Pudge’s Crazy Start
Ivan Rodriguez has been a staple in the major leagues since 1991, appearing in at least 88 games in every year of his career. However, after 5 straight seasons of below average hitting finally culminating in a .287 wOBA between Houston and Texas last season, it seemed like Pudge’s productive days were over. CHONE, ZiPS, and the fans all projected Rodriguez for a .290 or lower wOBA once again in 2010, and the two year, $6 million contract was trashed by many analysts.
Pudge has certainly shown signs of life in 2010. His 2-4 night against Ubaldo Jimenez and the Rockies on Thursday raised his 2010 line to .449/.472/.592. ZiPS has updated its rest of season projection up to .302 after this torrid start, and the .320 overall season projected wOBA would be his highest since 2006 with Detroit.
However, Pudge has managed to put together this line despite hitting zero home runs and only walking three times in 49 plate appearances – that’s why the rest of season projection is still well below average despite the hot start. Soon, the hits will stop dropping in and Rodriguez’s BABIP will regress toward his career average of .323 – and probably lower, given his advanced age. Still, the fact that Pudge has gotten out to such a fast start does signify that there is still some pop in his bat and that aging hasn’t yet taken a strangle hold over his baseball skills.
Given how difficult catcher is to play, a .302 wOBA could still lead to a decently productive season, as long as Rodriguez can still play some defense. According to our new measure of catching defense, there is no reason to believe that he can’t – since 2005, he’s rated at +22 by our system and was +4 last year. He certainly appears to be able to limit the stolen base, and given his history, I have no questions about his game calling abilities.
Although I still question giving Rodriguez $6 million guaranteed over two years of a waning career, he has shown that he’s not dead yet. Perhaps there’s just enough left in the tank for him to effectively be Washington’s bridge to Bryce Harper.
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What of Jesus Flores? Are we assuming he can’t stay healthy or that the injuries have deteriorated his ability?
Or Derek Norris?
We’re of the opinion that Jesus Flores never exisited.
The last the Nats heard he was supposed to only be out for a few weeks. That was over a year ago.
I doubt he ever wears a Nationals uniform again.
Flores is on the 60-day DL and recently began a throwing program as part of a long comeback from shoulder surgery last year.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal/2010/04/an_update_on_jesus_flores.html
Yeah, that’s not happening.
He’ll get injured again before he ever takes the field.
He truly is a man made of glass.
As far as Pudge’s defense goes, it’s true that he is still capable of throwing out base stealers at an above average pace, but based on what I saw of Pudge last year, his pitch blocking ability has diminished considerably.
Steroids.
Soda pop.
Why is 3 weeks of hot hitting engendering such optimism about I-Rod being good now?
His strikeout rate is very abnormally low: 6.1%, when the low for his career in a full season is 8.6% … in 1996! (and probably when he was still juicing) His career is 15.2% and the past 3 seasons he has been around 19% overall.
His BABIP is at .468, career .324 BABIP, over past 3 seasons, declining each year to a career low in 2009, lows he has not hit since his first couple of early seasons in his career, nearly 20 years ago.
And did you even look at the rest of season forecast? That’s a .270/.299/.396/.695 batting line, with 7 HR. How does that show that he still has pop in his bat, with an ISO of 126? That would have been good for 8th worse ISO for catchers with over 300 PA in 2009 in the majors.
Still, I see your point about him being worth more because he’s a catcher, so I buy your line of reasoning. But then you still question the deal at the end.
However, to your point about a low 300 wOBA being valuable, he was basically that in 2007 and Fangraphs listed the value of that at $7.1M. Thus, even if he does half of what he did in 2007 (129 games, 515 PA), he would still be producing $3.6M in 2010, which is above the $3M he’s being paid. ZiPS projects him at roughly 88% of his 2007 PA, so that would be worth (assuming his defense is about the same, and he has averaged 3 per year over the period and had 4 last season, so that seems reasonable) $6.2M in 2010.
Based on Fangraphs stats, it would seem that the Nationals got a great deal with I-Rod. It appears that a catcher with even a low 700 OPS but with good defense can be worth a lot of money, performance-wise, which I never knew until now.
Bryce Harper is NOT the end-all lock for the Nationals. In a pitching-shallow farm system, along with Harper’s attitude issues, percieved or realistic, I would not be at all surprised to see them take another pitcher as their first pick. Flores has shown that he can be an above-average, perhaps even a star backstop. There are, of course, the injury concerns. But in a system with both Flores and Derek Norris, I’m growing more and more skeptical of them going with Harper.
But they could take him this year and trade him next year to get what they really want.
I don’t think you can flip players that quickly.
If this were next year’s draft with Jungmann, Cole, Purke, etc, I could see them taking a pitcher over Harper but none of the pitchers in this year’s draft come remotely close to the talent Harper offers. What he’s doing in a wood bat league against players two years older than him is remarkable. The only way the Nats don’t take him is if he gets injured or if his representation opens with the demand for an other-worldly signing bonus. One doesn’t select a myrmidon instead of Achilles just because he’s a little arrogant.
Wait are you serious about no pitcher offers that kind of talent? Get real man, Jameson Taillon the #1 prep prospect out of the woodlands tx is topping out at an easy 99 mph as a six ft seven pitcher with nasty offspeed stuff and command of 4 plus pitches. He has been rumored to get above 100mph this year and think of that future number one and number two pitcher combo there for your team with strasburg and taillon? Harper is by no means a lock and taillon is as great a pitching talent to ever come out of highschool.
Taillon is a fantastic talent, but he’s playing against high schoolers. Do you think he’s significantly better than Josh Beckett or Kerry Wood were when they came out of high school?
Harper is a year younger than Taillon yet hitting .400+ and slugging .900+ versus college players (using a wood bat), not to mention showing a pretty good eye at the plate and stealing bases at nearly a 90% success rate. More than a few scouts have rated his power a 90 on the 20-80 scale.
Given the Nats already have Zimmerman to slot in at #2 behind Strasburg long term plus their recent history of selecting higher upside (Strasburg) over presumably a safer bet (Ackley), it doesn’t take much imagination to see them taking the once-in-a-generation hitting talent given a choice.