And Molina Said…
“Bring me your finest meats and cheeses!”
Bengie Molina totally went Fernadno Tatis, minus the double grandslams, against the Mets last night as the Giants rolled to a 9-4 victory. I was skeptical when the Giants signed Molina to a 3 year deal but so far he’s been one of the better hitters on the team. With last nights explosion Molina has moved behind Bonds as the second best hitter on the team according to EQA. Barry is posting a (.417) EQA and Molina is posting a (.299) EQA. For those unfamiliar with EQA check out this link. It’s a statistic that measures the total offensive value per out. It works like a batting average, .260 is league average.
Comparing to other catchers Molina finds himself in good company. Ranking again by EQA, Molina is the 6th best catcher in all of baseball. Only Joe Mauer, Jorge Posada, Russ Martin, Victor Martinez, and John Buck rank ahead of Bengie. Ranking by VORP, Bengie places as the 4th best catcher in baseball. The VORP data was last updated on May 7th and I don’t know if it includes this last 2-HR game, if not, you might see his value bumped up a little bit.
At current time, Molina is hitting (.333/.365/.515). Do I think Molina can keep up this pace all year? I don’t think he can but that doesn’t take anything away from his great start. PECOTA has Molina projected at (.275/.320/.438) at this point it’s not hard to see Molina maybe exceeding expectations some and hitting his 60% or 75% percentile. Catchers at age 32 usually don’t have career years and that’s what Molina is on pace for.
Looking at Molina’s career splits by month May has tended to be his best month with the bat, hitting (.327/.349/.440). He drops off a little in July and bounces back a tad in the last months. It’s not hard to imagine that fatigue could play a factor for his July production. Molina has started the bulk of playing time at catcher this year, starting 27 out of 31 games. Bochy should try to keep him fresh as best he can.
Bold Prediction: As long as he can keep hitting 2 homeruns per game, I think he’ll be fine.
09/05/2007 at 11:38 am Permalink
I think Molina has been phenomenal all year. Of course, no one is going to admit how off base they were when trashiong the move last Winter. I think it was kind of a knee-jerk, anti Sabean, stats only assessment. Not only is the guy hitting in the clutch and hitting generally, he has been great with the pitchers. He has thrown out 25% of base stealers. He always has given up more than an average number of PBs, and is doing so this year. But, overall the guy has been a relatively cheap and huge addition to the lineup. BTW, see my most recent comment regarding your Lowry for Dunn idea.
BTW, as I think about it, it seems to me this team will be hard to improve. Not that they are that great or unimproveable, but they are performing about as expected, generally above average position by position, such that improving any particular position will entail rather great cost and produce rather slight improvement. Right now the underperforming positions are CF (Roberts injured, 4th OF (Linden probably has another couple of weeks - a month at most, to get untracked; Lewis or Shierholtz may be up soon, particularly if Roberts goes on the DL), and 3 BP spots (Correia, Sanchez, Chulk). I wouldn’t mind seeing any/all of those guys sent down and see Misch, Giese, Munter, Rincon brought up. Beyond that, I don’t think we have the ammunition to bring in a top 15% player - and I don’t think the slight improvement in performance is worth giving away Lowry and Sanchez for another top 1/2 player.
09/05/2007 at 4:58 pm Permalink
I’ll admit I didn’t like the signing of Molina but not for his player skills, well maybe besides his eroding defense. I think the 3 year contract that we gave him was excessive and has the potential to look ugly by next year. He’s played well this year so far though but remember their is a lot of season left.
I think the team is going to have to find another 4th OF to take Linden’s spot. He’s been disastrous. Not hitting, not fielding, not doing anything well at the moment. I’d like to see either Lewis or Schierholtz called up to take his spot.