2013 IPP: Kirk Nieuwenhuis

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'd like to think that Kirk will hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases and hit around .260. And maybe in his best season he'll do something like that. But I don't see it happening this year.

I'll say he gets off to a strong start, then fizzles and sees less playing time in the second half. He'll stick with the Mets as a reserve outfielder for the next couple of years, until roster issues lead the Mets to trade him or waive him.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Aches and pains and a slow spring gets him assigned to Vegas to begin the year and after some acclimation starts hitting like a beast there -- and just in time because we'll have had about all we can stand of den Dekkkkker's O by early June. Back on the big club, Kirk hits for a few weeks then falls into old habits. Mets eventually throw up their hands and trade for Someone Else.

5-18-250/315/400 in 150 ABs

[Zvon]

From seeing his at bats after he cooled down last year, and in spring training this season, there are adjustments he [u:12acxtgg]has[/u:12acxtgg] to make. They not only have a book on Nieuwy, they got the good book. I'm not prepared to make any projections concerning him because if he can't find a way to shore up the holes in his swing, he doesn't belong in the majors. Of course, that doesn't mean that he can't be a regular in our outfield.

[MFS62]

I'm hoping that one day, they'll say WTF about his strikeouts and let him play, so he can turn out to be a lefty hitting this guy:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/thomago01.shtml

But its not going to be this year, so:
246-7-35 in 50 games, with 80K on 240 AB.

Later

[Vic Sage]

if he was going to hit 30-40hrs like Thomas (or Kingman, or Rob Deer, or whatever other exemplar of the 3 perfect outcomes you care to choose), then yeah, give him a shot. Those guys are not without their value. But unfortunately, he neither walks nor homers at the rate sufficient to offset his huge K rate. And at least denDekker is a great glove; if we're going to play a guy in CF who'll strike out 175 times without enough power to justify it, he better have a great glove.

i'm starting to think Valdy is our best CF option, platooning with Cowgill, with Baxter backing up all three spots. And Nieuwy starts in Vegas. Maybe if he has a good year, they call him up in September (earlier, if somebody gets hurt or doesn't produce).

.260-5hr

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The alternatives are REALLY dim.

276 PAs, .259/.329/.409, 37 R, 6 HR, 28 RBI, 24 XBH

[ashie62]

Spurts of good and bad...Gets hurt alot and totally ran out of gas last season..

Traded

[Edgy MD]

Kind of telling that he's not back to center. He hits the homer that starts the team on its best run, and shortly after he hits a game-tying one a few weeks later, he gets cast out when they didn't have to send him down.

It's not like he had done much of anything else, but after sending him out, the team was really imbalanced, and neither did they play very well.

[ashie62]

If the sending out of Nieuwenhuis led to a swoon we are in bigger doodoo than I suspect...

[Edgy MD]

Well history shows that it did.

What history fails to indicate is how much was coincidence, and how much causality.