Just as he did last year, Pence has been hitting like crazy in Spring Training. So far, he’s hitting .397/.417/.735/1.152 – the team best (with over 30 PA). He’s leading in XBH with 13, has 7 doubles, 2 triples, 4 homers, 3 BB, 7 K and 2 SB with no CS. I’m gonna go back to calling him Hitter Pence.
I’m going to quote him (his entry) from his blog, Inside The Ballpark (which is mostly written and edited by a GIRL!!!!!!)
“On another note, it’s been good to see Tejada these last couple days. Itís unbelievable how he flipped the switch right after our off-day. I’ll be honest I wasn’t sure about his swing until now, but he is playing a different game than before. That’s what is so amazing about the veterans, they know just how to get themselves right in spring training. Most of them work on things until the last week then amp it up to a new level whenever they want. Every at-bat early in spring he wasn’t in good rhythm and now all of a sudden, he hasn’t had a bad at-bat in three days. You could say that’s just the ups and downs of baseball, but he literally told us “Now itís time to get it going.” And that’s just what he has done.”
Fascinating – here and I wonder if Tejada (and the rest of the infielders) can manage to flip that “on switch” with regard to suckulous fielding. Oh – and if that “veteran” crap is true, then what is going on with Ty Wigginton and his .607 OPS, with Carlos Lee and his .256 BA (yes, his OPS is .859, but remember this is Houston and that is what Mo Ensberg had when the fans started calling for his head – gotta have a high BA around here…)
Anyway, the question is whether or not the Astros would be better off in the long run with Matsui or Pence in the #2 hole.
Let’s take a look at Matsui – as I wrote in December, in 2007, at Coors, he hit .411/.476/.500/.976 in 56 AB over 17 games. Away from Coors, he hit .225/.260/.320/.580 in 187 AB over 53 games. INteresting that all of a sudden, he had HUGE Coors/away from Coors splits. (And people are REALLY making a LOT out of that 56 AB at Coors. Darin Erstad has an .813 OPS in 50 AB for ST – does anyone REALLY think he’s gonna hit .313 or slug .500 for the rest of the year????)
Last year, away from Coors, Matsui hit .249/.304/.333/.638 in 213 AB over 55 games. And, mind you, he only started in 2/3 of all games played last year. Over his 4 years in the majors, his non-Coors line is .256/.305/.367/.672 in 1127 AB over 309 games (he has 66 more games played at Coors, where he hits like crazy) with 46 SB and 6 CS.
His lifetime OBP over 1522 PA (including Coors) is .325 and his SLG is .387. Now, we ARE talking about having this guy hit second. Yes, I KNOW that he runs very fast and steals bases 62 SB with 9 CS lifetime, and that he almost never GIDP – he has 7 lifetime (which is about the 8 week totals for Carlos Lee, Miguel Tejada and Ty Wigginton. EACH, that is.)
Now, let’s look at Hitter Pence: .322/.360/.539/.899 – 10 GIDP in 484 PA, 11 SB, 5 CS (and at LEAST 3 of those CS were pickoffs.)
So the question to me is, first, what is the job of a #2 hitter? Is it to be a second leadoff man? If so, then the #2 guy should have the leadoff man’s MOST important skill, getting to first base in the first place, by a hit, walk, error, HBP, whatever. Matsui’s non-Coors on-base is .305. Which is BAD. Even if you look at all his stats, his on-base is .325 – which is lousy. The GOOD thing about Matsui is that he almost never GIDP. However, he seldom drives in runs because he doesn’t hit for either average or power, so he has to move the runner for the next hitter, either by hitting or bunting. The situation would be similar to the one Jimy Williams arranged in 2004 with Biggio hitting leadoff and Everett hitting second. Even if Matsui bunted Bourn over, manager would seldom walk Berkman to get to Lee or Tejada (unless, of course, they were hoping for a double play) just as managers seldom walked Bagwell to get to Kent – at least, that’s the idea.
So, the question is, in the long run, is a team better off with 2 non-slugging .325 OBP “leadoff guys” hitting first and second to increase the stolen bases, or is it better to have one of them hit 8th and have a higher OBP/SLH hitter hitting second? So I think that the answer would be – who creates more runs, the guy with the .305 OBP/.387 SLG who steals bases with approximately an 80% success rate and doesn’t create 2 outs with a GIDP
or
selecting one of the fast guys to leadoff, then having a fast guy with a .360 OBP/539 SLG who GIDP 10 times last year, but who can also steal bases.
Well, last year, his supposedly “good” year, Matsui had (-)7 RCAA (runs created above average for second basemen in the ML last year, not park adjusted.) Pence, for most of the year batting behind Biggio and his .286 OBP, had 18 RCAA.
Remembering that the second hitter in the lineup gets approximately 60 more PA/year than the 6th hitter, wouldn’t it be more sensible to have the BETTER hitter hitting second?
I vote Pence.
Now, for rumors: I hear tell that Wade is looking for pitching (gee, what a shock). Patterson signed with the Rangers, but he’s a reclamation project who very well might not pan out. I ALSO hear tell that Wade is talking 3rd basemen – gee, could it be Wiggy’s .217 BA or his 8 errors or inability to catch popups that might could be worrying Wade?
Tonight is Chris Sampson’s last chance to make the rotation and he’s facing a great Tigers lineup and has terrible infielders to help him out. And he’s not a strikeout pitcher.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
Lisa
I definitely think they should bat Pence second for various reasons. he is the much better hitter and will get on base much more often than kaz, which means a lot more rbi opportunities for especially berkman than also lee and tejada.also with all the extra base hits he gets he will more often be able to bat in the speedy bourn. they won!t be able to pitch around him much because of the 3 power hitter hitting behind him. so he should get to see some better pitches. also as you said he would probably get around another 60 abs over the course of a season which you want for one of your better hitters.
secondly its not a bad idea to have some good speed near the bottom. bat kaz in front of towles, maybe he steals a base and give a supposedly good hitter towles an opportunity for an rbi; especially when he might be leading of in an inning.
You last paragraph about Sampson made me think of this: Tonight, Lincoln is president, the country is torn apart in war, many people want him dead, and he’s going to sit in a dark room watching a play with no one guarding his back. But other than that, everything’s fine.
steve darling boy,
aintchu the one – well, one of the ones scolded me for not being quiiite as, um, upbeat as i might could????
poor sampson. i hope the poor guy gets traded to a team with a good defensive IF, otherwise, he’s out a baseball career. i feel as sorry for him as i do burkie-poo. the player, not the dog.
and NO, we are NOT keeping her.
AND I MEAN THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
charles,
i also would prefer to see matsui batting in front of towles, who is unusually fast for a catcher and may also avoid the GIDP…
If OBP is the most important thing about scoring runs- and it is- and your runscoring potential is optimized w/ your best OBP’s at the top, then Matsui bats last(besides the pitcher) and that’s exactly where i’d hit him. Sad, that he’ll probably have a lower OBP than Wiggy, Bourn and a rookie catcher.
Remember: this is the team that hit Loretta fifth despite having one of baseball’s 15 weakest bats from a power perspective b/c he had a high BA w/ runners in scoring position. Which is as about as dumb as playing hims at SS or making Wiggy an everyday 3B. I blamed this on Super Genius Phil “Scrap Heap” Garner. But then after he got fired, Cooper did the exact same thing. So I have no faith that they’ll get it right this time.
For one thing, if Berkman isn’t automatically your third hitter then something’s wrong. He’s way, way better than either Tejada or Lee. Secondly, he’s the only player whose OBP is worthy of being called excellent. And he has more power than the other two, and his history of plating runners on base when he hits is fantastic- and I don’t mean raw total of RBI (a thoroughly worthless statistic!!).
It’s almost certain that this team will have one everyday player w/ an OBP above the .360-.370 range, and a distinct possibility only one or two above .350 and 3 or more w/ a sub-.340 OBP. Making things worse will be backups who can’t hit that will/may play quite a bit- Loretta, Ausmus, Blum and Erstad will play alot.
That our lineup is so great is a myth.
kevin,
well, i wasn’t exactly happy, as you know, when cooper announced the original lineup as bourn, matsui, tejada, berkman, lee, pence, wiggy, towles
yeah, i KNOW he said it wasn’t written in stone, but i remember phil and his constantly changing lineups
IF bourn can actually hit for average, he’ll be a decent leadoff guy. then pence and berkman are your best hitters, so i’d bat them next. like duh. at least to me. i don’t understand why people think that stealing bases is more important than getting ON base/hitting for power…
the whole thing about “clogging the bases” is a bit silly unless you are talking about someone who is raul chavez slow OR a bad baserunner (think charles gipson – fast as lightning, bad on the bases)
so i worry about GIDP machines lee, tejada and wiggy, but at least lee is consistant about knocking runners in…
I think it comes down to how Matsui plays. If his numbers are decent, I don’t really have a problem with him hitting second. If he plays like everyone (outside of the Astros management) expects him to, then Pence is definitely the better choice.
Also, you can’t use Wiggy to disprove the theory that veterans can flip a switch and start hitting, Wiggy has never had a switch to flip in the first place.
jack,
the probability that matsui would duplicate his coors numbers away from coors is zero – the splits are GAPING.
but fact is that even IF, and that is an ENORMOUS “if” he duplicated his combined statts from last year, .288/.346/.405 – it STILL isn’t near as good as pence.
wiggy
sigh
and it was gerry hunsicker who chose to DFA him last year, remember? not just the pirates…
Wiggy’s a great example of how a guy can be a really good fantasy player but kill his team in “real” baseball, and vice versa. I watched him very closely all last season, both before and after the trade, and there will be a few weeks of the season where he’ll go on an absolute power binge, jacking homers left and right. But the rest of the time he will be exposed for what he is: a poor hitting, poor fielding strikeout machine.
His only chance is if other teams pitch around the other guys and show him fastballs, which might actually happen.
The link in the above post should read “insidetheballpark” and be linked to “insidetheballpark.com” not insidethepark/insidethepark.com.
jason,
thank you for catching my error – i fixed it