They often say that the biggest transition for a prospect is between A and AA baseball. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it often seems that way. By all accounts Crawford’s glove was still terrific — BA ranked him the best defensive infielder in the system, here — but you’ve got show at least something offensively to carve out a starting role in the majors. Stat-watchers should have expected Crawford to have a rough transition from San Jose to Connecticut. Why? Crawford’s BABIP in San Jose was a staggering .493. We know that hitters can have a larger affect on their BABIP than their pitching counterparts, but a near .500 BABIP is an outlier. Crawford was hitting for a ton of power in San Jose (ISO .229) but he was striking out in nearly 1/3rd of his at-bats (K% 30.48%). When he got to AA, he walked even less (dropping from 8% to 4%) and his BABIP dropped to a more reasonable .334.

It was a rough stretch in AA for Crawford. The Giants left him in AA to start the 2010 season and so far the early returns have been great. Some numbers:

Year	Tm	        Lev	PA	BB%	K%	ISO	BABIP
2009	2 Teams	        AA-A+	542	5.54%	26.56%	0.132	.364
2009	San Jose	A+	119	8.40%	30.48%	0.229	.493
2009	Connecticut	AA	423	4.73%	25.51%	0.107	.334
2010	Richmond	AA	166	16.29%	24.44%	0.148	.294

Data pulled from 5.23.10

I’ve listed 4 pretty important statistics for hitters above. How much they walk (BB%), strikeout (K%), how much power they hit for (ISO), and their batting average on balls in play (BABIP). The most impressive development about Crawford’s second crack at AA baseball has been his BB% — it currently stands at 16.29%. After posting a 4.73% in AA last year, Crawford has nearly quadrupled his walk rate this year. He’s still striking out at the same rate, but strikeouts are less egregious if you can supplement them with other skills — namely getting on base via the walk and hitting for power. Overall, the Eastern League is a pretty tough place for hitters. For example, the league average hitter in the EL right now is hitting .251/.328/.378 (OPS .706). That includes slugging first basemen, outfielders, and other offense first positions. Comparatively, Crawford is hitting .252/.364/.400 (OPS .764). And that’s as a SS with above-average defense. Crawford’s ISO isn’t in the .200+ range that it was in San Jose, but at the current .148 he’s showing moderate power.

The biggest caveat is that it’s still early in the year — just 166 plate appearances to this point — but if Crawford’s change at the plate is for real, his ceiling adjusts a little from bench glove to potential starter.

If we call Crawford a .310 wOBA batter in the majors — think Orlando Caberera’s 2009 season or about any .700 OPS batter in the majors — we could value Crawford as follows:

Batting Wins Above Average (.310 wOBA, league wOBA .332): –1.28 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: +0.5 wins
SS Positional Adjustment: +.75 wins
Replacement Level: +2.25 wins
-——————————————————————-
= 2.22 wins above replacement * .8 (or 80% playing time ie: 560 PA’s) = +1.78 wins

Under our assumptions above he projects as a 1.78 win player for the Giants in 80% playing time. I’m calling him a +5 run defender at SS, which is very good when you consider he plays in the most athletic player group in baseball. Also, keep in mind that this WAR valuation is without any baserunning component. Crawford should be mobile enough to chip in a couple of runs with is legs each year.

Depending on how Crawford finishes out this year — and if his new plate approach is for real — the Giants should have a couple of decisions on their mind. Edgar Renteria and Juan Uribe are both free agents after this season and Crawford is the only prospect in the minors that you could consider for the opening at SS. From the looks of it, the best available ’11 SS FA will be J.J. Hardy. The Giants might want to consider signing a SS that can play half the year at the position before turning it over to Crawford. Again, it’s still very early in the year, but Crawford’s progress is quite encouraging. He’s probably the #5 prospect in the Giants system right now.

I would break down the Top-5 as follows:

1. Buster Posey
2. Madison Bumgarner
3. Zach Wheeler
4. Thomas Neal
5. Brandon Crawford

With Brandon Belt around #6-8.

Comment Starter: What do you make of Crawford’s season so far? Is it too aggressive to pencil him into the 2011 Giants team?

Dollars still have not been announced, but Uribe has passed his physical and the deal should be finalized today. I would expect the deal to be worth between $2-3M for a year. Part of Uribe’s return to the Giants makes me wonder how much of a leash the team will give Edgar Renteria? Sabean has stated a few times in the press how much he admired Renteria for playing injured (and ineffectively) for most of the 2009 season. If Renteria’s collapse in ’09 continues next year, could the Giants start Uribe at SS?

Food for thought: Uribe’s UZR scores at SS over the past 6 years.

2004: +4.5 (287.1 innings fielded)
2005: +7.1 (1293.1)
2006: +6.2 (1130)
2007: -2.2 (1305.1)
2008: +0.3 (15)
2009: -1.2 (318.2)

Uribe has no doubt gained some weight since his Chicago days (2005 version of Uribe vs. the 2009 version) and I’m not sure we can call him a +6-7 run defender at shortstop anymore. But, just how would his defense play at short? This post from Beyond the Boxscore has projected UZR scores for 2010 and Uribe projects (with an age-adjustment) as a -1 run defender at SS for the upcoming season. Even if we think that the -1 run projection is a little optimistic — and want to call Uribe something like a -3 run defender at SS — he would project as something like a 1.5 WAR player at SS given almost 550 PA’s playing time and assuming he hits a .320 wOBA.

Edgar Renteria was worth +0.3 wins to the Giants last year. His collapse on offense (worth -19.8 batting runs below average) totally destroyed his overall value. In his 2008 season with the Tigers, Renteria was a 1.4 win player. Outside of Marco Scuatro, the SS market this year was very shallow. It’s possible that my initial reaction of “Why would Uribe come back to the Giants” was wrong. The Giants get a player that, from the looks of it, should still be able to handle SS in a non-terrible fashion. Uribe gets to come back to the team he found success with and, if Renteria crashes completely, he has the best chance to become a starter again.

Update: Salary confirmed at 1-year, $3.25M.

A few quick bits of information regarding the graph:

1. Everything is pro-rated to 700 PAs.
2. The defense line includes a positional adjustment for the position played. In this case, Renteria gets a bump for playing shortstop.
3. Total Value = Offense + Defense

On to the graph:

You can see some previous Giants depicted using these player value graphs, here. A few things are explained in that post and it might be a decent place to start if you’re unfamiliar with these graphs.

Thoughts:

• Immediately by looking at the graph you can see Renteria’s two great years in 2003 and 2007. In both years, his bat played nearly +30 runs above average. Remember that everything is getting pro-rated to 700 PAs, so Renteria’s actual real world numbers might be a little off if we compared them to his pro-rated numbers. A shortstop putting up +30 runs by his bat alone is a superstar — if he’s not a Michael Young-esque defender. His bat took a dip in 2004, falling to -10 runs below average, but it rebounded over the next three years until it fell again last season in Detroit.
• I found it interesting that Renteria’s bat had more variance than his glove. In his peak hitting years, Renteria’s BABIP was .348 (2003) and .375 (2007). He strikes me as a hitter that will occasionally post a .340+ BABIP and have a very strong season at the plate, but even if he’s hitting closer to his career averages — in regards to BABIP — he’s in the area of an average hitter.
• Renteria’s defense has received a lot of criticism and by looking at our graph, it looks a little unfair. He’s definitely dropped from his 2002-03 years, but he’s remained respectable from 2005-08. If you look at this defensive line from ’05-’08,  he’s held steady. If you look at his bUZR numbers for our time range (non positional adjustments included) you’ll get the following scores: +5.7, +6.8, +0.3, -3.6, -2.3, -3.3, and -1. He’s no longer an above-average defender at shortstop, but when you consider his peer group, he’s definitely respectable with the glove. He’s not going to play defense like Omar Vizquel but he’s also not going to embarrass himself.
• CHONE has Renteria projected as a -6 run shortstop next season which seems reasonable. I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat that projection by a couple of runs.

All things considered, signing Renteria to a 2-year, $18.5M deal wasn’t a bad move by the Giants. He’s got a good chance to be a +2 win player for the 2009 season. If he reaches the +2 win range, he’ll be fairly paid for his services. As we’ve seen with our graph, his defense really isn’t as bad as most have made it out to be. He’s not a glove-man at short, that’s for sure, but he’s been respectable if nothing else.

By looking at the graph, you can see that Renteria’s bat has varied quite a bit over the last 7 years. Most of the projections — CHONE, Marcel, and Oliver — have Renteria projected as a league average hitter — slightly better or slightly worse — for 2009. But, there’s always a chance that he posts a .340+ BABIP season and beats those projections. Even if Renteria hits slightly below his career BABIP, he’s got a good chance to be worth around +2 wins.

Signing Edgar Renteria was a good move that addressed a legitimate issue on the team without committing more than 2-years to fix the problem.

Comment Starter: Your thoughts on Renteria?

~ Dan Szymborksi of Baseball Think Factory has a quasi-optimistic ZiPS projection on Renteria. He projects Renteria to hit: .282/.341/.389 in 2009. Before you say “That’s nothing special” realize that the combined shortstop production for the Giants in ’08 was: .228/.292/.281. Renteria’s ZiPS projection should translate to about a .325 wOBA — give or take a few points. League average wOBA is projected to be around .332 in 2009. Renteria should be in the general area of a league average hitter while playing shortstop, not a bad thing to have.

~ Keith Law also liked the deal. I think Keith nails it with this comment:

Yes, the Giants have shortstop Manny Burriss, who hit an unimpressive .283/.357/.329 in limited time in the big leagues in 2008, but has a weak swing and poor pitch recognition that make even that level a near-term high-water mark for him. (His walk rate was partly boosted by appearances in the No. 8 spot, where he’d be pitched around to get to the pitcher.) There’s no one else in the Giants’ organization who could handle shortstop in 2009, and frankly, they’re a little light at second base as well, so they could just as easily sign another shortstop and slide Renteria to second, where he’s going to end up in the next few years anyway. If he stays in shape and even hits .280/.330/.440, he’ll have trade value next winter or during 2010, as well.

Burriss comes with a lot of offensive question marks and how he would fare outside of the 8th spot is a question that should be asked. The competition for second base should between Burriss and Frandsen. The Giants saw enough of Velez last year to understand that he’s not a starting option at any defensive position on the baseball diamond. If Burriss can slide over to second base and do a Mark Elliss impression — in regards to defense — he might get 300-400 AB’s. If he tanks, send him back to the minors for seasoning and let Frandsen play. Adding Renteria to the team is a nice boost for shortstop depth.

~ Baggs has some highlights from the Renteria conference call. It’s a good read and includes a funny quote from Renteria about the differences between the AL and NL.

Comment Starter: Renteria’s deal? Good, bad, or just indifferent?

A storm of activity swept through Giants Land yesterday when WFAN — my #1 resource for reliable, sports information — leaked news that SS Edgar Renteria, formerly of the Detroit Tigers, had signed with the Giants for 2-years, $18M. Reactions ranged from solid, to bewilderment, to confused, back to bewilderment again, and then to acceptance. It’s easier for me to think of the offseason as a series of improbable events that I have no control over. That way I get less freaked out when things happen. You can call it indifference but it makes things more digestible for me than freaking out every five minutes.

In regards to Renteria, the rumor turned out to be false. The Giants will still be seeking middle infield help and the team is known to prefer Furcal, but Renteria would be a nice option B if he did indeed sign for something like 2-years, $18M. One thing that didn’t jive with the Renteria rumor right off the bat was why would the Giants sign him before the December 1st arbitration deadline? The Tigers already paid Renteria $3M to buy out his $12M option. As Baggs astutely notes, you don’t pay a guy $3M to go away and then turn around and offer him arbitration.

Marcel projects Renteria pretty favorably for 2009 with a line of: .285/.345/.417, that’s a wOBA of .336 making him a slightly better than league average hitter. Finding a SS that can hit around league average is a valuable thing to have. As Dave Cameron of FanGraphs noted yesterday, a key for Rentria will be his defense. Last season plus/minus had Renteria as a -9 SS, meaning that he made 9 plays less than your average SS. That works out to about -7 runs below average. If we count Renteria as a -10 run player with the glove, which is possible because he’s not getting any younger, he’s worth a little less then +2 wins over replacement. Teams tend to pay about $5M per replacement win, so Renteria should be worth around $10M per season. Which is exactly the rate he would have been earning per season under the rumored deal. The Cameron piece makes also makes a nice argument that Renteria’s underlying batted ball data really didn’t change from his career norms in ’08, indicating that he might have been a little unlucky. In fact, Renteria’s BABIP in ’08 was about 48 points lower than his xBABIP.

I’ll be interested to see what happens after December 1st now. It’s possible, as Baggs noted in his link above, that the Tigers may consider offering Renteria arbitration now because of the mult-year deal rumor. If the Giants sign Renteria before December 1st, or Detroit offers him arbitration and he declines, the Giants would lose their 2nd round draft pick.

~ Dan Szymborksi of BBTF has released his 2009 ZiPS projections for the Giants — do yourself a favor and avert your eyes from the Burriss projection. ZiPS is one of my favorite projection systems so I’ll definitely be going back over them later this week. I’m thinking of doing another hitters chart like I did with Marcel, but I might wait until PECOTA and a couple of other systems make their release.

~ The Giants have signed 3B Jesus Guzman to a minor league contract. The 24-year-old Guzman, who was in the Oakland Athletics farm system, destroyed AA Midland this year, posting a .415 wOBA in 375 ABs. Guzman owns a career minor league line of: .295/.366/.463 and could prove to be an attractive option for the Giants at third depending on how the roster takes shape. I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible that despite the Giants signing Guzman to a minor league deal, a team could take a chance on him in the Rule 5 draft next month. If he starts 2009 in the Giants system, he’s probably a top option at 3B on the depth chart.

~ The Giants continue to nibble here and there on the free agent market. Latest rumor has the team exchanging contract proposals with free agent SS Edgar Renteria. The 33-year-old Renteria is coming off a weak year in Detroit. His already suspect glove took a step back last year — plus/minus of -9 for SS — but if Detroit refuses to offer him arbitration, he could be an attractive solution for SS. The boys over at RMC are wondering about the possibilities of Renteria in orange and black.

~ With the due date for adding players to the 40-man roster passing this last week, the Giants added four more players to the team’s 40-man roster. Failure to add these players to the 40-man would have made them available in the Rule 5 Draft. The team chose to add LHP Jesse English, RHP Joe Martinez, RHP Henry Sosa, and RHP Waldis Joaquin. Baggs has more information on the recent additions on his blog.

• In 2008, the Giants had the worst team production for the shortstop position in the National League. The collective of Giants’ shortstops combined for an OPS of .576.  That made them the only team in the NL that failed to surpass the .600 OPS mark for team shortstop production.
• Omar Vizquel, Ivan Ochoa, Brian Bocock, and Emmanuel Burriss all logged 200+ innings at the position. Despite strong defense from Vizquel, Bocock, and Ochoa, their combined futility with the bat washed out any positive gains with the glove.
• If you expanded the selection to both the AL and NL, only the Baltimore Orioles had less production for their shortstop position than the Giants. O’s shortstops had an OPS of .535.
• You can check the newly added positional depth chart to see that help isn’t coming from the minor leagues. Ochoa (if he returns), Bocock, and Burriss are current candidates for shortstop in ’09. Brandon Crawford and other Giants’ shortstops are still a good ways off.
• Emmanuel Burriss had a respectable year for a baseball player who was rapidly accelerated to the pros. But his overall lack of power — in both the majors and his track record of the minors — has some concerned. Burriss’ ISO of .046 places him among other light-hitting players such as: Tony Pena (.040), Chone Figgins (.042), Omar Vizquel (.045), and Juan Pierre (.046), and Willy Taveras (.046). It’s not a great sign when the shortstop you are replacing, who had a historically bad season with the bat, hits for the same amount of power as you do. And is probably a better overall defender.
• Heading into the winter, the shortstop market is a mixed bag with one clear shiny prize sitting atop. Rafael Furcal. Your team, who is in dire need of a shortstop, has already had “serious” talks with Furcal and could very-well make a push to sign him.

And here we are, the Giants need a shortstop badly and Furcal is the best shortstop on the free agent market. I like Burriss as much as the next guy but you can’t deny the concerns that come with his bat and you can’t deny the way things have been focusing towards Furcal.

The question is: who is Furcal and what does he bring to the table? Will he be worth the money? And is he a better option to play short as compared to someone like Burriss? These are a few of the questions I hope to answer.

Player History

Rafael Furcal was signed by the Atlanta Braves in 1996 as an undrafted free agent out of the Dominican Republic. He started his pro career in 1997 as a 19-year-old in the Gulf Coast League as a second baseman for the GCL Braves. Over his first season, Furcal hit: .258/.335/.342 while stealing 15 bags in 17 attempts. Furcal’s first step toward prospecthood took place in the following year when he played for Danville in the Appalachian League. In 66 games, still at 2B, Furcal hit: .328/.412/.414 while stealing 60 bases out of 75 attempts. He was named the Rookie-level league’s top prospect and he immediately shot to the top of prospect charts in the Braves System. Furcal continued to grow as a player in 1999. He played over two levels — A and A+ — and was now playing shortstop. He particularity excelled in the SAL when he hit: .337/.417/.397 with 73 stolen bases in 83 games. After the transition to shortstop, BA described his defense in the following quote: “His glove is consistent, while his range and arm strength are well above-average.”

Furcal started 2000 in the majors after a brief 3 games in AA. Furcal replaced Braves SS Walt Weiss and never looked back. Over 131 games Furcal hit: .295/.394/.382 with 40 stolen bases in 54 attempts. Furcal eventually claimed the Rookie of the Year award and remained a fixture at shortstop for Braves teams in the early 2000′s. Before 2006, Furcal signed a 3-year deal with the Dodgers. Furcal put together a very nice ’06 season for the Dodgers but battled injury problems over his final two years. Furcal had ankle problems in 2007 that reduce his running speed and kept him to 138 games played. His SB total of 25 in ’07 was his lowest seasonal total since his injury shortened 2001 in which he stole 22 bases. In 2008 Furcal started the year as one of the hottest players in baseball, hitting: .366/.448/.597 until May 5th when a back injury forced him to the 60-day DL. Furcal underwent back surgery during the season and didn’t make it back to the Dodgers until late September.

Can He Field His Position?

Now that we’ve got the brief history of Furcal out of the way, let’s get down to the details. What kind of fielder is Rafael Furcal? Let’s check out some plus/minus numbers.

Remember that plus/minus is in “plays” and not runs. Also, I don’t have access to the 2004 and 2005 seasons, but the 2004-2006 total is available online at the Fielding Bible website.

From ’04-’06 Furcal was +36 plays above average as compared to his shortstop peers. We know that in ’06 he was +4 plays above average, so between 2004-2005 he was something like +15 plays per year on average. In ’07 he was +6 plays above average even with the ankle issues. In ’08 his sample size was very small, he only played 296 innings at short, but he rated as an average defender. With Furcal’s age and injuries over the past few years he should be an average to slightly below average defender at shortstop over the next 2-3 years.

Every year Tango does a Fan Scouting Report which is very interesting. He collects ballots from fans on each team and their fielders, and then tallies the results. You can find the 2008 and past results, here. Furcal rates pretty well in Tango’s Fan Scouting system. He tended to rate as an average to above average fielder while earning strong marks for his throwing strength.

Furcal At The Plate

One of Furcal’s most noted traits is his abilities at the plate. Let’s see how he rates in sOPS+, wOBA, and WPA/LI.

sOPS+ is interesting because it compares Furcal to other shortstops. From ’03-’06 Furcal was an above average hitting shortstop. His OPS, on average for these years, was 15% better than the average shortstop in the NL. He was below average in 2007 and was way above average in 2008.

wOBA also shows that Furcal was an above average hitter from ’03-’06 and in ’08. WPA/LI also shows that Furcal was worth +1 offensive wins in ’03, ’05, and ’08. If you had any question of just how good Furcal was in 183 PA’s in ’08, this should help settle your question. His +1.42 offensive wins in ’08 rank as his best score over the last 6 years. Also, remember that WPA/LI isn’t recorded by position but by all qualified hitters. Having a shortstop that is +1 offensive win by batting alone is very valuable.

Furcal experienced a drop in his offensive numbers in ’07 and it was his worst season with the bat since 2003. If you check out some of the underlying numbers, you see that Furcal lost some power in that year. In ’07 his ISO dropped to .084 after having ISO’s of: .151, .135, .144, and .145 over the previous 4 years. As a result, his HR/FB% dropped to a very small 3.8% after averaging between 8-9% in previous seasons. Furcal’s ISO surged to .217 in ’08 but that was accompanied by a .380 BABIP. Furcal’s true ISO going forward is probably somewhere around .120 and recent projections from ZiPS and Bill James support this.

Valuing Furcal

Furcal is reported to be looking for a deal that ranges from 3-4 years and he could get anywhere from $10M to $14M per season.  In recent years, teams have paid close to $5M per win above replacement. If we find out how many wins above replacement Furcal is, we can find out how much Furcal is worth. Using the latest ZiPS projection on Furcal, I have his wOBA projected to .344, slightly above the league average of .338.

I projected Furcal to make 500 plate appearances in ’09 and be worth +0.5 wins defensively, which might be a little optimistic but he was close to that range in ’07. If Furcal is healthy in ’09, he should play average, to above average defense. Let’s also compare him to the player most likely to head into next season as the Giants starting shortstop, Emmanuel Burriss. I’ve projected Burriss as a .310 wOBA hitter — which is probably overly optimistic, I haven’t seen any credible projections for him yet — and an average defender. I’ve also bumped him to 600 PA’s, 100 more than Furcal, as his health is much better. Burriss should be much more likely to attain 600 PA’s than Furcal. The results come to this:

Furcal works out to be worth around +2.39 wins above replacement in ’09. That makes him worth around $11M per season on the free agent market — remember, teams pay about $5M per win above replacement. The Giants should look to pay Furcal anywhere between $10M-$12M for season if they want to pay him what he’s worth. The difference between Furcal and Burriss is a little more than +1.5 wins to the Giants. Note here that it could be even greater if Burriss doesn’t hit a wOBA of .310, which is very possible. I’ll be anxiously awaiting to see how ZiPS, Marcel, CHONE, and PECOTA project him,

A recent article on the Chron about Furcal details the following:

The Giants’ more realistic targets are a middle infielder and bullpen setup men. As of midday, they had not submitted a formal offer for Rafael Furcal, the premier shortstop on the market and one of their supposed targets. Furcal should have plenty of suitors, including Oakland, and is believed to be seeking four years at $10 million per for openers.

A 4/40 deal for Furcal would be in range for market value. Being the top shortstop on the market, many teams will be looking at Furcal and he could get expensive, quick.

Conclusion

Furcal has been a fine player over his career and is above average for his position. If he can post a wOBA of .344 over the life of his contract, he’ll be worth about $11M per season. That includes the presumption that he’ll also be an average or better defender throughout the contract. The Giants have little to no depth at shortstop and outside of Burriss, who has bigger questions marks than you would like, the shelf is pretty bare. The Giants have stated that if they sign a shortstop, they’ll be likely to move Burriss over to 2B.

This poses a problem because Burriss’ bat is weak. If he’s plays at second base, he’ll need to defend around +10 runs above average for that position to play above replacement. The best and worst defenders tend to range from -15/+15 by runs saved, so the best case scenario for Burriss at 2B is that he can maintain a .300+ wOBA and defend like MarkEllis, one of the premier defenders in the game at 2B.

I would take a Furcal deal in the neighborhood of 4/40 to 4/48. I think anything past that and you start running into trouble. The Giants have no one on the way to help them out at shortstop and if they can land a healthy, and productive Furcal for the next 3-4 years, that should help bridge the gap to current shortstop prospects Brandon Wood, Sharlon Schoop, and Ehire Adrianza. I think because of the relative weakness of shortstop options in the Giants system, they have to consider Furcal and if they can land him for $10-12M per season, they should do it.

Comment Starter: Do you want Furcal?

Let’s talk about the roster move that took place. The Giants have DFA’d Rajai Davis, who is most famously not Matt Morris, and purchased the contract of SS Emmanuel Burriss from AAA Fresno. Burriss was the 33rd overall pick in the 2006 June Draft, also known as ‘The Year of the Lincecum’, out of Kent State.

Burriss’ 2007 had it’s ups and downs. He started the year in San Jose in the California League and struggled offensively — in a league known for it’s offense — and was eventually rolled back a level to the Augusta team. He only hit (.165/.237/.180) in San Jose over 139 AB’s. He finished the year strongly, both in Augusta and by his AFL performance. In Augusta he hit (.321/.374/.381) with 51 stolen bases. In the AFL he hit well but I believe he only got a little over 50 AB’s since he was a late addition. The AFL is generally a league with top prospects but I think that Burriss’ numbers are a little overstated. The AFL is usually a hitters league and 50 AB’s is the equivalent of 12-13 games. So, I’m slightly skeptical of numbers coming from the AFL, even more so when the league leader in OPS is Sam Fuld. If anyone could post his AFL numbers in the comments of this post, I’d greatly appreciate it. The AFL site is really buggy and impossible to navigate.

Burriss is a contact-styled hitter without any power. Over his Minor League career, he’s only slugged .340 — not including this year’s numbers in AAA. He’s got blazing speed — rated at the fastest baserunner in the Giants system by BA — and can field SS decently. His arm is probably below Bocock’s arm but he shouldn’t embarrass himself at the position. For Burriss to succeed, he needs to slap the ball on the ground and run, taking advantage of his speed.

Here’s Burriss’ Top 10 Comparable Players by PECOTA, comments are mine.

1 Wylie Campbell – Stole 34 bases in A-ball but never made it past A+ ball.

2 Shawn Livsey – One of two 1st round draft picks on our list — Remember that Burriss was a 1st rounder — Livsey played 7 years in the minor leagues and had a career line of (.264/.350/.350)

3 Freddie Bynum – So far, the 1st on our list to actually get MLB at-bats. To this date, has had 239 AB’s in the majors, most of which came in 2006 under Dusty Baker. Bynum is the classic Dusty Baker player — much like Neifi Perez, Jose Macias, and Shawon Dunston — low on talent, but high on heart which made him one of “Dusty’s guys” which translates into way more playing time than actually deserved, driving fans crazy.

4 Chone Figgins – Probably the best comp for Burriss so far on the list if everything goes right for him. Figgins has the most MLB playing time of anyone on this list and he’s turned into a decent utility player-slash-starter for the Angels. He’s stolen 200+ bases in both the minors and the majors.

5 Juan Francia – Mark down as a ‘Never Made It’. Stole a bunch of bases in the minors — 245 over 8 seasons — but at a poor rate of 69%. Split time last year between AA/AAA for the Yankees. Has hit only 8 HR’s over 2856 career AB’s.

6 Willie Bloomquist – A Mariner fan favorite! Another slappy MI on this list that has somehow, someway has gotten actual playing time in the MLB.

7 Cleatus Davidson – Great name. Not-so-good at the baseball thing. Minor league lifer that has played 13 seasons in the minors. He snuck into the majors in 1999 for 22 glorious career AB’s for the Twins. Stole 274 career bags in the minors at a 74% rate. Hasn’t been seen in baseball since ’06.

8 Justin Baughman – Not much to say, 7 seasons in the minor leagues and 2 seasons in the majors. Speedy with a good SB% — 254 career thefts in the minors at 79% — but a weak bat. Has a career minor league OPS of .659

9 Alfredo Amezaga – Is Amezaga the 2nd most successful comp to Burriss so far on this list? You might be able to make that argument. Currently playing for the Marlins, he has 6 seasons in the majors. Utility player that played SS/2B/3B in the minors and has played CF in the majors, among other positions. It’s not pretty when a possible 2nd best comp has a career major league line of (.249/.314/.339)

10 Chris Burke – Our 2nd 1st round pick to make this list. Burke was chosen 10th overall in the 2001 draft by the Houston Astros. His 2001 season for the University of Tennessee was tremendous, he hit (.435/.537/.815) with 20 HR’s, 21 2B’s, and 11 3B’s while playing shortstop. That kind of power production form shortstop is very interesting and no doubt the reason he went so high in the draft. He struggled some initially in the minors, not reaching double digit HR’s until ’04, and eventually made the Astros team as a utility guy. He never flashed the same power or promise that he did at the University of Tennessee — Ahhh, the beauty that is aluminum bats. On this list, he’s clearly the player with the most power, hitting 30 career minor league HR’s and another 20 in the majors.

By first glance, that’s some ugly company to be a part of. The list is mostly composed of players that never made it and players that did make it but as utility-type players.

The Giants have been aggressive with Burriss, sending him to AAA this year after his mixed results of ’07, and I don’t mind that aggressiveness so much. He’s obviously the closest major-league-ready SS prospect that the Giants have, even if that says more about the lack of SS options in the Giants system than it does about Burriss as a player. But, what I do mind is the idea that Burriss will be a backup on the team, or that he and Bocock will swap time at SS.

From SFGiants.com

Burriss is expected to provide some depth in the infield, specifically behind rookie shortstop Brian Bocock. Burriss and Bocock both played in Class A last season, so Giants manager Bruce Bochy isn’t expecting either of them to knock around Major League pitchers from the start.

What Burriss needs is steady playing time to help him develop and hopefully, hone his hitting abilities which at this point, are Bocockian. Consider that he’s only hitting (.258/.281/.306) in AAA right now. That’s over a small sample size of 60-some AB’s but it’s most likely the case that he has miles to go as a hitter and it’s hard to work on hitting, well, if you know, if you can’t actually get into the game and hit.

And if the Giants need SS depth, why not call up someone like Ochoa and let Burriss continue to play regularly in AAA? The other thing that drives me crazy about this scenario is Rich Aurilia. Sure, he’s not a SS anymore, but if Bocock needs a rest, he could most likely start 1-2 games a week at short. He played 12 games at short last year and I can’t remember them being particularly horrific. And furthermore, is there a more useless player on any major league roster than Rich Aurilia? He’s yet to hit a extra base hit in 55 AB’s. Yet, he still makes his way into the lineup a few times a week. If you ranked XHB’s by players with at least 50 minimum PA’s in the NL, only Brian Schneider and Rich Aurilia have zero XBH’s. It’s amazing that he hasn’t been cut yet.

I’m getting the feeling that the theme of this year is: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. Just because you can promote Bocock/Burriss to the majors, doesn’t mean you actually should. Both players are obviously not ready for this level of play. It’s like for all the years that fans griped about the abundance of veterans on this roster, Sabean is trying to reverse it all in one season. “See! I’m calling up all sorts of youngsters to play! Are you happy now!?” It almost feels bipolar. Part of this season is to nurture what prospects we have and I’m not sure sending them directly into the fire is the best way to help them progress. Sure, you could say “Either you hit, or you don’t” but you just don’t see teams call up players who are woefully unprepared for this level of play. The moves made to fill shortstop, if anything, have shown how unprepared this team was for that position. Omar was only 1,000 years-old and players do eventually break down, you would think that the Giants would have a better contingency plan than a couple of A-ball shortstops who might hit as well as Noah Lowry over a full season.

Pure Speculation edit: I forgot to add this the first time through, I’ve heard some speculation that because Burriss got called up, it’s possible that Omar’s rehab is going worse than expected. He’s already had mobility concerns, could this mean that Omar might retire before he ever gets back to the majors? It’s something to chew on and I would dislike this move less if it means that Burriss could get more starting time in the bigs.

Losing Davis to this whole situation isn’t the worst thing because the Giants have a ton of OF’s, so while his time was brief with the Giants, it’s ultimately unimportant if he stays or goes. He made some dynamite catches last year and played quite well, so I hope he catches on somewhere else. If Juan Pierre can carve out a major league career, I’m sure Davis can too.

Comment Starter: Burriss time? Yay or Nay? Too soon, or just riiiight. Help convince me that this isn’t as stupid as I might think it is.

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.

—

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

- Juan Pierre (the black hole of offense himself)
- Pedro Feliz and Ray Durham (ouch, even Ray’s worst season in his pro career was better than Omar’s season, not by much but still…)
- David Eckstein (scrap, grit, heart, etc.)
- Stephen Drew (had a terrible season .238/.313/.370, but was still better offensively than Omar, should rebound in ’08 some and has the advantage of not being 40+)
- Craig Biggio (future HOF, is going to retire)

The list isn’t pretty and my picks aren’t in any special order but it goes to show, Omar stunk at the dish this year. If you’re into more of the new-fangled stats, Omar’s EqA of .221 was about 40 points below league average.

Let’s compare Omar’s ’07 stats to his career numbers to try and find out what went wrong

YEAR	BB%	K%	OPS	ISO	BABIP	GB/FB	LD%
2007   7.9%    9.4%    .621    .070     .265     1.03   18.3%
 -     9.0%   10.0%    .697    .083     .298     1.09   21.6%

Surprisingly, his underlying performance is close with what he’s done in previous years. He struck out about the same and walked a little less. His power, which has always been minuscule dropped a little. His line drive percentage dropped by 3% and his BABIP was down 23 points from his career. His GB/FB ratio is still right around 1.0. The drop in power and his BABIP make me think that Omar’s bat has slowed down. A player like Omar, who has never been a strong hitter, is really going to start to look ugly if he loses even more of his hitting skill. It’s not surprising that a 40 year old baseball player would see some slip in his hitting skills.

If you look at Omar’s batted ball chart from First Inning, you can see that he’s hitting a lot of balls into the air. Most of them going to CF but he’s also hitting a lot of balls on the ground.

I would hazard a guess that the reason that his average is so high on flyballs is that defenders are playing him really shallow because of his lack of power and he’s occasionally poking them over their heads, especially in center field. What’s really hurting Omar is when he hits the ball on the ground. He hit 21.9% of his batted balls to the right side of the infield, on these balls he’s only hitting .200. He’s also hitting 19.2% of his batted balls on the ground to the left side of the infield, on these batted balls he’s hitting a little better at .261, probably because the throw is longer from the left side of the diamond to first base and he can use his speed a little better. For his age Omar still runs pretty well, not great but well.

Looking at how well Omar faired against the different types of pitchers (power vs finesse) might be able to clue us in on his hitting problems. I’m using Baseball Reference’s definitions of power and finesse pitchers, qualified as:

Power pitchers strike out or walk more than 28% of batters faced, Finesse pitchers strike out or walks less than 24% of batters faced. Stats are based on the three years before and after (when available), and the season for when the split is computed. A split in 1994 would consider years 1991-1997.

In 2007 versus power pitchers, Omar hit (.221/.273/.275) in 165 PA’s. Against Finesse pitchers, he hit (.291/.360/.381) in 257 PA’s. Omar just didn’t have the same luck against the hard-throwers as he did against the soft-tossers. This information supports the argument for his decline in hitting ability. Simply put, it’s easier to hit an 85mph fastball than it is a 95mph fastball. In his career Omar has hit both power pitchers and finesse pitchers about the same, so his 2007 is out of whack for what he’s done historically. In his 2 previous years with the Giants, he hit (.302/.366/.356) in ’06 and (.292/.349/.350) in ’05 against power pitchers. Omar has been playing with a certain fountain of youth essence for his whole career, but at age 40 it looks like his hitting ability has slipped. He’s human after all.

Defensively, Omar is still an elite defender by most metrics. The 2007 fielding bible rates him as the 3rd best short stop in the game with a score of +20 only behind Troy Tulowitzki (+35) and John McDonald (+26). If the fielding bible isn’t your thing, he rated as the best shortstop in the NL by The Hardball Times’ revised zone rating and was 10th in OOZ, or outs made outside of a defenders zone. Omar’s OOZ score makes me think that while he doesn’t have the same range of his earlier days, his positioning and ability to field the ball are still fantastic. He wont’ be a liability with the glove.

A couple of months ago I wrote about the impending shortstop issue that the Giants would have to deal with. My conclusion was lukewarm and filled to the brim with “meh”, there wasn’t going to be anything on the free agent market (unless you’ve got some weird infatuation with David Eckstein, and if so, eww) and the Giants in-house options were a bare cupboard, cobwebs and all. Barring any trades (I feel like this is the slogan of the ’07/’08 offseason) there just wasn’t any real options that the Giants could take outside of Omar. He’s reliable, old, and declining with the bat but he can still play great defense. With Brian Sabean’s new motto firmly ingrained into all of our brains (Speed and Defense, Speed and Defense, if you say it three times fast while looking into a mirror Johnnie LeMaster will appear) Omar Vizquel seemed like a certainty.

I’m not crazy about the $1.5M raise for a player who was the worst hitter in the National League last year but on the bright side Sabes didn’t ink Vizquel for more than 1-year. Vizquel will most likely continue to not hit the ball and play good to amazing defense on occasion for the ’08 Giants. There’s a chance that he could bounce back some (maybe add 20 points back to his BABIP) but to expect a 41 year old man to slam the brakes on the aging process is a bit much to ask, even if it is the youthful Vizquel.

Conclusion? Meh.

—

Update:

From Rotoworld

Omar Vizquel’s soon-to-be-finalized contract with the Giants will be worth $5.5 million and include a vesting option for 2009.

The option, which becomes guaranteed if he plays in 140 games, is worth $5.2 million. The 40-year-old Vizquel will be getting a raise from the $4 million he made last season even though he was as bad of a hitter as there was in the NL. When the Giants say they don’t have the money to pursue Alex Rodriguez, it’s because of decisions like this.

…

A vesting option for $5.2M? Very funny Brian, now let’s see the real contract… Vizquel has remained healthy for his career and can almost certainly play 140 games next year.

Seriously, what are you doing? I didn’t mind the deal when it was based on 1-year but a potential 2-years for Vizquel seems like a poor choice. Old habits are hard to break.