Monday Rockpile: Can The Rockies Survive Michael Cuddyer in RF?

all of those Tulo vs Hanely arguments that used to be debated? Sounds pretty ridiculous in hindsight, and I imagine it’ll sound insane five to ten years from now.

The positive is that it has begun a hatred of the D-Baqs for me

… one-year UZR stats are generally discredited even more than UZR in general is looked askance upon.

and while his defensive range may be awful in general, he did have an unexpected UZR spike (all the way up to slightly-below-average, all right) last season

I haven’t seen Cuddyer in many games, but by all accounts he fails the eye test in RF, despite the plus arm. The Rox probably have had worese defense in RF in Hawpe, but if you look at Cuddy’s UZR/150 (the “preferred” metric for normalizing playing time) for 2009 & 2010 (-13.7 & -20.6 respectively), so considering 2009-11 you have to figure Cuddyer is worth approximately -11 runs in RF (and that is before accounting for how UZR hates Coors field defenders), giving back at least half if not most of the runs he earns with the bat (projected 21.2 wRAA -ZiPS; 12.2 wRAA – Rotochamp; 15.4 wRAA James).

I know, I know … UZR SHMUZR … but we better hope DoD has it right and all the balls hit in the air to RF are of the “soft” (but not too soft!) variety.

Hi guys,

I want a baseball mitt for my birthday, and my gf has asked me to do some research. I want a decent all-round glove (I don’t play a position, for example) with good flexibility. I also need to know what the deal is with sizing – I have pretty small hands for a 6 foot bloke.

Oh, and it would be ideal if the recommended glove can be bought in the UK rather than imported :)

Any thoughts?

Over on FanGraphs:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/comps-for-ryan-zimmermans-extension/

DC uses six comps to evaluate the extension and concludes:

Bottom line – the Nationals paid a pretty fair price for a good player who should be able to help them contend while guys like Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper are coming into the primes. This isn’t the kind of deal that will save the team a lot of money, but it keeps a quality player in the fold at a rate that isn’t likely to be a total disaster. There’s risk with any long term extension, and this one could turn out poorly if Zimmerman’s injury issues linger, but this is a valuable skillset and a healthy Zimmerman should earn the money over the life of the deal.

and then on the road swap positions?

since when?

if Cuddyer is to be another Hawpe in RF, at least Rockies fans can take solace in an offensive juxtoposition between the two. One thing that always drove me nuts about Hawpe was his lack of patience at the plate. In his 5 most productive seasons for the Rockies, Hawpe averaged 121.8 SO/season, whereas Cuddyer has avaeraged 108.6 in his 5 most productive seasons, and had fewer than 100 SO in his last two seasons.

that defense was secondary to offense when talking about Scaturo, Now why should I worry about Cuddyer’s below average defense?

I heard there was a murder there once.

and it the happiest I’ve ever been to spend 120 bucks. Now let’s hope the free At-Bat 12 app works on my Droid!

A bit off topic, but does anyone else know any Cardinals fans who have completely turned their backs on Pujols?

I understand he went after the $$$, but this guy I know claims Beltran can replace him and the Cardinals will be better with Wainwright coming back. He refuses to call Pujols by name and fills his Twitter account with Pujols hate.

He was shocked yesterday when I showed him the Cardinals were predicted by Vegas behind the Reds and the Brewers in the division.

Also, I’m sick of the 12in12 nonsense.

End rant. :)

@JGuthrie46 Day 8 Diary:Threw live BP to hitters. After I was done a super fan came over to dugout & told me how to elevate my pitches.

We already have a plus defender in left field, which helps raise our outfield overall. At some point you have to give up defense to score some runs and right field seems about the best place on the field to do it.

Check out the graph “Fly Balls and Line Drives by Direction” at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/confessions-of-a-dips-apostate/ and you’ll see why. (I really wish we had pitchFx-quality data on batted-ball speed and direction, but until we have it defensive metrics will be useless and this sort of thing is about the best we can do.) There’s a pretty steep peak in both left and right field. Dex helps fill in a lot of the right-center area, meaning the only balls that are the difference between a great-fielding right fielder and a properly-positioned sub-par right fielder are on that very steep rightmost edge. Some percentage of those wont be caught that would be if we had a CarGo clone playing in right. Some percentage of assists wont be made, but how many assists does the best right fielder get in a year?

None of this is to devalue defense overall, but baseball is a game of balance and I think it’s likely that Cuddyer more than makes up for what’s lost in his defense at the plate.

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports predicts that Bryce Harper will be with the Nationals early in the season, but not before April 25th. He notes that the outfielder must spend at least 20 days in the minors to delay his free agency by a year.

I don’t know the specifics, but would this also apply to Arenado? I imagine it would and if it does, I definitely think there’s less reason to start him at the ML level in 2012…

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/27/10519504-new-york-yankees-baseball-players-pose-for-media-day

Now if it was the Dodgers I could understand

Moneyball struck out at the Oscars last night, sorry Oakland fans that was your last chance at winning something this year.

“Chicks who dig home runs aren’t the ones who appeal to me. I think there’s sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I’d rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.” ~Ichiro Suzuki New York Times (August 22, 2009)

I’m sure it’s been referenced somewhere on the Row, but Moscoso learned the cutter!

http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_20051414