UPDATE 12:00 p.m.: Another reader points out another error on my part, mainly me making the mistake of looking at Aybar's small sample size from this year and not at his career numbers. Once again, fixed. In this case the analysis on Blalock remains more or less unchanged.
UPDATE 5/17 10:00 a.m.: Rafi pointed out in the comments that I totally messed the original post up, and he's absolutely right. The splits in AAA are completely backwards this year and I goofed as a result. I apologize to my readers for the error and the post below is the correct analysis
Hank Blalock was promoted to the majors yesterday, and rafi wants my two cents.
A once promising slugger with the Texas Rangers, John Sickels at one point compared Blalock to George Brett. That obviously didn't work out; Blalock never cracked a 900 OPS with the Rangers, and while he put up some very, very good seasons, had faded badly in the last few years due to injury and weak numbers against LHP. The Rangers finally cut bait and the market for Blalock last winter dried up. He wound up signing a minor league deal with the Rays with a deadline to be called up or thrown back into the MLB free agent pool.
The Rays decided to give him the call.
At a glance, Blalock sure looks like he turned it around at AAA Durham. His 910 OPS was 11th best in the circuit, and while 4 HR in 109 AB doesn't scream dominance, a .349 batting average did.
The thing I don't know what to make heads or tails of are Blalock's minor league LHP/RHP splits. Blalock mashed against lefties and had "only" a 780 OPS against RHP, which would be acceptable on the Major League level. The MLE of this split, though, was a paltry 691 OPS.
I think the hope is that Blalock is going to play mostly against righties at DH and Willy Aybar will play against lefties. That's the most likely scenario. Aybar has a 800+ OPS against LHP in his career (beware the part-time, small sample size though). Blalock certainly has some value based on his power, but I'd bid fairly conservatively on what I think will be a platoon player, regardless of who he winds up platooning with.
4 comments:
I think you have this backwards. I don't know about his one month sample size of lefty-righty minor league splits. But based on years in the majors, Blalock has always hit righties much better. He's the better half of the DH platoon - and as we saw yesterday when he played 1b in place of Pena vs Lee, he may face some lefties as well.
Hi rafi.
Thanks for catching this. I have updated the post and made reference to the original error. I appreciate your feedback.
Career numbers, FYI:
Blalock v. R 847, v. L 656
Aybar v. R 735 v. L 812
Also, maybe Rodriguez is in competition with Aybar for the other side of the platoon?
Again, good catch Davey. Thanks.
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