dominican Republic, which was eliminated in the tournament semifinals Saturday. He joined the Nationals on Monday and worked out with teammates in the afternoon, but he wouldn't speak to reporters. The Nationals acquired Soriano from Texas in a December trade that sent outfielders Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge and pitcher Armando Galarraga to the Rangers. After the deal, Washington made it clear that Vidro would keep his spot at second; Soriano made it clear that he wasn't happy. Soriano lost his arbitration case this winter and is due to be paid $10 million this season, still a record for the highest salary awarded in arbitration. The Nationals are off Tuesday, then travel to play the St. Louis Cardinals in Jupiter on Wednesday. If Soriano refuses to play in that game and again at home against the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday, the Nationals will take action. "We told him if we get to Thursday, and he refuses to play left field, we told him at that point we will request that the commissioner's office place him on the disqualified list, at that time - no pay, no service time," Bowden said. "If he refuses to play and goes home, and the commissioner's office accepts our request to place him on the disqualified list, then at that point, if he were to sit out this year, he would not be a free agent, he would stay our property because his service time would stay the same." Robinson sat down privately with Soriano for 20 minutes before the game Monday to explain the team's position. "If he's going to play here, he's going to have to be out in left field," Robinson said. "He said he's ready to play, he needs to play, he's ready for the season, and I penciled him in the lineup in left field." Robinson said the meeting with Soriano was civil, but the player's position was clear. "He's very sensitive, and he has a mind-set," Robinson said. "He lets you know how he feels." Trading Soriano, already a possibility, becomes more likely now - with less than two weeks remaining before opening day. "He's going to play left field. He needs to be out there now the next couple of weeks to play, and if he's not going to play for us, we need to know so we can go forward," Bowden said. "We obviously will field offers, but we're not going to give the player away. If we can make a deal that makes sense, we will."