*Of players with at least 150 at bats.
- After last night's dominant performance, Tejada is finally a replacement-level player. The defensive metrics are not nice to Ruben, who has played better than the 0.2 value he holds. As that goes up, so will his WAR.
- The power will never be there and he will hover around an 80 RC+ guy at best, but if he continues to walk in 15% of his at bats and play solid defense, I no longer see this as a position we would need to improve.
- Fans would hate it, but why not bat Ruben leadoff or second? At least while Eric Young Jr. is out. He has the second best OBP on the team behind Murphy right now.
8 comments:
I wouldnt bat him leadoff because that means he gets more at bats. WAR doesnt take into account his boneheadedness either. Who tries to steal 2nd base when the pitcher is up and you need that pitcher to go more innings? Ugh, he has a good game then he has a game like yesterday.
No disrespect, but I think this is a radical misreading of "the quality" of Ruben's OBP. It's largely based on the fact he bats 8th in front of the worst hitting staff in baseball. He's been intentionally walked at least 4 times, pitched around more. He's a crap hitter and he can't run -- but nonetheless in any kind of critical spot pitchers would rather throw to Bartolo (for example). Put him in the top of the order -- even forfend -- a lot of those easy passes where he artificially pads his OBP will dry up, IMO. I appreciate that he isn't making outs, but it's only because percentages suggest pitchers are better off going after the next guy in the lineup. His OBP isnt meaningful and it isn't "earned."
Right on, James.
Those walks are definitely a function of the other team's strategy more than anything else. We need to be grateful when he performs, because he is mediocre at best. We need better.
Good, trade him while his value is artificially high based on stats.
For Tejada to "carry his weight" he needs to play newutral to slightly plus D (as appears to be the case so far this year) and run an OPS around .700 (as he did in 2011). He still has a ways to go offensively, but hopefully he is on his way. I had supported giving Flores an extended look, and still do, but so far he has really disappointed offensively in part-time work. I don't know if it is fair to judge him on part time play, but if they are more confident in Ruben at this time, Flores needs to be sent to Vegas to play SS every day, or 2B every day if they have decided he can't field the SS position. Watching from the bench is the worst of all worlds.
Mr. Preller states it perfectly. BTW, did you happen to notice his SLG% is, by far, the worst at an almost mind-boggling .289?
Ruben is definitely a flawed player and I don't even know if I considering him an acceptable shortstop for a winning team. Keep in mind, though, that he had this good of an OBP for his first two years in the majors and does play above average defense. You could do a lot worse at shortstop. He's also 24 years old. Unless it's clear we're going somewhere this season and a shortstop opportunity presents itself, I say let him play and if he continues to get on base 35% of the time, move him up in the order. He's going to draw walks no matter where he hits. He always has.
-SG
Batting in the 8th-spot, Travis d'Arnaud was intentionally walked 4 times in the last 2 games. And somewhere in the blogosphere a guy is writing about his improved OBP. After all, it's right there in the numbers (which never lie).
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