Yesterday we presented our report card for the Toronto pitching staff, v2004. Today, to use a term loosely, we turn our attention to the hitters.
Dave Berg: C-
(GPA 1.53, High B+, Low F)
Craig: It wasn't Dave Berg's fault that he was asked to do something (start 26 games in left field) that he was absolutely unfit to do; that's a black mark on the organization, and Berg did very well for a non-outfielder. But Berg was also distinctly unimpressive as an infielder and failed to hit even at his customarily unimpressive level. No speed, no glove, no arm, no power, no patience.
Moffatt: The man deserves a high grade. Sure he didn't perform all that well, but if you were jerked around as much as he was this year (out of necessity, mind you), how well would you perform? It's as if you work told me: "We want you to teach economics on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday you've got secretarial duty. Friday you'll be working in the Tim Hortons. Saturday and Sunday you'll be giving tours to potential foreign MBA students. You do speak Mandarin right? On Monday you'll be testifying to the Senate on why higher education needs more funding. After driving the bus on Tuesday, you'll have three weeks where you can sit in your office and play Gameboy and watch the rest of us work. After that you'll be put back to work, but I can only give you 15 minutes notice on what you'll be doing". I don't think I could work in those conditions and I'm surprised Berg did as well as he did. It wasn't his fault he was given jobs he was ill suited for.
Kevin Cash: D-
(GPA 0.85, High C, Low F)
Lucas: Third-worst OBP in all of baseball among hitters with at least 162 PA. A .558 OPS won’t cut it, even as a caddy. Cash turns 27 in two months.
Moffatt: How does this man not get an F?
Frank Catalanotto: C+
(GPA 2.24, High B+, Low D+)
Dave: He's the same hitter he's always been: good when healthy, but gets hurt a lot. His stats dropped this year because he tried to play through a groin injury when he should have been sitting. His signing indicates that the Jays don't think that Gross can help them.
Craig: I love Frankie and I'm glad he's re-signed (though not with the terms) but he had a terrible year. He hit for no power, his ability to draw walks continued to deteriorate, and he wasn't able to play the field much so this grade is essentially as a DH. A good effort, but a D for results.
Howie Clark: D+
(GPA 1.24, High B, Low F)
Jordan: Yes, it was only 115 AB, but a .217/.292/.348 line with zero defensive value is just a black hole of a roster spot. Even 25th men need to be held to a certain standard.
Carlos Delgado: B
(GPA 3.06, High A, Low C)
Jonny: Delgado’s 2004 suffers by comparison to his 2003 and 2000 seasons. But setting aside those two monster seasons, or drawing a trend line through his career numbers, it becomes apparent that when it’s all said and done 2004 was slightly disappointing but not horribly so.
Moffatt: The guy misses a whole whack of time and plays hurt while still on the active roster and still manages to hit 32 homeruns.
Jordan: April, 861 OPS. May, 657. June, DL’ed. July, 774. Sure, his OPS was over 1000 from August 1 onwards, but so what? For more than half the season, Delgado provided little value to this team. Had I considered his salary, a C would have been generous.
Chris Gomez: B-
(GPA 2.73, High A, Low C)
Craig: Gomez provided exactly what was hoped for, getting on base a little bit and showing that he could still play shortstop. Defensively versatile and offensively competent, Gomez was a perfect utility infielder and justified his signing - especially by being one of the few guys to fight in every at-bat when things weren't going well.
GOMEZ HIT GRAND SLAM NOW.
Moffatt: I was probably grading more to expectations. At the same time, how much do we expect out of our utility infielders? If they were superstars, they wouldn't be utility players.
Gabe Gross: C
(GPA 2.14, High B, Low D+)
Mick: What is there to like about an OPS of .621? Maybe as a Yankee fan (think John Elway, Shea Morenz, Drew Henson), I just have a soft spot -- in my head? -- for former big-time college quarterbacks. My gut tells me Gross is going to be an All-Star. Keep in mind, I once vocally predicted Frank Pastore was "the next Tom Seaver."
Lucas: Upon further review, I graded him too harshly; it’s unfair to give a D+ to a guy with only 150 big-league PAs. Still, a .209 average is disappointing.
Gerry: Gross does need to go back to AAA to learn to handle the outside pitch. 90% of the time he would foul the outside pitch off, or pop it up. If he can that figured out he will do OK.
Eric Hinske: D+
(GPA 1.43, High C, Low D-)
Gerry: Eric Hinske can hit, his swing is messed up. His defense was better. I did give him a C, probably for potential more than for his 2004 performance.
Pistol: Hinske was just plain awful. He ranked 149th out of 154 in all of baseball in OPS. The players below him are 3 SSs, and 2 light hitting CFs on bad teams (Redman, Podsednik, Eckstein, Cintron, and Counsell). While his errors were down a lot, and that was good, I'm still not convinced that his defense is at least average yet.
Moffatt: I think I was pretty generous here. I was one of those people J.P. was talking about when he talked about expectations being too high. The only thing that prevented him from leading the league in hitting into double plays was the fact he came up so often with the bases empty. Where did this trying to leg out infield hits stuff come from?
Orlando Hudson: B+
(GPA 3.46, High A, Low B)
Gerry: Orlando Hudson provided excellent defense but his OPS was .779. Baseball Prospectus, using VORP, ranks Hudson as 6th in the AL. He had a good season but his hitting is still only league average.
Jordan: I gave out no A's -- I don't think anyone on this 94-loss club merited one -- but if I had, it would've gone to this guy. I haven't seen the Win Share numbers, but I'll wager he contributed more to this team -- especially in the first four months -- than anyone else. FWIW, that was my grading system: contribution to the team's success as a whole, not in the context of their expectations, their roles, or their abilities.
Reed Johnson: C+
(GPA 2.34, High B+, Low D+)
Dave: Would be a perfect fourth outfielder: he can play all three outfield positions, can hit some, runs well, and bunts well. He doesn't have enough power or walks to play regularly, though, and he tends to run out of gas when given too many at-bats. Will likely do well as part of a Sparky/Cat platoon.
Moffatt: I'm not sure what I was thinking when I assigned this grade.
Lucas: A .317 OBP from the leadoff slot? If he didn’t underperform, then somebody overrated him.
Frank Menechino: A-
(GPA 3.68, High A+, Low C)
Craig: If there is anything on earth not to like about this guy, someone should fill me in; a utility infielder, signed for the minimum, that hits .301/.400/.504 and was one of the few players with the backbone to not give in to opposing pitchers. Surprisingly solid in the field, incredibly reliable (one error all season!) and steady. A+ for effort and A+ for results.
Moffatt: Probably should have been an A+. What more do you want from your utility players?
Josh Phelps: D+
(GPA 1.28, High B, Low F)
Robert: The most disappointing development of the season by far. More disappointing than Hinske because I expected so much more out of Phelps due to his super minor league numbers.
I'm willing to wait and see how Crozier turns out, but the trade is not looking good. Even if Phelps mashed lefties for 4 years he'd have more than a little value to the team, so Crozier will have to prove himself to be a competent major leaguer for J.P. to come out even on that trade.
I'm fairly certain that Mike Barnett was not the right hitting coach for Josh Phelps. The task of the hitting coach is to fascilitate a young hitter's adjustment to the adjustments pitchers have made after initial exposure. To do that, you have to work on minimizing the flaws in the hitter's approach and swing - that, plainly, did not happen in Josh's case.
Phelps kept hitting the ball on the ground and hitting weak flyballs the other way, as the pitchers continued to pitch him away. He was never going to be a productive hitter doing that. Perhaps the organisation's purported fascination with cutting down on strikeouts hurt Josh.
Moffatt: F with a bullet. What happened to this guy? Why did he and Hinske turn into extreme groundball hitters? I'm not suggesting that anyone should have or deserved to lose their job over the failure for these guys to develop but I am surprised that no one did.
Craig B: Simply put, Josh Phelps has the potential to kill the Blue Jays for the next decade. But at a certain point, a guy has to find a fresh start with a new organization.
Alexis Rios: B
(GPA 3.04, High A, Low C+)
Mick: The guy hit .286, with a respectable though not awesome OPS of .720 ... he struck out a lot and knocked in just 28 runs in 426 AB. Defensively, people on the Da Box are now openly saying he flashed enough leather to adequately replace Vernon Wells after VW is traded, apparently for Teixeira, Blalock, Young and Cordero. In the few games I did see Rios on TV, I'll tell you what ... and forget about the rivalry of long ago, this is meant as a high compliment, and speaking of former college football stars -- Rios carries himself like a right-handed Kirk Gibson. I have to think Jays fans would be happy with that career arc.
Craig: Again, I don't think this is a bad grade. Rios looked very good in flashes, but the object is to win games, not sell jeans, and right now Rios is going to sell more jeans than he wins ballgames. He was very solid in right field, but he didn't hit enough to be a regular rightfielder and his September swoon hauled his grade back; he must develop more power, especially since he began striking out too much late in the year.
Moffatt: This grade was probably too high. Great arm, but 1 homerun in 426 AB does not cut it for any position, particularly corner outfielder. Like many other Jays he turned into a fairly extreme groundball hitter, so I wouldn't be surprised if his power doesn't develop until he's wearing someone else's uniform.
Gerry: In his outstanding year in 2003 his power was to right and right centre. This year he was pulling the ball more, hitting more ground balls. In 2005 will he find his power stroke to the opposite field?
Vernon Wells: B-
(GPA 2.62, High B+, Low C-)
Dave: Started slowly, and got hurt just as he was beginning to put it together. It took him a while to find the range when he returned. By September, he was back in form. His defense is wonderful, as you already know. Next year, he'll have to be The Man, and I think that he can do it.
Lucas: 2003 VORP was 71, 2004 VORP was 32. Lost 100 points of OPS. That’s a long step backwards. Like Halladay, the grade depends on how much leeway he's given him for his injury.
Gerry: Will he ever learn to be less aggressive or do we have to live with the first pitch, high fastball, swing away, approach?
Chris Woodward: D
(GPA 0.95, High C, Low F)
Jordan: Handed the starting SS job for the second straight year, he lost it for the second straight year with a 630 OPS. Injuries and poor health hurt him, but he had his chances and just didn't produce. Adios.
Jonny: Having been at the SkyDome for the August 2002 game in which he launched 3 home runs, I held out hope longer than many that Woody could put it together and be a respectable shortstop, or at least a good utility infielder. After a 2004 in which he showed just very brief flashes of talent between copious amounts of injury, ineffectiveness, and bench, I’m ready to admit that the time has come for Woodward to move along. All the best, Chris!
Moffatt: Probably too harsh as he was jerked around a bit. That being said, he was given many opportunities and he never really took advantage of any of them. I hope he can get his career turned around in another organization.
Gregg Zaun: A-
(GPA 3.55, High A+, Low B-)
Mike D: When Greg Myers suffered a devastating injury on the Metrodome flubber, and with Kevin Cash floundering against major league pitching, Zaun was summoned from the scrap heap to big-league duty. It's really hard to say how anyone could've expected more from the unheralded switch-hitting veteran, as he provided patience at the plate and a sense of calm behind it. He connected with young pitchers and set an excellent clubhouse example by kicking his devastating alcohol addiction. Sure, Zaun was probably an average catcher in the grand scheme of things -- but average performance was more than the Jays could have reasonably anticipated from him, or from any of the available options after Myers went down.
Robert: Smart, patient hitter. The best I've seen in a generation at blocking the plate. A very good game caller and good at preventing wild pitches. Not much power, which is the only thing that prevents him from being a borderline all-star.
His hot start after Myers got hurt and Cash's bat failed to materialize earns him a high grade in my book.
Jordan: He hit .429 in May and never cracked .263 in any month thereafter. He was a fine off-season pickup for practically nothing, but let's not get carried away here: he still batted .269 with 6 HRs as the semi-regular catcher for a last-place club. The grade, frankly, is a little generous.
Moffatt: An absolutely fantastic pickup by Ricciardi. The catcher position could have been a black hole for the 2004 Jays after Myers went down, but instead Zaun made it one of the strengths of the team. I hope he's back next year.
Gerry: I agree with Jordan, we should not get our expectations too high.
Dave Berg: C-
(GPA 1.53, High B+, Low F)
Craig: It wasn't Dave Berg's fault that he was asked to do something (start 26 games in left field) that he was absolutely unfit to do; that's a black mark on the organization, and Berg did very well for a non-outfielder. But Berg was also distinctly unimpressive as an infielder and failed to hit even at his customarily unimpressive level. No speed, no glove, no arm, no power, no patience.
Moffatt: The man deserves a high grade. Sure he didn't perform all that well, but if you were jerked around as much as he was this year (out of necessity, mind you), how well would you perform? It's as if you work told me: "We want you to teach economics on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday you've got secretarial duty. Friday you'll be working in the Tim Hortons. Saturday and Sunday you'll be giving tours to potential foreign MBA students. You do speak Mandarin right? On Monday you'll be testifying to the Senate on why higher education needs more funding. After driving the bus on Tuesday, you'll have three weeks where you can sit in your office and play Gameboy and watch the rest of us work. After that you'll be put back to work, but I can only give you 15 minutes notice on what you'll be doing". I don't think I could work in those conditions and I'm surprised Berg did as well as he did. It wasn't his fault he was given jobs he was ill suited for.
Kevin Cash: D-
(GPA 0.85, High C, Low F)
Lucas: Third-worst OBP in all of baseball among hitters with at least 162 PA. A .558 OPS won’t cut it, even as a caddy. Cash turns 27 in two months.
Moffatt: How does this man not get an F?
Frank Catalanotto: C+
(GPA 2.24, High B+, Low D+)
Dave: He's the same hitter he's always been: good when healthy, but gets hurt a lot. His stats dropped this year because he tried to play through a groin injury when he should have been sitting. His signing indicates that the Jays don't think that Gross can help them.
Craig: I love Frankie and I'm glad he's re-signed (though not with the terms) but he had a terrible year. He hit for no power, his ability to draw walks continued to deteriorate, and he wasn't able to play the field much so this grade is essentially as a DH. A good effort, but a D for results.
Howie Clark: D+
(GPA 1.24, High B, Low F)
Jordan: Yes, it was only 115 AB, but a .217/.292/.348 line with zero defensive value is just a black hole of a roster spot. Even 25th men need to be held to a certain standard.
Carlos Delgado: B
(GPA 3.06, High A, Low C)
Jonny: Delgado’s 2004 suffers by comparison to his 2003 and 2000 seasons. But setting aside those two monster seasons, or drawing a trend line through his career numbers, it becomes apparent that when it’s all said and done 2004 was slightly disappointing but not horribly so.
Moffatt: The guy misses a whole whack of time and plays hurt while still on the active roster and still manages to hit 32 homeruns.
Jordan: April, 861 OPS. May, 657. June, DL’ed. July, 774. Sure, his OPS was over 1000 from August 1 onwards, but so what? For more than half the season, Delgado provided little value to this team. Had I considered his salary, a C would have been generous.
Chris Gomez: B-
(GPA 2.73, High A, Low C)
Craig: Gomez provided exactly what was hoped for, getting on base a little bit and showing that he could still play shortstop. Defensively versatile and offensively competent, Gomez was a perfect utility infielder and justified his signing - especially by being one of the few guys to fight in every at-bat when things weren't going well.
GOMEZ HIT GRAND SLAM NOW.
Moffatt: I was probably grading more to expectations. At the same time, how much do we expect out of our utility infielders? If they were superstars, they wouldn't be utility players.
Gabe Gross: C
(GPA 2.14, High B, Low D+)
Mick: What is there to like about an OPS of .621? Maybe as a Yankee fan (think John Elway, Shea Morenz, Drew Henson), I just have a soft spot -- in my head? -- for former big-time college quarterbacks. My gut tells me Gross is going to be an All-Star. Keep in mind, I once vocally predicted Frank Pastore was "the next Tom Seaver."
Lucas: Upon further review, I graded him too harshly; it’s unfair to give a D+ to a guy with only 150 big-league PAs. Still, a .209 average is disappointing.
Gerry: Gross does need to go back to AAA to learn to handle the outside pitch. 90% of the time he would foul the outside pitch off, or pop it up. If he can that figured out he will do OK.
Eric Hinske: D+
(GPA 1.43, High C, Low D-)
Gerry: Eric Hinske can hit, his swing is messed up. His defense was better. I did give him a C, probably for potential more than for his 2004 performance.
Pistol: Hinske was just plain awful. He ranked 149th out of 154 in all of baseball in OPS. The players below him are 3 SSs, and 2 light hitting CFs on bad teams (Redman, Podsednik, Eckstein, Cintron, and Counsell). While his errors were down a lot, and that was good, I'm still not convinced that his defense is at least average yet.
Moffatt: I think I was pretty generous here. I was one of those people J.P. was talking about when he talked about expectations being too high. The only thing that prevented him from leading the league in hitting into double plays was the fact he came up so often with the bases empty. Where did this trying to leg out infield hits stuff come from?
Orlando Hudson: B+
(GPA 3.46, High A, Low B)
Gerry: Orlando Hudson provided excellent defense but his OPS was .779. Baseball Prospectus, using VORP, ranks Hudson as 6th in the AL. He had a good season but his hitting is still only league average.
Jordan: I gave out no A's -- I don't think anyone on this 94-loss club merited one -- but if I had, it would've gone to this guy. I haven't seen the Win Share numbers, but I'll wager he contributed more to this team -- especially in the first four months -- than anyone else. FWIW, that was my grading system: contribution to the team's success as a whole, not in the context of their expectations, their roles, or their abilities.
Reed Johnson: C+
(GPA 2.34, High B+, Low D+)
Dave: Would be a perfect fourth outfielder: he can play all three outfield positions, can hit some, runs well, and bunts well. He doesn't have enough power or walks to play regularly, though, and he tends to run out of gas when given too many at-bats. Will likely do well as part of a Sparky/Cat platoon.
Moffatt: I'm not sure what I was thinking when I assigned this grade.
Lucas: A .317 OBP from the leadoff slot? If he didn’t underperform, then somebody overrated him.
Frank Menechino: A-
(GPA 3.68, High A+, Low C)
Craig: If there is anything on earth not to like about this guy, someone should fill me in; a utility infielder, signed for the minimum, that hits .301/.400/.504 and was one of the few players with the backbone to not give in to opposing pitchers. Surprisingly solid in the field, incredibly reliable (one error all season!) and steady. A+ for effort and A+ for results.
Moffatt: Probably should have been an A+. What more do you want from your utility players?
Josh Phelps: D+
(GPA 1.28, High B, Low F)
Robert: The most disappointing development of the season by far. More disappointing than Hinske because I expected so much more out of Phelps due to his super minor league numbers.
I'm willing to wait and see how Crozier turns out, but the trade is not looking good. Even if Phelps mashed lefties for 4 years he'd have more than a little value to the team, so Crozier will have to prove himself to be a competent major leaguer for J.P. to come out even on that trade.
I'm fairly certain that Mike Barnett was not the right hitting coach for Josh Phelps. The task of the hitting coach is to fascilitate a young hitter's adjustment to the adjustments pitchers have made after initial exposure. To do that, you have to work on minimizing the flaws in the hitter's approach and swing - that, plainly, did not happen in Josh's case.
Phelps kept hitting the ball on the ground and hitting weak flyballs the other way, as the pitchers continued to pitch him away. He was never going to be a productive hitter doing that. Perhaps the organisation's purported fascination with cutting down on strikeouts hurt Josh.
Moffatt: F with a bullet. What happened to this guy? Why did he and Hinske turn into extreme groundball hitters? I'm not suggesting that anyone should have or deserved to lose their job over the failure for these guys to develop but I am surprised that no one did.
Craig B: Simply put, Josh Phelps has the potential to kill the Blue Jays for the next decade. But at a certain point, a guy has to find a fresh start with a new organization.
Alexis Rios: B
(GPA 3.04, High A, Low C+)
Mick: The guy hit .286, with a respectable though not awesome OPS of .720 ... he struck out a lot and knocked in just 28 runs in 426 AB. Defensively, people on the Da Box are now openly saying he flashed enough leather to adequately replace Vernon Wells after VW is traded, apparently for Teixeira, Blalock, Young and Cordero. In the few games I did see Rios on TV, I'll tell you what ... and forget about the rivalry of long ago, this is meant as a high compliment, and speaking of former college football stars -- Rios carries himself like a right-handed Kirk Gibson. I have to think Jays fans would be happy with that career arc.
Craig: Again, I don't think this is a bad grade. Rios looked very good in flashes, but the object is to win games, not sell jeans, and right now Rios is going to sell more jeans than he wins ballgames. He was very solid in right field, but he didn't hit enough to be a regular rightfielder and his September swoon hauled his grade back; he must develop more power, especially since he began striking out too much late in the year.
Moffatt: This grade was probably too high. Great arm, but 1 homerun in 426 AB does not cut it for any position, particularly corner outfielder. Like many other Jays he turned into a fairly extreme groundball hitter, so I wouldn't be surprised if his power doesn't develop until he's wearing someone else's uniform.
Gerry: In his outstanding year in 2003 his power was to right and right centre. This year he was pulling the ball more, hitting more ground balls. In 2005 will he find his power stroke to the opposite field?
Vernon Wells: B-
(GPA 2.62, High B+, Low C-)
Dave: Started slowly, and got hurt just as he was beginning to put it together. It took him a while to find the range when he returned. By September, he was back in form. His defense is wonderful, as you already know. Next year, he'll have to be The Man, and I think that he can do it.
Lucas: 2003 VORP was 71, 2004 VORP was 32. Lost 100 points of OPS. That’s a long step backwards. Like Halladay, the grade depends on how much leeway he's given him for his injury.
Gerry: Will he ever learn to be less aggressive or do we have to live with the first pitch, high fastball, swing away, approach?
Chris Woodward: D
(GPA 0.95, High C, Low F)
Jordan: Handed the starting SS job for the second straight year, he lost it for the second straight year with a 630 OPS. Injuries and poor health hurt him, but he had his chances and just didn't produce. Adios.
Jonny: Having been at the SkyDome for the August 2002 game in which he launched 3 home runs, I held out hope longer than many that Woody could put it together and be a respectable shortstop, or at least a good utility infielder. After a 2004 in which he showed just very brief flashes of talent between copious amounts of injury, ineffectiveness, and bench, I’m ready to admit that the time has come for Woodward to move along. All the best, Chris!
Moffatt: Probably too harsh as he was jerked around a bit. That being said, he was given many opportunities and he never really took advantage of any of them. I hope he can get his career turned around in another organization.
Gregg Zaun: A-
(GPA 3.55, High A+, Low B-)
Mike D: When Greg Myers suffered a devastating injury on the Metrodome flubber, and with Kevin Cash floundering against major league pitching, Zaun was summoned from the scrap heap to big-league duty. It's really hard to say how anyone could've expected more from the unheralded switch-hitting veteran, as he provided patience at the plate and a sense of calm behind it. He connected with young pitchers and set an excellent clubhouse example by kicking his devastating alcohol addiction. Sure, Zaun was probably an average catcher in the grand scheme of things -- but average performance was more than the Jays could have reasonably anticipated from him, or from any of the available options after Myers went down.
Robert: Smart, patient hitter. The best I've seen in a generation at blocking the plate. A very good game caller and good at preventing wild pitches. Not much power, which is the only thing that prevents him from being a borderline all-star.
His hot start after Myers got hurt and Cash's bat failed to materialize earns him a high grade in my book.
Jordan: He hit .429 in May and never cracked .263 in any month thereafter. He was a fine off-season pickup for practically nothing, but let's not get carried away here: he still batted .269 with 6 HRs as the semi-regular catcher for a last-place club. The grade, frankly, is a little generous.
Moffatt: An absolutely fantastic pickup by Ricciardi. The catcher position could have been a black hole for the 2004 Jays after Myers went down, but instead Zaun made it one of the strengths of the team. I hope he's back next year.
Gerry: I agree with Jordan, we should not get our expectations too high.
