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Choo returns: How do you line them up?
With left handed reliever Andrew Faulkner being optioned back to AAA Round Rock, the Rangers have opened up a spot for Shin-Soo Choo’s return from the disabled list. Choo’s stint on the disabled list, which started on April 9 for a strained right calf, opened the door for Nomar Mazara to get his first taste of the big leagues, adding a dynamic new bat to the Rangers arsenal.
So, now that Choo is expected to be back tonight, what changes can we expect in the lineup?
The first thought is that Choo will probably slot back into right field, with Mazara shifting to left, and Desmond remaining in center, providing the Rangers with their stoutest hitting outfield in the last few seasons. It seems as if the Rangers have always had at least one light hitting outfielder in recent memory, with more left fielders than Spinal Tap drummers last season (for real, Mike Napoli: left fielder?), and previous outfielders such as the streaky (yet beloved) David Murphy, constantly bunting Leonys Martin, Julio Borbon, and quick as a kitten Craig Gentry.
This trio provides an outfield without any offensive holes, but how do they fit into the batting lineup?
We have to assume that Choo slots back into the leadoff role, shifting Odor to the 2-hole. In an incredibly small sample size of five games before his injury, Choo was only hitting .188, but sported an OBP of .409, walking four times and being hit by two pitches. Choo getting on base was the catalyst to last year’s offensive turnaround, and you have to like the idea of him constantly getting on base in front of the big bats.
So with Choo at leadoff and Odor hitting second, where do we go from there?
One lineup (although unlikely) pitched by Jared Sandler from the Rangers radio pre and post-game shows goes as follows:
- Choo
- Odor
- Beltre
- Mazara
- Desmond
- Moreland
- Andrus
- Fielder
- Catcher du jour
Wow; that lineup has some pop and balance. I don’t see Banny being to the point where he is ready to have the world’s most expensive 8-hole hitter, but this is not a bad proposal.
Here is my proposed best lineup:
- Choo
- Odor
- Desmond
- Beltre
- Mazara
- Moreland (vs RHP)/Rua (vs LHP)
- Fielder
- Andrus
- Catcher
This doesn’t have as much L/R alternating balance, but I think it puts people in the right spot to perform their best duties. I would also like to see Choo get some days at DH to give Prince some days off and to minimize stress on Shin-Soo, with Rua getting the start in left and Mazara shifting back to right.
Readers: What do you think the best lineup is after the return Choo? Add your thoughts to the comments section.
Some Changes at One Strike Away
As a somewhat well-known blog in the Rangers universe, this is something I feel like I need to put up, if for no other reason than to get the truth out there.
Some changes are currently underway at One Strike Away; more specifically, Eric Reining will no longer be writing for the site.
In recent months, some of you may have noticed a person in the comments section that went by the name “Dubya”. Oftentimes, Dubya was contentious and had pretty scathing things to say about not only my published articles, but the articles of other writers on the site.
It went as far as even blasting one author for the format and length on a post. I dismissed it as a normal Internet troll. It happens, especially when you’re getting linked by ESPN several times a week. There’s always bound to be that fan that thinks either sabermetrics are stupid, that you’re insulting their favorite player, whatever it may be. That’s not what this was.
So in recent weeks, Dubya ramped up the criticism. In a post about throwing some mostly non-serious trade ideas out for fun, there was this: “Embarrassing article. Just stop with the trades. Just stop.”
In a piece talking about the brawl on Sunday, Dubya went on to call me petulant, as well as add this little tidbit: “You sound like all of the local DFW media that people can’t stand.”
Tuesday night, I posted up a GIF of Adrian Beltre quite clearly looking unhappy with his job. It’s a look Beltre has been known to give players such as Elvis from time to time, so I never took it as Adrian “making a statement”. Just that he wasn’t happy. Dubya railed and said the post needed to be removed.
Finally, Wednesday morning, I had a piece up on the bullpen. In it, I made a comment about small sample sizes and trying not to overreact. To which this comment was posted: “‘So while I’m all for not overreacting to small sample sizes…’ This is rich coming from you. It’s such a long season. Don’t you ever get tired of overreacting?”
I got a bit curious. I wanted to see if maybe it was a fan from another area just attempted to troll anything that was posted. As such, I loaded up my Disqus comment moderation panel, and found “Dubya” on the list. Right there, I could see the IP address and email address associated with the commenter account. The account was registered to none other than Eric Reining, one of the writers of One Strike Away.
So, rather than express displeasure personally — and all while texting at least on a weekly basis — we had a writer decide to create a “fake” account with which to trash the site and all other contributors.
Upon confronting him with what I had discovered, I never received a response. Maybe part of me didn’t expect one, but it seems as if it would have been the adult thing to do. However, another contributor and moderator, my cousin, sent him an email letting him know what had been discovered. The response? “You got me! Ah, man, what ever am I supposed to do now that I can’t write on a child’s blog anymore?”
I suppose I feel a bit bamboozled. Although he had previously written for Nolan Writin’, and had a less than private — as well as contentious — departure from that site, Eric’s writing was something I wanted to see on One Strike Away. And it was fantastic while it lasted. I have no idea what happened to create so much disaccord, and it saddens me that we won’t be getting his articles here anymore.
However, I just didn’t see any other way of solving this. As always, thank you to all of you that do read. Although you may not always agree with the viewpoints presented here, your input and opinions are very valuable, and we do work very hard to put out quality content on a regular basis, win or lose.
Simple Trend Analysis Part One: The Offense
Who wants to do some trend line analysis? Don’t lie to me; no one wants to do trend line analysis. Unfortunately, I’ve already created the charts, so you get to look at them.
Trend line analysis can be useful for some things, less useful for others. What we’re hoping to see here is evidence for quality play, or maybe justification for the ‘eye tests’ we make every game. We also looking at how Small Sample Size can really skew numbers. Note that the very last number in the chart is the season number. This will skew the line a bit, but it skews it toward the season-long calculation. This provides a comparison between the trend line and the overall production.
For lack of a better way to organize, I’ll present these in alphabetical order.
After an incredibly hot start, Beltre suffered a slump three weeks in, which dragged him down to “average” status before some recent upticks. The explosive bat is on display, but he’ll have to avoid the slumps or extend the streaks to maintain a wRC+ well above average. Because it’s Beltre, the almost flat trend line isn’t as concerning as the line being centered around “100”, rather than “115”, “125”, or “135”.
Grand slams can only do so much, and Wilson’s trend line is representative of most catchers: he hits home runs and not much else. Still, the trend appears to be headed toward stabilizing at “100”, which is pretty good for replacement catchers.
Another familiar stable, jagged pattern. Holaday seems to be more consistent than Wilson with the bat; so if all other metrics are reasonably consistent, we might see Holaday behind the plate a bit more. I wouldn’t put money on it or anything, though.
I included Delino so we could see if he was doing as bad as the eye test said he was. And the stats, to be fair. You can see that trend line heading toward zero. You can see the extended streaks of games at -100 (-100 means “zero”, BTW).
How important are walk-off home runs?
This important. The top chart has “the Home Run”. The bottom chart excludes it.
Elvis. I think this confirms the eye test. He’s fallen off, but he isn’t performing terribly. I wouldn’t be surprised if his production stabilizes just under “100”. That would probably be “good Elvis”.
Wow. Ian Desmond is for real. He is performing consistently, at a high level, and over an extended period of time.
Mitch is producing around league average right now. And unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of boom in his bat.
Yes, Nomar is trending down to league average. That’s mostly because of the hot start, but he’s had more games recently where he isn’t being productive with the bat. Fairly consistent with the arrival of a new hitter; there is, as they say, “a book” on him now.
I hate to say it, but for all of the people talking about Fielder showing signs of life with the bat…no he’s not.
Despite the recent slump, Rougie is still trending up.
Rua needs to do more than he has. I’m worried that his production since he became the full-time left fielder has actually dropped, but that’s only a few games worth of data. He was far more valuable off the bench than Hanser, who’s value as a bench bat has been very negative.
Texas lost one of it’s two biggest producers with Rougie’s suspension, and Adrian and Elvis are slumping. This is putting the weight of the offense on the rest of the team, which is for the most part producing right around league average. Other than Fielder, the Rangers don’t have a lot of “ouch” in the lineup, but they have way to much “meh”. Thankfully, the trends behind Rua, Wilson and Holaday are indicating at least the possibility of greater production at the bottom of the order. Mazara stabilizing his minor slide would help a lot, too; he provides the most stable presence at the top of the order while Choo is gone.
Coming soon: we’ll look at the rotation and the bullpen.
The Rangers Are 16-14
That was a really fun game to watch.
- First, the man of the hour. Cole Hamels was fantastic in the series-opener in Detroit. He tossed 7 scoreless innings while allowing only a hit and 2 walks. And if we’re being honest, the hit was a weak blooper from Ian Kinsler to lead off the game. One of the walks shouldn’t have been as a middle-middle strike was called ball four to Miguel Cabrera. All in all, Cole Hamels looked fantastic, amassing a game score of 82, and it could have been even higher.
- Speaking of the strike zone. It was… weird. There was the walk to Cabrera on a pitch that should have been called a strike, and the half-inning before that, Mitch Moreland watched what was presumably ball four off the inside edge of the plate. However, as Moreland went to lay down his bat and remove his ankle guard, the late strike three call came, and that was that. On a day in which the Boston Red Sox got the bad end of a strike call, it was a rough day for umpires across baseball as far as balls and strikes are concerned.
- Rougned Odor had himself a day. Along with a home run, he also had a single and a double, driving in 3 runs. Sometimes, I miss Ian Kinsler, but seeing Odor go out and play every day softens that blow a bit.
- Ian Desmond and Elvis Andrus has solid days as well, Desmond with two doubles and Andrus with a double and a single. If I told you three weeks ago that both players would have a higher OPS than Prince Fielder, you’d probably have had me institutionalized. But it’s true, with Desmond at .701 and Andrus at .757. Fielder, unfortunately, is at .556.
- Speaking of Fielder, it seems like every day, the broadcast team talks about how perhaps THIS is the day he breaks out of his “slump”. Unfortunately, it appears that the book of Fielder has changed. There was a three-pitch stretch during an at-bat in this game — I can’t recall what inning — in which Fielder was offered fastballs up above the zone near eye level. In his heyday, these are pitches Fielder once laid off of, but he swung at all three, of course failing to do anything with them. There is little to no plate discipline left in Prince’s game, and when he is making contact, there isn’t much pop behind it. This isn’t the sign of a slumping hitter. It’s the sign of a hitter that doesn’t have his bat speed anymore.
- For all the talk about Jeff Banister not assigning “designated roles” to the bullpen, that seemingly went out the window once the season started. In the top of the 9th inning, Texas plated two insurance runs to give them a 5-0 lead. Shawn Tolleson, who had been warming to pitch the bottom of the 9th, was sat down, and instead, Sam Dyson was warmed and brought into the game. So, there aren’t set roles, but Tolleson won’t pitch in non-save situations, instead opting to use arguably the team’s best reliever in a 5-run game. Got it.
- Although Sam Dyson was charged with an earned run in the 9th inning, that run likely wouldn’t have scored if Elvis Andrus hadn’t misplayed a ball up the middle. It appeared to be one of those plays we’ve come to expect from Elvis from time to time where he simply lost focus and tried to mindlessly finish the play without securing the ball. It didn’t end up being a huge deal, but nonetheless, Sam Dyson pitched well to preserve a 5-1 Texas win and snap a 3-game losing streak.
- Day game up next on Saturday, with A.J. Griffin taking the mound against Mike Pelfrey and the Tigers at 12:10 PM.