A number of years ago the Mets completed one of the
greatest fleecings in baseball history when they traded the immortal Rick
Ownbey and the erratic Neil Allen for the personal
demon-plagued Keith Hernandez. How soon
thereafter did Hernandez close the book on his hard partying ways is anyone’s
guess, but if you asked anyone to name the best first baseman in Mets history
it would be hard to pick anyone other than Mex.
If you look at the man’s career you find that he was a
very solid contact hitter with moderate power and a good eye, having walked 100
times in one season and only once striking out over 100 times. In his MVP year he hit a mere 11 HRs, but
drove in 105 runs while batting a robust .344.
These days if you look at the first base
landscape it’s littered with sluggers, guys like our own Ike Davis who last
year hit 32 HRs and drove in 90 while struggling to hit .227 and whiffing 141
times. I think most people would have taken Hernandez
over Davis in a heartbeat.
However, the new conventional wisdom states that the
corner infielders are power hitting positions.
That leads to people like Carlos Pena who has hit as many as 46 HRs in a
season while sporting a career AVG of .233.
Another good example is prodigious slugger Adam Dunn who has hit a mere
.238 for his career.
Third base has become a similar bastion of home run
hitters like Pedro Alvarez, Miguel Cabrera, Chris Davis and to a lesser extent
David Wright. However, it wasn’t that
long ago that 3rd base was manned by people like Pete Rose who never
hit more than 16 HRs in his career but did finish with a .303 career
average. Given the thinking today, would
he even be given the opportunity to start and show what he could do?
This concept of conventional wisdom occurred to me when
we witnessed the early success Josh Satin has had while filling in for Ike
Davis. Who knows what he could do if he
had 500 ABs to prove himself but his minor league numbers suggest someone similar
to Mex (without the Gold Glove defense, of course). Doesn’t the Moneyball philosophy value
getting on base (via walk or hit) more than it does power?
Terry Collins, however, seems to buy into the Earl Weaver
school of managing where the three run homer reigns supreme. There was a perfect case during Monday’s 15
inning marathon where there were runners in scoring position late in the game
with a lefty on the mound and Davis due up.
Satin was sitting on the bench where he had a great view of Davis grounding
out weakly to end the inning. Davis is
hitting .154 against lefties whereas Satin is hitting .448 against
lefties.
A lot of baseball purists disparage the concept of
Fantasy Baseball as something for frustrated wannabes to use to feel empowered
since they can’t do it themselves on the diamond. I used to play the game myself regularly and
my philosophy is I would rather have eight players who hit 20 HRs and drove in
80 RBIs than I would 1 or 2 stars and a bunch of warm bodies filling out the
rest of the roster. That approach led me
to winning the vast majority of the time I played that game.
Maybe it’s time for the Mets to stop talking about
Moneyball and actually embracing it.
2 comments:
I believe that Casey Stengel was given credit for the art of platooning.
I know it's not sexy, but if it wins games, it wins games, right?
There simply aren't enough 30 home run hitters in the game but there are plenty of 15-20...
I would like to see a system that gets the team 30/100... per positional starter... meaning, add the two platoon guys together and keep track of the team's growth that way.
So, right now you'd have...
1B - Davis/Satin - 6/26 (very unproductive)
2B - Murphy/Turner - 6/44
SS - Quintanille/Tejada - 2/23
3B - Wright - 13/43
LF - Duda/Young - 11/33
CF - Lagares/Nieuwenhuis - 3/33
RF - Byrd/Valdespin - 19/65
C - Buck/Recker - 19/59
Platooning seems to be a managerial preference. Some teams go with set lineups every day and others do the lefty/righty thing in several positions.
You're right that the aggregate totals are what matters, but 30/100 from every position is wishful thinking. I do remember that one season when the Dodgers had something like 6 players with 30 HRs -- Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Rick Monday, etc.
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