Where Branyan Could Make a Bigger Impact
Jack has a point. Russell Branyan could certainly help the Rays add a win or two to their 2011 total. That additional production might make a difference in a tight AL East race. It’s easy to forget, though, that there’s another team looming in the East. The Blue Jays surprised everyone last year, and they’re bringing back much of the same cast this season. They’d do well to bring in Branyan and add that win or two themselves.
Why the Jays? The fit makes sense for a number of reasons.
1. The Blue Jays are predominantly right-handed
Of the Blue Jays nine projected starters, only two, Adam Lind and Travis Snider, hit from the left side. There isn’t even a switch hitter to be found among the rest. The Jays were largely the same last year, though they did have three lefties — Lyle Overbay, Fred Lewis, and Lind — play in more than 100 games, and Snider played in 82. Adding another lefty to help balance out the lineup might be a decent idea. Branyan would fit right into their plans.
2. Rogers Centre is misspelled plays well for lefties
According to StatCorner’s 2010 park factors, Rogers Centre aided home runs and doubles for lefties and righties alike. The Trop, on the other hand, suppresses home runs for lefties while playing about neutral for doubles. It would seem, then, that Rogers Centre presents a more favorable home park for Branyan. If he produced ISOs in excess of .250 in the power-suppressing confines of Safeco Field, imagine what he can produce in a more hitter-friendly environment.
3. He fits right into a platoon role
For two reasons Branyan’s ideal role involves a platoon. First, he has an extensive injury history that has caused him to miss 97 days in the last two years alone. Scaling back his playing time could help keep him on the field more often. Second, he produces the bulk of his power against right-handed pitching. The Jays appear to have an easy solution here.
Adam Lind could get the nod at first base, but from what I gather the Jays aren’t sure he can handle the position full-time. An alternative is Edwin Encarnacion, whom the Jays re-signed as a first baseman. They could, then, move Lind back to full-time DH and platoon Encarnacion and Branyan at first base. This plays not only to Branyan’s strengths, but also to Encarnacion’s. He owns a career .365 wOBA against left-handed pitching (just .333 against righties).
4. The Jays could use a little more power
Last season the Jays built their success on brute force. They led the league in home runs and ISO by considerable margins while finishing 26th in OBP. Yet that power number figures to come down this year. There’s little chance Jose Bautista repeats his 54-homer season, and the team also lost Vernon Wells, who produced the second-highest ISO on the team. Juan Rivera might serve as a decent facsimile, but there could remain something of a power void in the lineup. Maybe Lind, Snyder, and Aaron Hill make up for it. But even if they do, there isn’t harm in signing Branyan. With a team constructed like the Jays, the more power the better.
There appears to be little downside in the Jays signing Branyan. He fills a role for them, and at this point in the spring he probably won’t cost much money — not that money is really an object for the Jays right now. Maybe his lower back problems have teams backing off, and that’s understandable. But if the Jays are going to gamble for a couple of wins, they could do a lot worse than Branyan.
Joe also writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues.
Safeco actually plays pretty well for lefty power hitters, so he might not see such a huge jump in performance. Nevertheless, this makes sense for the Blue Jays, especially if they could get Branyan on a cheap minor league deal.
More power is never a bad thing but between Snider, Bautista, Hill, Lind, Arencibia, Encarnacion and Rivera, they aren’t really hard up for the stuff.
While I think he would be a good fit in Toronto, his career 11.8% BB rate runs in stark contrast to the Jays’ “grip it and rip it” mentality at the plate.
i’d rather gamble on nick johnson
NO! BAD PUNDIT!
I am going to make the assumption (and will read some more of your work to back it up) that you do not follow/cover the jays on a regular basis. This is the only thing that can lead to your making some casual and basic errors regarding the very idea of Branyan coming to Toronto.
1. The Jays are in no way hard up for power as you suggest. They do not need Branyan’s OBP drain on their already weighted averages.
2. Adam Lind is certainly being considered for the 1st base position, at least in the near term. E3 (or E5 as he was known last year among the discerning of jays fans) was signed NOT as a 1st baseman, but as a DH with the ability to spell Lind at First and cover (pray god that it does not come to this for the sake of the people in the first 5 rows… and the longevity of my heart) 3rd base if injury takes its toll. He is not there as conventional platoon with Lind. The Jays are trying to get Lind out of the pigeon-holed DH only role he played last year in order to make him a) a more valuable club asset and b)take his mind off of the grind of hitting four times a game, and focusing only the at-bat to at-bat mistakes without fielding to break things up. This has been perceived by many Jays watchers as a potential cause of his regression last year as he played DH almost exclusively.
3.The Jays are likely not going to compete this year. They are not bringing back a largely unchanged roster. They have lost their opening day starter, CENTRE-fielder, catcher, first baseman, and entirely re-shuffled their bullpen (which may or may not be an improvement). They are not a “1 piece away from a pennant team”. They’re a couple of years away, with the pieces either in the pipe (BA’s 4th ranked system) or targeted (arguably the most payroll flexibility in the league) via free agency as they start to decide what their needs are.
Russel Branyan (and I say this as someone who has rostered him on numerous fantasy teams in recent years) is not a fit here. Let him go be someone else’s “last piece. We’re not ready yet.
Just because the Jays aren’t planning on competing doesn’t mean he might not be a valuable asset.
However, I think the better asset would be a 3B, allowing Bautista to move back to the outfield. Then they do:
Lind/EE at 1B
NEW at 3B
Bautista in RF
Snider/Rivera in LF
Davis in CF
and then basically alternate Lind/EE/Snider/Rivera in at DH when needed.
Not giving Snider a full time position invalidates your post Mr. Gaston.
Lewis: His point makes sense if you use Snider as the fulltime LF and use Rivera as a 4th OF/DH type. Their lineup just feels a RF or 3B short of being complete.
First of all, he never implied that the Jays were “hard up for power.” He did say that “more power is a good thing”, however. Would you dispute that?
Second, Branyan would hardly be an “OBP drain” on your lineup. Among returning Jays, only Bautista and Yunel Escobar had a higher OBP than Branyan’s career .330 OBP.
Plus, what exactly is an “OBP drain”? Branyan’s a decent hitter, because he produces runs. It doesn’t really matter how.
Branyan might not have a high OBP but he does walk quite a bit. A 10-12% walk rate on this Jays team would look pretty nice. And if you can get off the Encarnacion can’t play third ever again thing, and there’s reasons to think he could play third, then Branyan starts to make a lot of sense for the Jays.
I don’t know if this sort of thing flies on this site but I wrote about Branyan and the Jays in length last week here:
http://bluejaysanalysis.com/2011/02/09/going-to-war-with-russell-branyan/
It’s really not the worst idea in the world.
And in a platoon tole, he is not an OBP drain. Last year he had a .352 OBP vs. RHP and his career is .349.
I’ve thought the Blue Jays make a lot of sense for Branyon on a 1 mil-ish deal since they dealt Wells. They have plenty of reasonable ways to deploy him.
I suspect the few teams that have a nice platoon niche with Branyon’s name on it are waiting/hoping he gets desperate and signs a tiny ML deal. Alternately, Branyon may be hoping that a team suffers an unexpected injury to a 1b early in the preseason and need replacement power.
Given the fact Jack published earlier the Rays should sign him, the Jays will sign him
Edwin Encarnacion
Octavio Dotel
Jon Rauch
Mike Napoli
Frank Francisco
Jays may as well go 6 for 6 in taking guys the Rays were rumored to be after.
He could also be the 2011 version of Ken Phelps for the NYY. *grin*
Interesting idea. The only worry I have is that despite being heavy on RHBs, the Jays had something like the best AL offense against RHP last year and something like the worst against LHP. Go figure. They have a few guys with reverse platoon splits.
But not for their careers, so it’s probably an issue of small sample size, and one of the reverse platoon splitters, Wells, is gone anyway.
True. But, if sample size on its own explains the Jays platoon split (whole team + whole season is not an unreasonable sample), then most of baseball is noise. Perhaps that much-discussed hitting approach also played into it (though I don`t know how). In the end, if I was John Farrell, I would be worried relying so totally on regression to make my team competitive against LHPs.
i know the M’s don’t need another DH but why not Branyon? He has power and he produces for them. Practically the only one for last 2 years. He can back up at first. Need more power. Go Jack
Does Branyan havea rep as a malcontent? if not why does it seem he’s always seems to be looking for a home so late in the off-season? Yes he is an OBA drain, but is he that much of a step down from Vlad? Yes Vlad is a bigger name and is coming off a better season than Branyan, but the cost-bennefit of Branyan versus Vlad seems to give the edge to Branyan. It seems Branyan is becoming the heir to Matt Stairs.
Branyan has an injury history that scares teams. He’s always one swing from having his spine leave his body in pieces (yes, that’s hyperbole, but he could easily be flat on his back and out for the season for no reason other than swinging the bat). He also got the “platoon hitter” label early in his career and was never able to shake it (his season with Seattle in 2009 was the first time since his 2002 rookie year that he saw more than 50 PAs vs LHP, and in fact at that point — 8 years into his big league career — he still had only about 250 PAs vs LHP total). So: an injury-risk platoon 1B/DH is not the sort of player most teams make a priority of signing early in the off-season. That’s the kind of guy you plug into things when your roster is nearly set.
As I wrote in Jack’s post, it’s either a case tradionalist bias toward his low BA and high K’s or as Jon J. suggests maybe he’s a malcontent. Atlanta has an unproven 1B like freeman and their other lefty bats are either old (Chipper), play catcher (McCann) or look completely lost (McClouth). Other Heyward, which lefty power bat can you pencil in 500 AB’s for? Or the power starved Pads who could platoon him with Hawpe or Blanks or Cantu or whoever eventually wins that job. Other than Texas, the entire AL West could use him. LAA could use the extra pop even if we’re assuming kendry comes back to his 09′ form. Oakland and Seattle have obvious needs for a power bat. The D’Backs…… Juan Miranda??? Need I say more? Can anyone seriously say that the teams I just mentioned wouldn’t benefit from 300 PA’s from Branyan?
McCann’s posted at least 550 PA each of the past four years, and the Braves are already pretty lefty-heavy. Branyan also strikes me as poor Freeman insurance because he can’t platoon with him and probably won’t hold up if he takes over for him entirely.
“But if the Jays are going to gamble for a couple of wins, they could do a lot worse than Branyan.”
But they aren’t going to gamble for a couple of wins. It’s been almost three years since the Jays went out of their way to win a ballgame.
Really? They looked pretty eager to win Morrow’s one-hitter.
In this sense, “The Jays,” means, “The front office of the Jays.”
Then wouldn’t the objective be to win the division? Or in this sense, does “a ballgame” mean “the division”? Are there other words that mean something else here, too?
“The Jays Could Use a Little More Power”
Yeah, and McDonalds could really benefit from a little more fat in their food.
Indeed, and for the same reason: judging from the results, it seems to work.