H/T to NeifiChicken at McCovey Chronicles for alerting me to this particular piece of information.
The St. Louis Cardinals have just DFA’d 1B Josh Phelps in order to create space on their 40-man roster. You might vaguely remember Josh Phelps from his 2002 season with the Blue Jays in which he hit: .309/.362/.562 over 74 games. Since ’02 Phelps has bounced around, finding playing time with the Indians, Rays, Yankees, Pirates, and Cardinals. He played the entire 2006 season for the Toldeo Mud Hens, a Detroit Tigers farm team.
For a guy with a career line of: .273/.343/.472 OPS+ of 110, you would figure that more teams would be able to find a permanent place for Phelps. Phelps does have his drawbacks; he’s not a strong fielder a first, he’s slow-footed, and he’s a free swinger. But, when Phelps does make contact with the baseball, he tends to hit it hard. Let’s check out some numbers.
HR/FB is the ratio of HR’s per flyballs hit. It’s a good indicator of how hard hard a player is hitting the ball. For example, Ray Durham’s power surge in ’06 was largely a product of his HR/FB percentage increasing greatly to 16% after only breaking double digits one time in his career. Flyballs tend to leave the park 10-12% of the time. Let’s use HR/FB to examine Phelps and see what happens when he hits a baseball into the air.
| Year | PA’s | HR/FB |
| 2002 | 287 | 21.7 |
| 2003 | 453 | 22.5 |
| 2004 | 401 | 22.1 |
| 2005 | 177 | 13.9 |
| 2007 | 183 | 14.6 |
If one thing is clear about Phelps, it’s that he has major league power. From 2002-2004 he posted very strong HR/FB ratios. For example, in ’02 his HR/FB percentage of 21.7% stuck him right between Jim Edmonds and Mike Piazza for hitters with 250 PA’s or more. In ’03 he was smack dab between Albert Pujols and Reggie Sanders and in ’04 he was between Paul Konerko and Manny Ramirez. It’s not to say that Phelps is on the same level with these players in the view of a complete package of player skills, but you can say that his power is legitimate. He’s always had the ability to hit the ball hard and out of the park.
His PA’s dwindled in ’05 and ’07 but he still posted above average HR/FB ratios. In ’06 he hit 24 HR’s for the Mud Hens and in ’08 for the Cardinals AAA team, he hit 31 HR’s. I didn’t include his ’08 season with the Cardinals in the data table because he only got 36 PA’s.
Phelp’s career line of: .273/.343/.472 would make him the best Giants 1B since JT Snow’s bizzaro 2004 season. You might be saying: “What about Ishikawa?” but the truth is that Ishikawa isn’t a sure bet and the Giants are in a position where they can do a couple of things. With Brian Sabean naming Pablo Sandoval the 1B for ’09 — at least for now — Phelps matches up better with Pabs than Ish.
Like I said, the Giants can do a few things. First, because of a poor record the Giants can afford to give more playing opportunities to players like Phelps. He’s going to get more playing time on the Giants than on the Cardinals where he has to sit behind Albert Pujols. On the Giants who’s blocking his way? Ishikawa? Bowker? Neither are solid bets to start and finish the season as the G’s first baseman. Second, is that the Giants have just cleared a large portion of their 40-man roster. At the moment the team has 7 open spaces on the 40-man and should get a couple more after Omar and maybe Aurilia leave the team.
I think the most desirable scenario is to bring in Phelps to platoon with Sandoval. Phelps, in 560 career PA’s, has a .297/.364/.495 line against southpaws. Phelps might not have the positional flexibility of Aurilia, but he’s a stronger hitter at this stage in his career and he’s also 6 years younger. Phelps would also provide nice insurance for the 1B position if Ishikawa washes out and they decide to move Pablo back behind the plate. Phelps’ career splits against RHP aren’t actually that bad and would not prohibit the Giants from sticking him in a full-time role if they had to. If he doesn’t make the team, he would be an asset to stash away in AAA.
Good teams have a knack for identifying and acquiring productive talent for little cost. Is Josh Phelps the first baseman of the future for the San Francisco Giants? No. But he provides real benefits right now. His cost is microscopic and he could add value to a position that the Giants have historically struggled with. My bigger question isn’t how Phelps would help this team, but if the Giants actually understand 1B. I’m not so sure they do. It’s a position that they’ve done some curious things with — like trying to turn a 5th OF into a starting 1B — and the string of Giants first basemen over the last 5 years is like a bad dream: Sweeney, Ort, Neikro, Hillenbrand, and so on and so forth.
I’ll end it with this:
Sign Josh Phelps. Do it.
My dream scenario:
1. The Giants find a trade partner that wants Molina. They trade him for good value.
2. Move Pabs back behind the plate where his value is the highest.
3. Sign Phelps to platoon at 1B with Ishikawa/Bowker/whoever hits RHP the best.
4. Profit!
Or ‘alternate future’ scenario:
1. Stick Sandoval at 3B for the year and keep Molina (or at least until the trading deadline).
2. Sign Phelps to platoon at 1B with Ishikawa/Bowker/whoever hits RHP the best.
3. Profit!
Though, I’m not sure that Sandoval could play 3B for an entire year.
Yes please.
Risk v. Reward:
Risk? None.
Reward? Competent 1b for the next 2-3 years.
Sounds like a winner to me.
Josh Phelps… everybody wants you.
Another team with not much to lose and a 1B opening, the Mariners, would be a good fit too. So says USS Mariner:
http://ussmariner.com/2008/10/15/free-talent-alert-free-talent-alert/
I hope the Giants can be a little more nimble on these matters than the M’s, who are trying to hire a new GM right now.
Thanks as always for the great insight. I had never even heard of Phelps before reading this. You make a good case for him.
Do you think .500 is within reach in 2009?
Neifi’s pretty good at finding that stuff.
I don’t think it’s fair to say the Giants don’t know how to judge firstbasemen. Sweeney played only because Niekro blew his chance; that is why he had never gotten a starting job even with his good bat. Niekro had done well previously and earned the chance, but he proved not to be up to the task. Hillenbrand was a career average OPS+ firstbaseman when we acquired him, who knew his career decline would start with us, he was actually hitting above average with Toronto before coming to us. Ortmeier earned a shot by hitting .800 OPS in basically full time play in August/September the year before. And when he blew his chance, they pushed Bowker to 1B, but he had legit stats in the previous year as well. Or would you have preferred the Giants trade, say, Bumgarner to get an above average young firstbaseman to prove that they understand firstbasemen
The question is, do you want the Giants to play young hitters or do you want a vet there? Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to a prospect you can rely on. As GM, the only way he can prove he knows firstbasemen given your premise is to sign the best firstbaseman around or you could end up trading the farm for him if there is none available in free agency. Sometimes you have to make choices given your limited options. Sometimes your prospect stinks.
Take for example, the A’s. They’ve been struggling to find a 1B the past few years, they played mostly Barton, plus a washed up Sweeney, tried out Dan Johnson to no avail, played Todd Walker there, was forced to play OF’s there, had Hatteberg (ick), also brought in Karros, who was OK the year before but horrible with them (much like Hillebrand). As much as I think Beane is over-hyped, I wouldn’t say that he doesn’t know firstbasemen, but their scenario is much like the Giants, only they had better hitters in the OF to play at 1B.
And Daric Barton was and is considered a very good 1B prospect, not just by the A’s but by all the prospect experts I have seen. The problem is that he’s not figuring it out thus far.
Does all this stuff, which is similar to the Giants situation, mean that Beane don’t understand 1B, or just that he’s been trying out some young players and they haven’t been working, and trying out some older players, and they haven’t been working either?
If anything, the Giants appear to understand something about 1B, they paid the highest bonus outside the first 10 rounds to sign Ishikawa, and he plays excellent defense there, though obviously his batting discipline is horrible (too many strikeouts) but he has shown enough hitting prowess (plus improved his strikeout rate to approximately 20% in 2008, a huge improvement over the 30%+ before) to make the majors, when probably around 60-70% of players who received a bonus of his size never make the majors or just have a cup of coffee, and he has held his own so far with a 102 OPS+ .
@OGC
Hillenbrand was a borderline average 1B and I bet if you included his defense, he would be slightly under average. He also had zero trade value. Everyone knew that Toronto was basically forced to move him.
Holy Strawmen Batman!
Hatteberg who posted OPS+’s of 116, 93, 106, and 81 with Oakland. You could argue that they stuck with him for a year too long, maybe, but icky? Really? Ick is Shea Hillenbrand’s 74 OPS+ or Lance Niekro’s 77 OPS+.
You’ve got this weird compulsion to always bring in the A’s when I’m talking about the Giants and I’m not sure I understand. This isn’t about Billy Beane, it’s about the Giants. The team I like an follow. As far as I know, Beane never tried to sell the idea of playing a 5th OF at the most demanding offensive position on the diamond.
As for Ishikawa, I’m not sure that means that get 1B. They paid him a lot of money for his slot, yes. But, his minor league track record shouldn’t instill anyone with confidence and whether or not he turns out or goes the way of Neikro, is to be seen. He was also drafted in 2002, this is 2008 heading into 2009.
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