Chad Moriyama Dodgers, Sabermetrics, Scouting
35 in June. Hasn’t played more than 132 games since 2007. Absolutely abysmal with the bat. Ladies and gentlemen, your starting second baseman in 2012, Mark Ellis.
Signed to a ludicrous two-year deal for over $8 million in the offseason, Ellis comes to Los Angeles with the reputation of a good glove and “veteran bat”. The first of those things is quite true, as Ellis has posted a career UZR/150 of 8.2 in over 9000 innings at second, and Ellis’ last four years with the glove look like this: 20.6, 2.1, 12.7, and 6.7 (UZR/150). While that precipitous drop between 2010 and 2011 is concerning, Ellis should no doubt be solid in the field this season.
If only he could just play the field and never swing the lumber. The “veteran bat” Ned Colletti is so fond of put up a line last season of .248/.288/.346/.634 with a putrid .283 wOBA, and in over 4500 career plate appearances, Ellis has hit to the tune of a .266/.331/.397 slash line with a .321 wOBA.
Ellis’ walk rate has been all over the map, with two seasons above 10% and a career mark of just 7.8%. It is that career mark that is the most telling number, however, as Ellis’ last two campaigns have checked in at 8.1% and 4.2%, respectively. He doesn’t strike out an inordinate amount of the time (14.5% in 2011, 13.5% career), but the upward trend in his whiff rate in 2011 from 11.4% to 14.5%, combined with the decrease in walk rate and the mediocre power is certainly a troubling trend. His big (for a second baseman) power days are gone, and a move to Dodger Stadium is not going to help that downward spiral.
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Don Mattingly has already all but guaranteed Ellis will bat second behind Dee Gordon, so Matt Kemp will step to the dish a number of times this season with the bases empty.
But hey, you can’t put a price on that veteran experience.
I personally call this position “the black hole of suck”.
So what is 3rd base called then? lol
I refuse to acknowledge that the Dodgers even have players suiting up for that position.
However, one can also think of it as the “donut hole of suck”.
The fact that we had to grab Ellis for 2 years speaks more to our organization’s inability to draft and develop position players than Ned’s incompetence at signing free agents. Jamey Carroll got 2 years at age 37.
Perhaps we would’ve been better off with someone like Theriot or just running Hairston or Sellers out there everyday, but paying him like a 1 – 1.5 WAR player isn’t the end of the world.
Hitting him 2nd, though, is probably not helping us.
Also, Ellis was a 3.5 WAR player as recently as 2010, when he hit .320 wOBA. Ethier, for example, hit 3 WAR mark just once in his career. I feel better about giving Ellis $8 mil. for 2 years than giving Ethier $11 mil. for one.
Or giving Loney $6.3 mil. for 1.5 WAR. 2nd base is probably the least of our problems.
I don’t feel comfortable giving money to ANY of them.
And second base has ZERO upside. Not that it’s worth much, but Loney could do something. I don’t believe he will, expect it to happen, and I would never count on it, but it could happen, I guess.
That’s….something :o
I honestly think there’s a greater chance of Ellis putting up a 3 WAR season in the next two years than Loney doing it.
I’d bet neither do, honestly.
Matt Kemp. Dee Gordon. Jerry Sands. James Loney. Carlos Santana. Our system is better at position prospects than we’re given credit for….the list of pitching prospects that have panned out as starters or closers isn’t much longer.
The organization drafts offensive prospects (not nearly enough, but some), but Ned trades ‘em away. Carlos Santana, Trayvon Robinson, Josh Bell. That’s all on Ned.
And he could roll with DeJesus, for example, or Sellers, and not continually bring in vets. Same goes with Sands.
That’s, again, all on him.
Maybe Ned trades away our position and signs washed up vets because our prospects are awful. Other than Santana, they certainly have been, when given the chance by other teams.
DeJesus doesn’t look like he’s coming back from the injury, and we can’t roll with Sellers and nothing. If there are no internal options, you have to sign vets from a thin market. Ned deserves all the criticism that’s coming to him for his terrible FA signings, but this club’s fundamental weakness stems from the failures of our scouting and development.
So he’s at the helm for awful draft after awful draft….that would again be his fault for not getting better scouts and such. But we all know White and Watson are great at what they do.
Ned undervalues prospects, gets little to no value in return, and then signs vets, probably because when they fail he can blame it on them, whereas going young puts added pressure on the person choosing to go young.
Ned is main issue, period. It’s pretty obvious, I would say.
The club’s player development is the only thing that has kept Ned Colletti employed, honestly.
That’s a hell of a point Chad. So, basically Dan Evans (by his hiring of Logan White) has kept Colletti in his job.
I guess I’m late for my obligatory “Ned should have traded Hawksworth to the Cubs for Blake DeWitt” argument. In games he started last season, DeWitt had an OPS in the .760 range. We could have had him for cheap, brought up Tolleson and St. Clair instead of keeping Hawk and MacDougal and signing Coffey, and possibly kept Kuroda instead of signing Capuano or Harang.
I don’t even know what the organizational plan is at this stage.