The latest news out of Spring Training is that Omar Vizquel will miss 4-6 weeks with a knee injury. The official word is that it’s a ‘torn medial meniscus’ in his left knee. Vizquel has had knee problems a couple of times in his 19-season career, the most recent was two surgeries that he had on his right knee in 2003. Since his ’03 double surgery, Omar has appeared in 150 games — if you round up — per season.
It looks like Vizquel could miss the first couple of weeks of the season, depending on how the surgery and rehab go. With his age — Omar will be 41 this year — it doesn’t seem impossible that he could have some lingering problems. 41-year-old shortstops are a rarity in the game of baseball. Even the great Ozzie Smith only played in 82 games in his age 41 season. It was the final season in Ozzie’s spectacular career.
Losing Omar really downgrades the infield defense. As of now, the Giants are going to play Kevin Frandsen at shortstop. With the injury temporarily ending the second base competition between Ray and Kevin, Durham is assured to start the season as the regular second baseman for the Giants. Frandsen obviously isn’t a shortstop. In his minor league career, he’s only appeared at short in 44 games as compared to 185 at 2B. Frandsen started 15 games at shortstop for the Giants in 2007 and it was obvious that he was either uncomfortable or stretched at the position. I’d say it’s probably a little bit of both.
Frandsen’s sample size at SS is so small, looking at any defensive metric isn’t really going to help. Tom Tango’s excellent Fan Scouting Reports had the fans rating Frandsen a 45 overall as a fielder. In Tango’s system, 50 is considered league average, so Frandsen by the fan rating is a little under league average. Move him from an easier position (2B) to a harder position (SS) and it could be an adventure. The Giants seem to be serious about finding Frandsen playing time and for now it’ll have to be at short.
As I stated above, Omar’s injury really downgrades the infield defense. In addition to moving Frandsen to a position where he’ll most likley be stretched as a fielder, it’s making Durham a full-time starter again. Leg injuries have hampered Durham’s range over the past few years and his defense has suffered. In ’07, by the Fielding Bible, Durham was a -10, meaning that he made 10 less plays than your average second baseman would have. With Durhams age and chronic leg problems, he’ll probably once again be in the negative for ’08. Losing Omar essentially downgrades both SS and 2B in one move.
If the Giants don’t trade for Joe Crede and decide to start Aurilia at 3B, the infield could look pretty scary. I’ll give Frandsen the optimistic bump and say that he could play SS at least close to average defensively. I think that’s really generous, but Durham is going to be below average and Aurilia is probably going to be the same at third. Ort should be fine at 1B, I think he’ll play the position at least average and Molina is a below average catcher. Weight issues and the lack of mobility have really hurt him.
Put it this way:
The Giants are going to have to replace Pedro Feliz — the best defensive 3B in all of baseball — and Omar Vizquel — not what he used to be, but still an excellent defender at SS — with Rich Aurilia and Kevin Frandsen.
For a team that needs to rely on defense as one of it’s core components to win games, things just got a little more dicey.
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I’ve been assured that Vizquel should come back from the injury relatively quickly. That’s a little more palatable. Who knew that a sub-700 OPS shortstop could be needed so much?
/freakout over
>> In ‘07, by the Fielding Bible, Durham was a -10, meaning that he made 10 less plays than your average second baseman would have.
Though that is on the mark, that’s not totally accurate. The way the stat worked, from what I recall, is that for every zone where that position was able to get to 50%+ of the balls in that zone, you get a +1 for every extra ball you get to and -1 for every ball you miss, relative to the average. Thus there are balls in outside zones that the fielder may or may not get to which don’t get added to this total.
That is, it is possible that Durham got to even less balls in other zones that didn’t get tallied up in this -10 score (or, unlikely, more balls if he just happens to move well to a zone that others don’t get to).
Yeah, SS defense is going to take a hit, I think most people should have got that already, anybody replacing Vizquel is going to result in a hit on defense. Good mention of Vizquel’s injury history and comparison with Ozzie.
I guess we get to learn how badly pitching depends on defense for good performance in the early going.
i think they should look at trey webb. he has a rocket arm and may very few errors last year in AA playing short, 2nd, center field, and right field. he got a slow start hitting last year because they tried to change his swing but hit well the last five months of season. during the season last year he was clocked in the bullpen at 96mph. they may try him at pitcher
OGC,
Here’s the summary from TFB site:
A player gets credit (a “plus” number) if he makes a play that at least one other player at his position missed during the season, and he loses credit (a “minus” number) if he misses a play that at least one player made. The size of the credit is directly related to how often players make the play. Each play is looked at individually, and a score is given for each play. Sum up all the plays for each player at his position and you get his total plus/minus for the season. A total plus/minus score near zero means the player is average. A score above zero is above average and a negative score is below average. Adam Everett turned in the highest score we’ve had in four years of using the system with a +43 at shortstop in 2006. That means he made 43 more plays than the average MLB shortstop would make.
If Durham was constantly missing balls out of his zone that other 2B’s were getting to, he should have been penalized depending on how often they, other 2B’s, got to the ball. The system works by comparing all the 2B against each other.
The OF defense looks good but man, does the IF look really poor right now, almost Marlins poor, without the ability to hit like the Marlins infield can.
Jbrian,
Wow, you posted three comments in one day to my site about Trey Webb!
Interesting about his arm, because I think if he makes it to the big leagues, it’s not going to be as a position player if what you say is true about his arm. He’s just never really hit that well in the minors and he looks to me like a utility player.
Thanks for the link to Tango’s site. I am embarrassed to admit I had not run across it before or had failed to book mark it if I did.
I hate to go all Cheap Charlie in filling the Omar hole but has anyone seen a credible rough evaluations of Ochoa’s defense at SS? I am all for the Frandsen getting playing time but lets be honest our up the middle defense could very well be comparable to the team’s power out put. I can understand the power guys not being there to be had but defense should be very darn easy to get especially when we are already a light hitting team.
Dave,
Ochoa’s defense is supposed to be good, but no way it’s going to be “Omar good” and he could very well hit worse. For what it’s worth, he made 2 errors today in the 23-5 drubbing at the hands of the A’s.
Thanks Chris. I’ve don’t expect an elite level glove. If he is good with reasonable range that would do for a bit. I was wondering if the Front Office had painted themselves in a corner were they would have to go outside the organization or sacrifice up one of the AA, or lower, Short Stops just to be able to field a guy with 1 aspect of his game that is MLB average or better. Otherwise I cringe at the cost of Crede/Uribe trade towards the end of spring training..
As for the offense well you got to reach the field before you can swing the bat. Call it the ‘07 Crede/Durham/Klesko effect if you will.