Would you like this defensively solid left-fielder batting in a key game for your team:
.320/.349/.563, 24 HR 74 RBI in 100 games?
Not just yes, but hell yes, right? That's Rockie Carlos Gonzalez.
So you write Gonzalez's name in the lineup, and you get this -- .262/.279/.385, 10 HR 54 RBI, 10BB, 130K. What happened?
First, let's recognize how utterly abysmal that is. A .279 OBP is cactus enema bad, and the result in this case of a player who walks less than Stephen Hawking. It's 48 points worse than Bud Harrelson's embarrassing lifetime mark. It's 15 points lower than Mike Hampton's lifetime OBP.
Yes, that's the pitcher Mike Hampton.
How did an All-Star caliber outfielder morph into an over-matched Double-A wind machine? Simple: The Rockies are playing a road game.
Carlos Gonzalez is a terror at Coors -- .375/.414/.730, 38 HR 94 RBI, 28BB 68 K. (I've doubled his home and away counting stats so you can compare them to his overall performance.) That's Mark McGwire on andro. But for some reason, Cargo can't hit anywhere else. This is good information if you're his manager. You'd probably want to make sure he's in the lineup in Denver, but you might want to give him a breather now and then elsewhere.
It also casts a shadow on his overall performance for the year, as documented at the top of this post. It raises the question of whether he's just a thin-air artifact who's not really the .320-with-power hitter his overall numbers suggest.
In an effort to spare a deceased horse further injury, I won't detail how Charlie Manuel gets the same raw deal when he expects to send his .281/.373/.578 first baseman to the plate and this shows up -- .231/313/.453 because the pitcher is right-brained and Ryan Howard turns into Eddie Gaedel when facing lefties. Suffice to say that it's very hard to make convincing MVP arguments for a guy who can be so easily neutralized.
b
3 comments:
HA! 2008 WS Champions wouldn't have happened if that lefty-challenged first basement hadn't been there. 2008 NL Champs either. That's how I call MVP. But of course, you know that. Nice ring, Pujols...
Paz, are you sure you're not a sportswriter? You seem incapable of understanding that the Phils won the WS because they had a host of good players, notably the best second-baseman in the world. They have a very good first baseman, but he is not anything like the most valuable in the league. Or on his team. Or among first basemen.
Albert Pujols has no rings because even the best player on Planet Earth can't win the WS without a supporting cast.
Really, is that so complicated?
Hell yeah, they have the best second baseman! But as great as he was, it's clear that Howard carried the team for a while and without his propensity for September greatness, they would not have pulled past NY. S'all I'm sayin'.
You know I just like to tease. Utley's really my favorite player since Schmidt anyway.
Post a Comment