Moving Jose Bautista to 3B Makes Sense

Let us start with the obvious. Jose Bautista is the best hitter on the Blue Jays. Is he really the best hitter in the American League, as he has been so far this year? That's open for debate - it was only a couple years ago that Bautista wasn't yet good, and Miguel Cabrera still exists. However, in 2011, Bautista leads the AL in walks and home runs, enabling an amazing .325/.468/.655 stat line. In exactly 999 plate appearances since the beginning of last year, his stat line of .280/.406/.628 places him among the elite players in the game. Over the same time frame, Josh Hamilton has a similar .343/.397/.604 stat line, in 250 fewer plate appearances.

While Bautista has spent the year coldly annihilating American League pitching, Toronto 3B have been completely anemic:

	PA	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Jayson Nix	137	4	0.179	0.255	0.333	0.589
Edwin Encarnacion	87	1	0.207	0.241	0.341	0.583
John McDonald	56	1	0.180	0.226	0.280	0.506
Mike McCoy	23	0	0.150	0.261	0.150	0.411
Chris Woodward	4	0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
Team Total	307	6	0.183	0.243	0.308	0.552

None of the people who played 3B this year for Toronto have an OPS even as high as Bautista's slugging percentage. If it weren't for the Seattle Mariners, the Blue Jays would have the least production at the position in the league.

So let's answer some questions you might have:

Will moving Bautista hurt his offensive production?
That's hard to imagine - great hitters don't stop being great just because they play a different defensive position. Also, he's not moving to a more physically demanding position, like shortstop or catcher, just a harder one. Looking at his 2009 stats, he did hit for less power while playing 3B, so it is worth keeping an eye on. My worry, though, is that he's playing over his head. If Bautista hits something like .290/.415/.575 in the second half, it may be interpreted as a decline in production and met with calls to move him to his more "comfortable" position, rather being accepted as a more accurate representation of his actual skills.

Also, remember that 3B in general has fewer great hitters than right field - so even if his offense does regress a tad at the position, the difference between Bautista and the average-hitting 3B will be greater than between him and the average-hitting RF.

Isn't Bautista a pretty terrible defensive 3B?
It seems that way, yes - he was never good in Pittsburgh, and it's doubtful he's gotten better. Two things about that though. First, Bautista is a bad defensive right fielder. Second, while Nix and McDonald are acceptable (ok - McDonald is pretty good), Encarnacion is probably even worse than Bautista is. So let's get him out of the picture entirely. The question is really whether Bautista is so much worse defensively than Nix and McDonald that it would cancel out the amazing increase in production. Let's pretend that Nix and McDonald are at replacement level when we combine their offense and defense. Bautista's offense has been over 11 wins more than a replacement level right fielder since the start of 2010, a higher standard than a replacement level third baseman. Since that's about a year and a half, call it 7.5 per year. In the last four years, zero 3B have been more than 2 wins below replacement for the course of the season. Chipper Jones, a pretty notorious 3B, was -1.3 dWAR in his worst season. That means Bautista would have to be almost four times as bad at 3B than the next worst - even if that were possible, if he were anything close to that, they'd pull the plug on the experiment long before we got to that point. So even if he's the worst defensive 3B in baseball, his total production makes him a huge upgrade anyway.

Isn't moving Bautista just moving the problem around rather than fixing it?
The average 3B in the AL hits only .239/.310/.378 while the average RF hits .264/.340/.425. The reason for this is that there are more people out there who can play RF acceptably than can play 3B. The Jays think they have RF who are at least capable of outproducing they guys they've used at 3B, which means rather than moving the problem, they'd be creating an opportunity.

At first glance, it looks like they have more than enough talent on hand to meet that unambitious goal. The candidates:
-Juan Rivera is hitting .253/.317/.378 this year - slightly below his career numbers, particularly in the power department, but not far from what would be expected of a 32 year old given Rivera's production at his peak.
-Travis Snider, a constant source of frustration among Jay fans, hit a paltry .184/.276/.264 to start the year, earning him a trip to AAA Las Vegas. However, he is still only 23, and has a career .246/.313/.423 line in the majors, as well as .324/.396/.468 since returning to the minors. Even considering how good a place Vegas is to hit (no double meaning intended), it's hard to imagine that's a complete fluke. Snider would be a significant upgrade over Nix/McDonald/Encarnacion offensively.
-Adam Loewen - yes, the former pitching prospect for the Orioles what seems like forever ago. Loewen has hit .314/.376/.564 in AAA in his attempt to become the new Rick Ankiel. 43 extra base hits in 312 plate appearances can't be ignored, but the 78 strikeouts give pause.
-Eric Thames (no relation to Marcus) is hitting .352/.423/.610 in his first attempt at AAA, after an impressive .288/.370/.526 in the more pitcher-friendly New Hampshire ballpark last year. He's a little old for a prospect at 24, but the production seems real. In 52 PA, mostly coming while Adam Lind was on the DL, he went .298/.365/.426, and he was recalled again on Friday.
-David Cooper, Toronto's first round pick in the 2008 draft, had generally disappointed in the minors up until this year when he arrived in Las Vegas, where he has a line of .371/.435/.576. Accentuating his line is his league-leading 29 doubles. Cooper spent a couple weeks with the major league club earlier this year, hitting .121/.244/.242. The fact that this is the first year Cooper has really hit, and the fact that he didn't produce in a short big league trial, may be two strikes against him. However, Cooper's status as a #1 pick and his impressive 28/20 walk to strikeout ratio may push him to the front.

I wouldn't go out and proclaim any of these players a budding superstar, but I feel confident that each of them could produce above a .600 OPS with acceptable defense, with an upside quite a bit higher than that. With the Blue Jays fading out of the race in the American League, it seems sensible to see both whether Bautista can handle being an everyday 3B while remaining productive and, if so, who among the cast of potential right fielders will move himself to the top of the list.


Photo credit: Keith Allison http://www.flickr.com/photos/27003603@N00/5801269943

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Vernon Wells to the Angels

It's been a tough year for the Angels. After three consecutive NL West titles, and a trip to the 2009 ALCS, expectations were high - unfairly high, perhaps, considering the losses of Vladimir Guerrero, Chone Figgins, and John Lackey. Puttering along for the first two months in third place, they were dealt another blow on May 29th when Kendry Morales celebrated his game winning grand slam against the Mariners by breaking his leg in a celebration at home plate.

June went pretty well though. Hot streaks by Torii Hunter, Erick Aybar and Hideki Matsui, as well as the fairly weak interleague schedule, propelled the Halos to an 18-9 month, and the Angels sat only 3.5 games behind the Rangers on July 4th. Unfortunately, they wilted in the summer heat, with a 20-33 record in July and August, leaving the Angels out of the playoffs for only the third time in nine years. It was clear some changes needed to be made. The trade deadline deal for Dan Haren was a start, but their offense needed a boost - their .311 OBP was better than only the anemic Seattle Mariners. The Angels were considered front-runners for Carl Crawford. When Crawford spurned LA for Boston, the Angels seemed to be without a Plan B. Without an attractive free agent option, they were going to need to go the trade route in order to move forward.

One valuable chip the Angles had was C/1B Mike Napoli. Napoli's average defense and low batting averages made him unattractive to the Angels, and he could never find a spot playing every day, but to other teams who value his take n' rake approach, there was a lot to like. Most notably, Napoli has excellent power. Not excellent power "for a catcher," but legitimate top-notch power that would play at any position. His .502 sligging percentage over the past few years speaks for itself. For a frame of reference, .502 is the EXACT same slugging percentage that Jim Rice's supporters would quote when endorsing him for the HALL OF FAME. Napoli has done that over the last three years in a much tough place to hit than late 70's/early 80's Fenway Park. We're not trying to get Napoli into to the Hall of Fame here - just a consistent starting job. Given that, he has shown himself to be a player with very similar skills to a young Jorge Posada.

The Angels have the skills they like, though - most notably, athleticism. It's what led to them signing Gary Matthews Jr. and Torii Hunter to huge contracts in the 2006 and 2007 offseasons. The cynic in me would say that, unable to overpay an overrated outfielder to a contract this offseason, they went out and traded for one that another team had overpaid. However, while Matthews was a complete bust, that characterization is unfair to Hunter. While Hunter and his contract have been much maligned in the statistical community, I defended the move three years ago, and will defend it again has one that has been worthwhile for the Angels. Over the three years, Hunter has been about 11.7 wins above a replacement level. That may not be worth quite $18M, he has been one of the most productive CF in baseball over that span. If you're looking for reasons the Angels underachieved in 2010, don't blame Hunter.

Trading for Vernon Wells, though, gives them a worse version of the same player, making just as much money. Wells has a .275/.327/.466 line in his ages 29-31 seasons. What will he be in his 32-34 seasons? In addition, the move necessitates moving Hunter from CF to RF on a full-time basis, where his bat will not play as well. If Wells can replicate his very good 2010, where he had 78 extra-base hits, he will improve the Angels offense. If he reverts to 2009 though, or even splits the difference, they are going to be disappointed. That .275/.327/.466 seems like a pretty good starting point.

The reason this is a bad trade for the Angels, though, has little to do with what Vernon Wells may or may not do, and more to do with what the rest of the team can't do. The Angels had an OBP of .316 or lower at SIX of their nine positions last year: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS and DH. They had slugging percentages under .400 at all of those except for 1B. Yes, the return of a healthy Kendry Morales will improve the production at 1B. But with the trade of Napoli, the Angels have handed the catching job, full-time, to Jeff Mathis again. For his career, Jeff Mathis has a .199/.265/.311 batting line. I know that the Scioscia puts an emphasis on defense at the catching position, and that Napoli wasn't his cup of tea. And I'm sure Mathis would make a nice backup, and will be a coach or manager one day. But Mathis makes the Molina brothers look like a trio of Mike Piazza by comparison. He's not just a bad hitter, he's an automatic out.

Even further , if we grant that the Angels don't care about offense at the position and will use catcher as an automatic out, and that they don't value Napoli's set of skills as much as other teams do, why trade him for one of the few positions on the field that they didn't need the help at? Money situation aside, the Angels are worse on paper today than they were yesterday. When you through in Wells' astronomical contract, this seems like an all-around bad move by the Angels.

The Blue Jays, on the other hand, have to be thrilled. They've gotten themselves out from under Wells contract, and have added a versatile power-hitter who can spell rookie J. P. Arencibia behind the plate two or three times a week, and spend the rest of the time as a 1B, DH and right handed hitting slugger off the bench. Adding in Juan Rivera on top of that - another low batting average player with power and versatility, not to mention a cannon arm - is just icing on the cake.