Saturday, May 20, 2006 |
Revisiting A Generalization
The Dodgers - unlike the Angels - are finding that their kids can play. Rookies Andre Ethier and Russell Martin made their major-league debuts a couple of weeks ago. Ethier had five hits, including a home run, and scored three runs. Martin went 3 for 5 with three RBIs.Meantime, Dallas "Singles Machine" McPherson has a .261/.261/.261 record — that's 7-23 with no extra-base hits, hardly setting the world on fire but a long way from the notion that the Angels kids can't play. Mike Napoli's hitting .355/.412/.645. True, the Angels had to send Jeff Mathis, Reggie Willits, and Howie Kendrick all back to AAA. But let's examine the situation a little more closely. Mathis had a strong spring training (.306/.405/.556) and is only 23. Willits, on the other hand, is an example of the thinness the Angels have in the outfield; he's never had a SLG of even .500 anywhere in the minors. At 25, he's not a non-prospect, but you'd like to see more, especially considering the hitting environments he's been in.
The real problem, I expect, is expectations management with Howie Kendrick. Kendrick went into the season as one of the team's top-rated prospects, but two factors derailed him:
- His first significant contact with major league pitching did not go well; his spring training numbers weren't actually very good considering the hype, .263/.282/.368.
- He was called up to the big club as something of a desperation move, and given at bats almost never as a platoon-mate for Adam Kennedy against left-handed pitching. This proved to be a lethal combination for his already shaky hitting, and he finished his stint with an unimpressive .115/.207/.115 line.
Yet at the same time, this forgets that the Dodgers also have troubles with their kids: Dioner Navarro has trouble keeping baserunners from stealing (something Russell Martin thankfully doesn't), and can get into prolonged slumps (we haven't seen enough at bats from Martin to know one way or another). It's odd that the Angels' catching situation is so eerily parallel to that of the Dodgers: both had highly regarded rookies come up and stumble, only to be replaced with another player who eventually was better both defensively and offensively. (Mathis hasn't been injured, though; his lack of production stands out all the more.)
Also forgotten in the dust and cordite of yesterday's offensive explosion is the fact that Andre Ethier was hitting .222 prior to his 5-5 night. James Loney, erstwhile wunderkind at first base, got sent down with a .225/.295/.300 line following a less-than-successful 14-game, 40-at-bat stint in the big club. The usual caveats about small sample sizes all apply, of course, but Saxon's comment strikes me as a very poor evaluation. Both clubs have had their hits, and both have had their misses.
So where now? I had, in one sense, given up on the Angels' season before the year started; I figured they would be a second-place team, and I still don't think that's out of reach. The Halos haven't even played a third of their season, although at 42 games, they're only 12 games away from that mark. It's altogether possible that Kotchman will come back and have a strong second half; that Mathis and/or Kendrick will force their way to the big club before the season is over; that Dallas McPherson will start showing the power he did in Arkansas and Salt Lake. It's far too early to give up on this team, even as an experiment.
It's also too early to give up on the Angels' kids. There's a lot of voices demanding that just this very thing be done, that Stoneman "do something". Getting any kind of quality player will demand unloading prospects at the exact moment they're most valuable. Recall that the Angels' division foes have nice things to say about the current crop of Angels prospects; trading now means trading at the height of desperation, and that never bodes well for value returned.
So some patience will be required. While researching the morning birthday list, I discovered that it took Steve Garvey, the Dodgers' star first baseman, three years of up-and-down before he finally stuck in the big club. Likewise for the Penguin. Conversely, the Dodgers gave up on Paul Konerko after only two seasons, and lived to regret it. In the interceding span, the Dodgers had four years of a plummeting, aging Eric Karros, the decrepit Fred McGriff, the out-of-position Shawn Green, Hee-Seop Choi, Nomar Garciaparra, and enough other placeholders inbetween to staff a team or two besides. Karros is out of baseball, while Konerko just got his World Series ring fitted. And all this thanks to front office impatience. Me, I think I'll take a year of sub-par play while the rookies straighten themselves out. The kids are all right.
As I mentioned in one of my recent columns, both Tim Salmon and Troy Glaus had their problems when they started as well. Where would the Angels have been had those two players been tagged as "failures" and shipped elsewhere?
Another example: Alex Rodriguez. He hit .204/0/2 in 17 games for Seattle in his first season (1994) and .232/5/19 in 48 games the next season. Then, he went super nova and hit .358/36/123 in 146 games in 1996. Does anyone question Seattle's decision to be patient with him?
: 5/20/2006 05:47:00 PM : 5/20/2006 07:40:00 PMNow all that said, I'm still amenable to a wait-and-see approach with the Dodgers rookies; it's all you can do, anyway, but I take a somewhat more skeptical eye toward their rookies. It surprises me as to how many people find that, well, surprising.
I should've added Franklin Gutierrez to the list, too.
: 5/21/2006 09:45:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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