Forecasts for Fifteen: Juan Lagares

[Edgy MD]

Hi, I'm Juan Lagares, and I'm capable of giving a team 3.0–3.5 WAR just using my legs, my arm, and my glove. Not too many defenders out there (none?) can say the same. But let's be honest. How long am I going to be pulling that off? Sooner or later, I'm going to have to hit.

Till then, watch me on defense.

[fimg=450]http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/imported_assets/2321248/Lagares2.gif.opt_.gif[/fimg] [fimg=450]http://gamereax.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/lagaras.gif[/fimg]

[fimg=450]http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4665773/2014-05-27-lagares-catch.gif[/fimg] [fimg=450]http://38.media.tumblr.com/14f3da1a719208f7533f3a55a9087228/tumblr_n2rc2yCgzR1ro5xweo1_400.gif[/fimg]

It's fun to be that guy! But a man's got to bat too, and I aims to do more with that wooden thing. What do you think I'll be able to accomplish in 2015?

[Guest themetfairy]

Obi Juan Lagares is our only hope!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Continued greatness at tracking back, only with a little backsliding at the plate.

144 G, 622 PAs, .258/.301/.372, 65 R, 8 HR, 58 RBI, 41 XBH, 17 SB/5 CS

[Edgy MD]

I could really go for some Straticon Construction Services. Wife doesn't understand why. I tell her it's because I have the strength to be there. She thinks I'm weird.

[MFS62]

Getting better. Keeps the leadoff spot by hitting .288/ .355 with 40-45 XBH and 20+ SB. With those numbers and this lineup, will score over 100 5runs.

Later

[smg58]

One thing that got lost last season was how he dramatically cut down on strikeouts as the year went on. I think that sets him up well for this year. .285/.325/.455, with 35 doubles and 10 home runs. Leads the team in WAR by a wide margin.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm not a true believer in Lagares yet.

As you know from previous forecasts, I'm wildly optimistic about the Mets this year but if there's one area that's a concern for me its that we really don't have an ideal leadoff hitter and I worry about effects of pretending Lagares is or can be one. Sure Terry asked him to steal more and he did, but he's got to reach base more often and he was helped by a 342 BABIP last season (average is around 300).

I'd really prefer a lineup where he could hit 7th or 8th and let him reveal his upside there.

I'd say 245/300/375 with 9 homersapiens and 20 steals. Not horrible, but not great. There will be times that Nieuwy will look like a better choice.

[Lefty Specialist]

MFS62 wrote: Getting better. Keeps the leadoff spot by hitting .288/ .355 with 40-45 XBH and 20+ SB. With those numbers and this lineup, will score over 100 5runs. Later

That's pretty much where I wind up. Maybe fewer XBH, and if given permission to run will easily have 20 SB. His OBP will be more in the .320 range, though, so he won't be an ideal leadoff guy.

[Edgy MD]

His approach certainly changed after he hit the leadoff spot last year. The results didn't change much, but I was at least happy he was a willing student.

Working with late-bloomers seem to be almost an organizational philosophy.

[ashie62]

The type of centerfielder you can pencil in on a world championship ballclub.

[Ceetar]

131 games .279/.329/.401 wRC+105 10 HR 20 SB

sporadic injury was a concern last year. hopefully he stays a little healthier.

I liked that he walked more and struck out less in the second half, and I'm banking on him using that patience to get better pitches to hit and driving the ball more than he did in the second half last year. Not a ton better, but clearly well above average particularly for a CF.

Continues to play great defense. Gold Glove.

I'm fine with him as leadoff. I'm not really concerned about lineup positioning much. Just don't play guys there that OBP .300.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You're in luck then because Steamer projects 290 OBP

[Edgy MD]

If he takes a step forward, and performs like a the leadoff hitter the Mets feel they can turn him into, they will be an unstoppable beast.

I certainly believe it's possible. He's got a quick bat, and, well, they turned Duda into a cleanup hitter last year. Development is possible at the big league level.

But they better have a plan B that's a little more reliable if not as ambitious. I guess that's Granderson.

[Vic Sage]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm not a true believer in Lagares yet. As you know from previous forecasts, I'm wildly optimistic about the Mets this year but if there's one area that's a concern for me its that we really don't have an ideal leadoff hitter and I worry about effects of pretending Lagares is or can be one. Sure Terry asked him to steal more and he did, but he's got to reach base more often and he was helped by a 342 BABIP last season (average is around 300). I'd really prefer a lineup where he could hit 7th or 8th and let him reveal his upside there. I'd say 245/300/375 with 9 homersapiens and 20 steals. Not horrible, but not great. There will be times that Nieuwy will look like a better choice.

This.

[Frayed Knot]

smg58 wrote: One thing that got lost last season was how he dramatically cut down on strikeouts as the year went on.

He seemed to adopt (quite possibly under pressure from above) a two-strike approach later in the season where he'd cut down on his swing and poke the ball to RF w/2 strikes.
The result was those fewer Ks you mentioned and also some extras singles where (although I don't have the data to prove this) it seemed me that he was getting a bit lucky on those pokes more often than not in a BABiP way, so it's possible that some of that upside won't be so easy to reproduce.
If he can combine that two strike approach with being more aggressive earlier in the count to take advantage of what seems like his only partially tapped power potential we might have something very nice on our hands. Not sure though that he'll ever be the OBP guy they want for the top of the order.

[Edgy MD]

With his speed, just tapping a two-strike pitch to the infield gives him that fighting chance to reach base, as long as the first baseman inexplicably decides to cover an area two feet up the line.

[fimg=550:1g9ojjje]http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/3082343/2013-08-18_Yonder_Alonso_can_t_find_first_base.gif[/fimg:1g9ojjje]

[Guest d'Kong76]

I'm a believer in Lagares to improve as a lead-off guy.

[ashie62]

Hes' not Andruw Jones, yet.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

His walk rate ain't improved a whit as he's advanced through the system, and the line-drive rate's just come up a tick to average-y. I don't see a lead off hitter here, now or ever. Unless you've got a hell of an imagination, you probably don't, either, not really.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I'm kinda down on Lagares and by down, I mean the down that means down instead of the slang down that really means up. First of all, and foremost, I think he's sort of a crappy hitter. I know he's a great fielder but the thing is that I don't really know how good a fielder he is and what the value is for that. I see the dWAR rates and all those other newfangled defensive stats but I have no real way of knowing what those numbers really mean and I'm pretty good at math, too. I used to typically take a college math test and get a perfect score in like fifteen minutes. I could ace the test twice over before the rest of the class even finished it once. Like I said, I used to be good at math. Now you take something like batting average or ERA and hell, I've been doing the math to figure those stats out since I was in the 2nd grade. I've been playing Strat-o_Matic since I was nine --obsessively for my first few SOM years, and I tabulated all of my fantasy SOM stats and borrowed my dad's fancy calculator that plugged into the wall (it could even calculate square roots!) and figured out every pitcher's ERA. I know exactly what an ERA is. Hell, when I was a teen-ager, I figured out how to reverse engineer and make up my own SOM player cards -- a difficult thing to do because the math involved is challenging not to mention the paucity of available stats when I was a teen.

But this WAR stuff, I respect it but I hafta admit that I'm taking a big leap of faith when I trust it because I couldn't calculate WAR by myself. I don't know that I even understand the formulas involved. So how could I really know? And most nobody can. You coulda been an ace math student and mastered the science needed to ace your classes. You coulda mastered regression analyses and all sorts of other statistical tools. But knowing something from 20 or 30 years ago doesn't cut it. If you're not working with that math in the present and on a regular basis, you can't calculate those stats. And if you can't calculate them, there's no way you can fully understand them, and can't even know what those numbers really mean.

I look at some of David Wright's recent stats and his numbers are off the charts, indicating that he was playing at practically MVP levels until last year. But I see Wright every day, and even though I no longer follow all of baseball like I did when I was a nine year old playing SOM every day and handling my baseball cards every day, I still know the Mets. And based on what I see with my own eyeballs, David Wright weren't no MVP in recent years. So I look at the stats harder and I see that a lot of his value is in dWAR and other newfanglwed stats that only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the population has the skills to calculate from scratch. So I'm skeptical. Like I am of Lagares who I know can field, but I don't know how good he fields and what's that worth. I do know that he's good and there's anecdotal evidence (great plays) of his prowess. But then again, Ordonez was magic to look at and he never dominated league defense like his highlight reel suggested he would or should.

I do know that Lagares is sort of a crappy hitter. I hope nobody's factoring his defense when they're trying to figure out how well he's gonna hit.

[ashie62]

Since when did Lagares have an elbow issue?

http://www.rotoworld.com/player/mlb/6812/juan-lagares

[Frayed Knot]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: First of all, and foremost, I think he's sort of a crappy hitter.

One who, in his 2nd year in the majors (neither one full) managed to raise his BA by 29 points, OBA by 40, and SLG by 30
Also it's tough to argue that a .281/.321/.382 hitter, in a year where his league averaged .249/.312/.383, qualifies as "crappy" - particularly from a GG winner at an up the middle position.

I know he's a great fielder but the thing is that I don't really know how good a fielder he is and what the value is for that.

By a nice coincidence, the NY Times had a piece on Juan Laggy today
Among other things, they cited 'Baseball Info Solutions', "one of the sport’s most respected analytics outfits [which] evaluate[d] outfielders on the number of plays they make in three areas — shallow, medium and deep. The company found that Lagares ranked among the top center fielders in all three categories.
Perhaps more impressive, the company concluded that Lagares also saved 52 runs over the last two years, best among center fielders.
As a rule of thumb, said John Dewan, the founder of Baseball Info, about 10 runs saved equal about one victory. Lagares’s defense alone, then, could be credited for about five Mets wins over the last two years, and he played center field for only about 68 percent of the Mets’ games in that period."

[Edgy MD]

"I know he's a great fielder but the thing is that I don't really know how good a fielder he is and what the value is for that."

There's something a little paradoxical in that, but the thing is, while we all have to put our faith in something, you don't really have to, because every last scout agrees with every last metric which agree with your own eyes.

Take the gravely serious and unbiased Fielding Bible lot. Not only did he win their award for outstanding center fielder, but the choice was near-unanimous, with 11 of 12 voters picking him for number one, and the last placing him in second. That guy was probably was just pissed that Laggy missed the last few weeks.

But lets even agree with that naysayer and accept that Jackie Bradley was the better fielder by a hand over Juan Lagares. it doesn't take long to realize Lagares was about two and a half times the hitter Bradley was.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I agree that Lagares is a great fielder. I wasn't disputing that. I'm just saying that I don't know how much his defense compensates for his so-so hitting. Going by BbRef WAR, Lagares was one of the top 10 players in the NL. Was he? I'm not saying he wasn't. I'm simply saying that I don't know, that I wouldn't, in a million years, ever discern that simply from what I can see with my eyes on the field. For me to be convinced that Lagares is one of baseball's elite and most valuable players, I'd have to take a leap of faith and rely on statistics that aren't transparent, and beyond the abilities of just about everybody to calculate from scratch.

[nymr83]

I don't think Lagares is one of baseball's elite players or one of the top 10 in the NL going forward even if the stats say he was last year. But I do think he is a good player and the only real knock on him is that his team doesnt have a leadoff hitter and is miscasting him in that role. Nobody would be complaining if the Mets had signed someone who could leadoff instead of Michael Cuddyer and Lagares was slated to hit 7th/8th.

The Steroid Era is over. people are going to have to get used to the idea that there isnt a slugger playing every position any more. DEFENSE!

[Ceetar]

I know they're not easy to calculate, but you don't really need to. we have computers now, and understanding what it's based on and the concept of correlated statistics is not a hard one. i.e. OBP contributes more WAR than AVG.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Ceetar wrote: we have computers now

And if we didn't, then none of us would know each other!
Just struck me funny, continue Juan debate...