Surely such a player, admittedly on the fringe of usefulness, nevertheless has more offensive and defensive value than Marlon Anderson? Anderson, supposedly a "pinch-hitting specialist," often gets plenty of outfield time anyway, where he is quite out of place. And where does this idea come from that he is a great pinch-hitter? He has a career line of .265/.314/.392. He is 34 years old. Why do the Mets have needless loyalty to such terrible players?Rodriguez, on the other hand, is probably in his peak. Even if he is a AAAA hitter, he will take his ability to take a walk (something unfamiliar to Anderson) to the big leagues. Why is there this idea that some players are just major leaguers and others are just minor leaguers?
JUST BECAUSE DAMION EASLEY, MARLON ANDERSON, FERNANDO TATIS, ET. AL. HAVE PLAYED IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES BEFORE, IT DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE CURRENTLY BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS NOT PLAYED IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES EXTENSIVELY!The Mets are much worse than their competition at evaluating and properly deploying their players, and they will continue to make poor decisions until there is a change of leadership. If you are a Mets fan, you should not be anticipating any deadline deals with anything other than fear-- fear that the organization will do something terribly stupid.
By the way, Marlon Anderson received the biggest contract of his life last offseason, following two short, obviously fluky seasons with the Mets. Instead of just picking up someone similar from the scrap-heap and giving him the major league minimum, the Mets gave Marlon Anderson a major league contact for two years and $2.2 million. Of course I derided the deal, and people rolled their eyes. After all, Marlon was a great pinch-hitter for us! It's only a couple million! etc.
Guess what, though? The roster can only hold 25 people. The Mets lost the division by one game last year. They currently lead the division by one game.
Stop talking about Jose Reyes's celebrations or Carlos Beltran's supposed lack of clutch-hitting ability. It's the edges, people. You should be talking about the edges. That's where the Mets could improve themselves considerably RIGHT NOW for PRACTICALLY NOTHING:
-Make Ramon Castro the regular catcher
-Release Marlon Anderson
-DFA Robinson Cancel
-Call up Valentino Pascucci
-Call up John Rodriguez
18 comments:
Wow, that was quick...:) I'm glad to be of service!
I'm cautiously optimistic about Omar. He stuck by Pelf and held on to F-Mart. He seems to be talking some sense in his interviews. His mistakes are (mostly) not catastrophic. He is not Bavasi, who can (could!...my blessings to the Mariners' fans!) always be counted on to do the stupidest thing remotely feasible.
What a travesty. At least boneheaded personal decision makers can look at Val and justify there decision to keep him in AAA with the inane, "he got his chance and failed." John has succeeed at every level, was an above average major league hitter (about where you'd expect given his minor league track record), yet he rides the pine.
What exactly was the logic in 2007 for a guy who just obp'd 374 to not be on a major league roster somewhere?
If Pascucci or Rodriguez replaced Anderson on the 25, would you start him over Endy?
This is the kind of stuff Omar (and probably lots of other GM's) has never learned. Roster maximization is extremely important. Your bench is extremely important (especially in the NL). Given who the Mets have been calling up, I don't think Minaya takes this issue all that seriously.
And, to answer the above question: hell yes.
given castro's injury history i think it wise to limit him, but he should start half the time. teams are loath to do this because of the pitcher/catcher relationship. insert a gay joke here.
but yeah the rest should probably be done.
You know what? It just occurred to me that the Mets do a pretty good job at brining in fringe players. Brandon Knight, Pascucci, A. Reyes,and John Rodriguez. I think they do a poor job in calling them up to the big club, but I think they do a solid job of brining them in.
-cpb
LOL -
The Mets did consider Cincinnati's Adam Dunn, but his poor defense, historical problems in clutch situations and high strikeout rates have eliminated interest.
later in the article
One Mets official did say, "Ibanez is the interesting guy."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07282008/sports/mets/left_out_121960.htm
John -- I'm obviously on board with John Rodriguez and Pascucci, not to mention the point about Easley and Anderson. But why hate on Tatis? Not only has he been excellent (albeit in a small sample) with the Mets, but he hit for tons of power in Triple-A and did pretty well across the board in New Orleans in 2007.
Sure, the Mets probably only called him up because he had big-league experience, but they could have done a lot worse (ahem, Abraham Nunez). Maybe promoting a deserving Tatis was an accident, but it was a happy accident.
I agree; I should stop hating on Tatis.
And where does this idea come from that he is a great pinch-hitter?
The idea that he's a good pinch hitter came from him actually being a good pinch hitter.
Marlon Anderson as a pinch-hitter career split - 324 PA: .284/.347/.428
League average for a pinch hitter in 2008: .223/.307/.337
League average for a pinch hitter in 2007: .226/.309/.351
Should the dude be starting every day over other players? Probably not. Is he a good lefty bat off the bench and a serviceable fifth outfielder/sixth infielder? Yes, he is. Market rate for that is around a million dollars.
He's Miguel Cairo or Tony Clark... both of whom, by the way, pull about $900k/year.
And neither of whom should be on a major league roster.
His pinch-hitting "excellence" is small sample size variance. Better that teams should use otherwise good hitters with glaring weaknesses that make them undesirable as regular starters (like Valentino Pascucci).
Are you contending that Anderson has some special skill that turns him from a very bad hitter into a well-above average hitter when he replaces someone else in the lineup to hit?
That's a nice five-point plan there.
Are you contending that Anderson has some special skill that turns him from a very bad hitter into a well-above average hitter when he replaces someone else in the lineup to hit?
No, I'm contending that Marlon Anderson has spent one-tenth of his career plate appearances as a pinch hitter and in those 350 plate appearances (half a season's worth) he's performed quite well in the role. He's also a guy who is serviceable at every position on the field and bats at replacement-player level. You're simply dismissing a decent sample size of plate-appearances because they are contrary to your point that he isn't a good pinch-hitter which, in comparison to the league average pinch hitter, he is. The idea that a utility player who plays multiple positions shouldn't be on a major league roster in an era when you only carry three or four non-catcher backup players is silly.
I think your contention that situation doesn't matter is wrong. Jason Giambi, for instance, is a significantly better hitter when he plays first base than when he plays DH. Is that a statistical variance in the 2000 at-bats he's had as a DH or is that he's just more comfortable playing 1B?
They're not going to dismiss a guy who has performed well in his role to bring up a guy who's a 30-year old triple A player. However, I agree with you that they should dismiss Cancel and give him a look.
You see, by SAYING that, you are basically saying that he possesses a special skill.
350 plate appearances (half a season) is nothing. Haven't you ever heard of fluke seasons, fluky streaks? The fact is, Marlon Anderson's better-than-average pinch-hitting numbers are probably just luck. I don't know how to get BABIP splits, but I'm sure his career BABIP with RISP is abnormal and inconsistent with his LD rate.
As for Jason Giambi, it's a case of a variable unaccounted-for. No, it's not that Giambi somehow 'feels more comfortable' when he's also playing the field so much so that it has a positive effect on his hitting. That's occult stuff, man.
Rather, it's that when he has been a DH, for the most part he has also been injured.
I would say that blaming every supposedly unexplainable variance on "luck" is equally crazy, occult nonsense. Luck is just there. It can't be argued either way.
His BABIP as a PH is .327. It's on the b-r splits page along with LD hits, etc.
I'm not saying the guy should ever sniff a starting line-up. I'm saying that human beings are creatures of habit. We accept this in every situation other than baseball -- where we apparently assume that outside things don't affect players. Is it an over-rated thing like any other mystical "gamer" stuff? Sure. But to pretend it plays no role at all is as wrong-headed as people who think statistics are stupid.
Your argument that Giambi may have been injured (when we don't actually know the severity of his supposed swing-killing injury over, you know, 2000 at-bats) is no more or less provable or correct than my argument that he does his job better when he enjoys what he's doing (playing 1B) then when he doesn't (he's said he hates DHing). Have you ever done a crappier job at work because you didn't like what you were working on?
Tom, major league baseball players don't play worse just because they're upset they're not playing in the field. They play worse because of injury, sure. There are lots of factors. Something like "being game for pressure situations"? No. All big leaguers are game for pressure situations, and Jason Giambi knows how to hit whether he's playing DH or 1B that day.
I'm not saying weird psychological things don't have an effect on the game. But if they do, the effect is negligible, and can be explained by normal statistical variance.
I'm saying Marlon Anderson's roster spot can be improved upon.
I'm saying Marlon Anderson's roster spot can be improved upon.
John, I totally agree with you. Hopefully this trip to the DL is showing them that. The original question was just "where does this idea come from that he's a good pinch hitter". I just gave the reason... that he's, historically, been a good pinch hitter.
Cheers.
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