Catcher
Russell Martin - 540 AB, .293/.374/.469, 19 HR, 21 SB-9 CS, 113 OPS+, .285 EqA, 8.0 Warp1
Mike Lieberthal - 77 AB, .234/.280/.260, 0 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 39 OPS+, .181 EqA, -0.1 Warp1
Chad Moeller - 8 AB, .125/.222/.125, 0 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, -8 OPS+, 0 Warp1
Martin is clearly awesome. Lieberthal is not worth paying a million dollars; might as well get the replacement level performance out of Moeller.
First Base
James Loney - 344 AB, .331/.381/.538, 15 HR, 0-1 SB-CS, 131 OPS+, .302 EqA, 3.0 Warp1
Nomar Garciaparra - 431 AB, .283/.328/.371, 7 HR, 3-1 SB-CS, 78 OPS+, .242 EqA, 0.4 Warp1
Olmedo Saenz - 110 AB, .191/.295/.345, 4 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 63 OPS+, .227 EqA, -.2 Warp1
Mark Sweeney - 33 AB, .273/.294/.303, 0 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 53 OPS+, .201 EqA, -.1 Warp1
Marlon Anderson - 26 AB, .231/.310/.231, 0 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 41 OPS+, .202 EqA, -.1 Warp1
Loney will be the full time first baseman, which will be a good thing. Olmedo and Sweeney should both be gone, and Nomar will have to prove his worth to get any playing time on the field. Or at least, he should. And Marlon Anderson's run must end, but it was nice knowing him.
Second Base
Jeff Kent - 494 AB, .302/.375/.500, 20 HR, 1-3 SB-CS, 121 OPS+, .291 EqA, 5.3 Warp1
Tony Abreu - 166 AB, .271/.309/.404, 2 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 80 OPS+, .242 EqA, 1.3 Warp1
Ramon Martinez - 129 AB, .194/.248/.225, 1 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 22 OPS+, .168 EqA, -0.5 Warp1
Wilson Valdez - 74 AB, .216/.263/.270, 0 HR, 1-0 SB-CS, 36 OPS+, .182 EqA, 0.2 Warp1
Tony Abreu should be a backup 2b or late inning replacement for Kent. Even if he's only getting about 200 AB, he'd be a much more useful pinch hitter and part time player than Martinez or Valdez. Jeff Kent looks like he'll still be the best option at 2nd, provided he's not traded or retired, although his age is starting to catch up with him.
Third Base
Wilson Betemit - 156 AB, .231/.359/.474, 10 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 110 OPS+, .282 EqA, 1.3 Warp1
Andy La Roche - 93 AB, .223/.365/.312, 1 HR, 2-1 SB-CS, 75 OPS+, .249 EqA, 0.6 Warp1
Shea Hillenbrand - 70 AB, .243/.257/.343, 1 HR, 0-1 SB-CS, 51 OPS+, .199 EqA, 0.0 Warp1
WHY!!! WHY DID THEY HAVE TO TRADE BETEMIT?! And this is why LA is in the hunt for A-Rod. LaRoche, who's been having a hard time translating his power to the majors has shown great patience, but it is doubtful management will do the same with him. He's a better option now than Nomar, though. But Hillenbrand's presence on this list is the worst effect of the Betemit trade.
Shortstop
Raffy Furcal - 581 AB, .270/.333/.355, 6 HR, 25-6 SB-CS, 76 OPS+, .244 EqA, 5.0 Warp1
Chin-Lung Hu - 29 HR, .241/.241/.517, 2 HR, 0-0 SB-CS, 86 OPS+, .244 EqA, 0.3 Warp1
Even with his down year at the bat, Furcal is among the best defensive shortstops in the game. Hu looks quite promising though, which makes renewing Furcal unlikely.
Left Field
Luis Gonzalez - 464 AB, .278/.359/.433, 15 HR, 6-2 SB-CS, 101 OPS+, .271 EqA, 3.3 Warp1
Brady Clark - 58 AB, .224/.308/.293, 0 HR, 1-2 SB-CS, 55 OPS+, .206 EqA, -0.3 Warp1
Delwyn Young - 34 AB, .382/.417/.647, 2 HR, 1-0 SB-CS, 166 OPS+, .342 EqA, 0.5 Warp1
Young was a pleasant surprise in this category. Gonzo did his job, but now it's time for him to go. Brady Clark, we hardly knew ye, and then we saw you in that last game against Colorado and knew we made the right choice.
Center Field
Juan Pierre - 668 AB, .293/.331/.353, 0 HR, 64-15 SB-CS, 75 OPS+, .249 EqA, 2.6 Warp1
Oh, Juan. Well, he seemed to pick up his game offensively and defensively toward the end. He's got such a long history though of being just a 2nd half player. If he could string together a .308/.356/.373 line (his 2007 2nd half), I could live with that. What gets me is that he has occasional bits of doing what he should, where he fouls off a ton of pitches to force a walk. Then he led the NL in sac bunts - completely unnecessary, and much of that a result of attempted bunting for base hits that failed. I'm pretty sure he'll decline more - this was his first year without at least 1 homer, and only one of his 10 career home runs was inside the park.
Right Field
Andre Ethier - 447 AB, .284/.350/.452, 13 HR, 0-4 SB-CS, 103 OPS+, .270 EqA, 4.4 Warp1
Matt Kemp - 292 AB, .342/.373/.521, 10 HR, 10-5 SB-CS, 125 OPS+, .294 EqA, 2.8 Warp1
Good and good. Give each 550 AB, and they will be productive. As a matter of fact, if you ignore Ethier's April, he hit .291/.366/.451, and either way compares favorably to JD Drew. Kemp could do some serious damage if given more playing time, although he still needs to develop his patience further. Ideally, next year will feature Kemp and Ethier both in the outfield.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
40 Man Roster Analysis
Players that should stay with the big club, definitely
Russell Martin
Brad Penny
James Loney
Matt Kemp
Takashi Saito
Jonathan Broxton
Chad Billingsley
That's a catcher, first baseman, right/center fielder, two starting pitchers, a closer and a setup man.
Players that I would like to leave via Free Agency
Mark Hendrickson
Roberto Hernandez
David Wells
Randy Wolf
Mike Lieberthal
Shea Hillenbrand
Ramon Martinez
Olmedo Saenz
Mark Sweeney
Luis Gonzalez
Hendrickson's non-tender would be the hardest. The rest of these guys will probably leave as free agents or retire, so not a problem.
Players I really want to trade
Juan Pierre
Jeff Kent
Provided Kent doesn't retire, he could be a useful DH to some team. Provided Boston doesn't pick up A-Rod, they could theoretically let Lowell go, move Youkilis to third and play Kent at first. The difficulty of trading Juan Pierre is that he would have to be traded for someone else who is a real salary burden, sort of a Jeff Suppan type, but more ridiculous. This would be someone who would give Dusty Baker a managerial job for it to happen. Otherwise, Pierre may just have to be admitted a failure by LA and displaced, benched and ultimately released. Trading him to SF would be more disrespectful than releasing him probably.
Players we are stuck with
Esteban Loaiza
Nomar Garciapara
Provided we trade Kent, Nomar could probably play better defense at 2b, and he should be able to bounce back to at least an .800 OPS. A 2B with an .800 OPS is alright by me. Loaiza will probably be Tomko'ed. What was Billy Beane thinking?
Players that would be a good idea to think about trading
Rafael Furcal
Derek Lowe
Hong-Chi Kuo
Eric Stults
Kuo is a good pitcher, but he's such an injury risk. He could be valuable for teams that like the Mark Prior types. Did I mention he's a lefty?
Derek Lowe is in the last year of his contract and looks like he wants out. That said,
he's an incredibly valuable starting pitcher, and he could be huge for getting some sort of significant player in a trade, or helping us dump Juan Pierre and not pay his salary. That may become a concern if we pay A-Rod $35,000,000 per year.
Eric Stults is a potentially useful fourth or fifth starter, and he's . . . left-handed. But without Kuo's injury history.
Furcal had a bad offensive year which he's certain to rebound from, and even then, he was 2nd in baseball in RF only to Tulo, and the Dodgers have a much higher K/9 than the Rockies. This means Furcal is an awesome defensive SS who can hit the ball too if he's healthy. If the BoSox want to take a chance on his being healthy, more power to them.
Players that could easily be Dodgers next year but could be traded
Andre Ethier
Andy LaRoche
Tony Abreu
Chin-Lung Hu
Joe Beimel
Eric Hull
John Meloan
Scott Proctor
Jason Repko
Delwyn Young
Of this group, I'll say LaRoche's injury makes me really hate the Betemit trade. Abreu and Hu should be bench players to stick around for when Nomar and LaRoche get hurt. Then A-Rod plays third and you have a good youthful combo up the middle that can hit a little. Ethier and Beimel are both good and likely to stick around, Young and Repko look like outfield bench players, though Young or Repko should start taking some PT from Pierre.
Players that could spend all next year on the DL
Jason Schmidt
Yhency Brazoban
Brazoban is $55 million away from being Darren Dreifort, while Schmidt is only $8 million away.
Players that might be let go but are useful
Chun-Hui Tsao
Rudy Seanez
Seanez is an old dude and who knows what he does. Tsao was useful but injury prone, and management might consider him fungible, which would be unfortunate.
Players likely to start in the Minors
DJ Houlton
Mike Megrew
Greg Miller
Control problems and familiarity issues, or whatever.
Russell Martin
Brad Penny
James Loney
Matt Kemp
Takashi Saito
Jonathan Broxton
Chad Billingsley
That's a catcher, first baseman, right/center fielder, two starting pitchers, a closer and a setup man.
Players that I would like to leave via Free Agency
Mark Hendrickson
Roberto Hernandez
David Wells
Randy Wolf
Mike Lieberthal
Shea Hillenbrand
Ramon Martinez
Olmedo Saenz
Mark Sweeney
Luis Gonzalez
Hendrickson's non-tender would be the hardest. The rest of these guys will probably leave as free agents or retire, so not a problem.
Players I really want to trade
Juan Pierre
Jeff Kent
Provided Kent doesn't retire, he could be a useful DH to some team. Provided Boston doesn't pick up A-Rod, they could theoretically let Lowell go, move Youkilis to third and play Kent at first. The difficulty of trading Juan Pierre is that he would have to be traded for someone else who is a real salary burden, sort of a Jeff Suppan type, but more ridiculous. This would be someone who would give Dusty Baker a managerial job for it to happen. Otherwise, Pierre may just have to be admitted a failure by LA and displaced, benched and ultimately released. Trading him to SF would be more disrespectful than releasing him probably.
Players we are stuck with
Esteban Loaiza
Nomar Garciapara
Provided we trade Kent, Nomar could probably play better defense at 2b, and he should be able to bounce back to at least an .800 OPS. A 2B with an .800 OPS is alright by me. Loaiza will probably be Tomko'ed. What was Billy Beane thinking?
Players that would be a good idea to think about trading
Rafael Furcal
Derek Lowe
Hong-Chi Kuo
Eric Stults
Kuo is a good pitcher, but he's such an injury risk. He could be valuable for teams that like the Mark Prior types. Did I mention he's a lefty?
Derek Lowe is in the last year of his contract and looks like he wants out. That said,
he's an incredibly valuable starting pitcher, and he could be huge for getting some sort of significant player in a trade, or helping us dump Juan Pierre and not pay his salary. That may become a concern if we pay A-Rod $35,000,000 per year.
Eric Stults is a potentially useful fourth or fifth starter, and he's . . . left-handed. But without Kuo's injury history.
Furcal had a bad offensive year which he's certain to rebound from, and even then, he was 2nd in baseball in RF only to Tulo, and the Dodgers have a much higher K/9 than the Rockies. This means Furcal is an awesome defensive SS who can hit the ball too if he's healthy. If the BoSox want to take a chance on his being healthy, more power to them.
Players that could easily be Dodgers next year but could be traded
Andre Ethier
Andy LaRoche
Tony Abreu
Chin-Lung Hu
Joe Beimel
Eric Hull
John Meloan
Scott Proctor
Jason Repko
Delwyn Young
Of this group, I'll say LaRoche's injury makes me really hate the Betemit trade. Abreu and Hu should be bench players to stick around for when Nomar and LaRoche get hurt. Then A-Rod plays third and you have a good youthful combo up the middle that can hit a little. Ethier and Beimel are both good and likely to stick around, Young and Repko look like outfield bench players, though Young or Repko should start taking some PT from Pierre.
Players that could spend all next year on the DL
Jason Schmidt
Yhency Brazoban
Brazoban is $55 million away from being Darren Dreifort, while Schmidt is only $8 million away.
Players that might be let go but are useful
Chun-Hui Tsao
Rudy Seanez
Seanez is an old dude and who knows what he does. Tsao was useful but injury prone, and management might consider him fungible, which would be unfortunate.
Players likely to start in the Minors
DJ Houlton
Mike Megrew
Greg Miller
Control problems and familiarity issues, or whatever.
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