The 5.5 Hole

Prince Fielder confirmed Wednesday night that this year would likely be his last with Milwaukee.  It seems that no matter how much of a bump in payroll the Brewers see next year after this powerful run they've had in 2011 will not be enough to re-sign Fielder in 2012.  Fielder will command lucrative offers from multiple sources such as the Cubs, Cardinals (if Pujols doesn't resign), the Yankees (mostly for DH duty), and the Angels.  So, the Brewers will be left with a gaping hole in their offense.

With the Brewers firmly in control of first place and the play-offs on the horizon, some may say it's too early to examine potential replacements at first base.  But I say, the sooner the better.  After Joey Votto, Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, and Mark Teixeira there is a severe drop-off in offensive talent at first base. Let's look at what's out there, realistic or not:

Lance Berkman:
Currently not classified as a first baseman, Berkman looks to have many potential offers in the off-season including those from the Cardinals.  If the Cardinals can't resign Pujols, Berkman would be the logical, in-house, replacement.  Unfortunately for the Cardinals, they can't offer Berkman a contract extension with hopes of him playing first base until they know for sure they're going to lose Pujols.  This leaves a big opening for the Brewers.  Berkman is making $8 million this season and has posted one of his best years ever.  They will likely have to pay Berkman a little more to land him, or give him a multi-year deal. 

Berkman's triple slash is impressive, .290/.404/.551, and his wRC+ ranks among one of his career bests at 157.  His 4.1 WAR is only 0.3 less than Fielder's, so the Brewers wouldn't be losing much there. 

Carlos Pena:
As a major flop for the Chicago Cubs, Pena will likely have to take a large pay-cut in 2012.  The Brewers may be able to throw a multi-year deal his way and land him at a discount.  By no means should they sign Pena to a long-term deal, but a two or three year deal might be enticing enough for Pena to take $6 million a year or less.

He's not horrible on offense, but his 2.5 WAR this season is nothing to write home about.  He did post decent numbers with OBP (.358) and slugging (.472) and he can still club a home run or two (27), so the Brewers would not be making a huge mistake if they can sign him at a rate much lower than the Cubs did.

Outside of these two players, the production levels for players realistically available drops off the table.  The Brewers may have to look to the farm to replace Fielder:

Mat Gamel:
In 128 games at AAA this season, he hit .310/.372/.540 and clubbed 28 home runs.  His wOBP was .391.  Each of the previous four years, including this season, Gamel has been called up to get some Major League action.  He has performed relatively well in limited action.  Over the course of those four call-ups, he has had 194 plate appearances and carried a .222/.309/.374 triple-slash.  His WAR shows an exactly replacement level player (0.0), but with more time, he could develop into a player the Brewers can lock-up long-term. 

At league minimum, he may be worth a shot. 


These are three players out of many first basemen that the Brewers can pursue.  However, after Carlos Pena, there are only two first basemen who have posted a WAR above 2 this season.  Slim pickins for the Brewers this off-season.  But with early offers and smart offers, the Brewers may be able to land Berkman or Pena.  If not, they should give Gamel a look. 

I'll still talk about it. I'll still write about it. I'll even still use it to analyze players. But by itself, batting average is as close to useless a stat as you can get. On-base percentage shows everything batting average shows and more.

It's easy to look at a player with a batting average over .300 and think he's a good player. It's simple to just take that stat and assume that hitter can contribute. Yet, succeeding at the plate (success in this case means getting a hit) 30% of the time is impressive only if that player is also getting on base in other ways. Let's take a look at some of the league leaders in batting average verse some of the leaders in on-base percentage. Only players with at least 300 plate appearances will be considered.

Top 5 in batting average:

Adrian Gonzalez .345
Michael Young .336
Jose Reyes .336
Ryan Braun .334
Miguel Cabrera .328

Top 5 in OBP:

Jose Bautista .453
Joey Votto .438
Miguel Cabrera .432
Prince Fielder .409
Adrian Gonzalez .406

There's a bit of variation here, but we still see two of the same players we saw on the BA list. Let's break this down further.

The league average for BA and OBP are .255 and .320 respectively. There are currently 19 players who are at .255 or lower in batting average but higher than .320 in OBP. Conversely, there 14 players whose BA is at or above league average but have an OBP lower than league average.

Let's take this analysis deeper, to a specific player level. Prince Fielder is hitting .295, which is nothing to ignore and a very nice average. But it's only 15.7% higher than the league average. I'd be willing to bet a quick salary check reveals Fielder's pay to be more than 15.7% higher than league average, so hopefully he's contributing elsewhere. And he is. In home runs and OBP. His .409 OBP ranks him 27.8% better than league average.

Below are three other players whose BA's wouldn't suggest they are much more special than average but their OBP's do:

Lance Berkman: .289 BA (13.3% better than average)/.405 OBP (26.5% better than average)

Nick Swisher: .267 BA (4.7% better than average)/.383 OBP (19.7% better than average)

Kevin Youkalis: .266 BA (4.3% better than average)/.380 OBP (18.8% better than average)

Finally, there are more players with a higher than average OBP than there are players with a higher than average BA. There is quite a bit of talent out there being undervalued because of batting average alone.

Many articles have touched on BA vs. OBP, and it seems increasingly clear that batting average means far less than OBP. So as I continue to hypocritically analyze players based on batting average and be awed by players hitting for a high average, remember OBP means so much more.

After reading a CBS Sports article about the possibility of Lance Berkman retiring after the season is over, I got to thinking about his career.  I do not think he is a real Hall of Fame candidate, but where does he fit on the all-time list of switch-hitters?

Let's look at his standard career numbers first.  In 13 seasons he has hit .295/.408/.547 (average/on-base/slugging).  He has collected 355 home runs and 1,176 RBI's. And if those numbers weren't good enough for you, Berkman was an All-Star in 6 of his 13 seasons in the Big Leagues.

As an additional measure of Berkman's career, let's take a look at the advanced metrics.  Berkmans WAR is negatively affected by his below-average defense, but still comes in at 49.6 for his career.  His oWAR, which is exclusive of defense, puts him at 53.0. For his career, Berkman has accounted for 487 RAR (Runs Above Replacement - the number of runs a player has accounted for above a random replacement Triple-A player).  This equates to about a 0.08 RAR per at-bat.

To be fair, we'll compare Berkman against similar switch-hitters.  Rather than use players who hit for average, steal a lot of bases, or are prototypical lead-off men, we will look at power hitters.  But to make it more interesting, we'll only address the statistics and reveal the names of these players at the end.

Player A:
.297/.381./.477 - 287 home runs - 1,257 RBI's
47.3 WAR - 59.3 oWAR - 486 RAR - 0.06 RAR/AB

Player B:
.298/.421/.557 - 536 home runs - 1,509 RBI's
120.2 WAR - 122.1 oWAR - 1129 RAR - 0.14 RAR/AB

Player C:
.274/.360/.451 - 350 home runs - 1,372 RBI's
37.2 WAR - 39.3 oWAR - 366 RAR - 0.04 RAR/AB

Player D:
.287/.359/.476 - 504 home runs - 1,917 RBI's
66.7 WAR - 60.2 oWAR - 643 RAR - 0.06 RAR/AB

Player E:
.305/.403/.533 - 448 home runs - 1,547 RBI's
82.1 WAR - 84.1 oWAR - 811 RAR - 0.10 RAR/AB

Player F:
.287/.366/.489 - 314 home runs - 1,092 RBI's
63.4 WAR - 54.8 oWAR - 589 RAR - 0.08 RAR/AB

Based solely on the stats above, not name recognition, I'll rank these power hitting switch-hitters in order. 

1) Player B
2) Player E
3) Player D
4) Lance Berkman
5) Player A
6) Player F
7) Player C

Finally, let's reveal the company Lance Berkman keeps in his career as a switch-hitter with power.

1) Mickey Mantle
2) Chipper Jones
3) Eddie Murray
4) Lance Berkman
5) Bernie Williams
6) Reggie Smith
7) Chili Davis

There are obviously some great switch-hitters I left off the list.  Pete Rose is right up there with Mickey Mantle as the best all-time, and Roberto Alomar should make an appearance on any all-encompassing list, but this list was focused solely on power hitters.  With that requirement, you can see Lance Berkman has done very well for himself in his career.  Of the seven players I have him ranked with, two are in the Hall of Fame, one is a lock when he retires, and a couple are just on the outside looking in.

Again, I do not think Lance Berkman is a Hall of Famer, especially if he does in fact retire after this season (which I do not think he will, no matter what team he goes to). Yet, he is one of the best switch hitters of all-time. 

*All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference

If any of you have read my blog you know my first true article was about Albert Pujols and his production leading to higher expectations. I wrote in that post that I felt Pujols would hit and get a lot closer to the Pujols we all have come to rely on.

Well, he has. But the articles about Pujols' down season continue. If you're an ESPN Insider, you can read one article here. If not, you can catch an article here or here.

I'm all for advanced metrics. As many of you know, I utilize them often in my posts. However, there comes a point where common sense must take over. There comes a time to put down the calculators (or abacuses for our old school friends) and take a look at what Pujols has actually done this season rather than what he did last season. His numbers last season are arbitrary. They mean nothing to the Cardinals' season this year. They mean nothing to Pujols.

Pujols' batting average ranks him 27th in the National League out of 73 players. Not a mind-numbingly good position, but not a horrible one either. He ranks first in home runs and 7th in RBI's. Pujols is 10th in slugging percentage and 12th in OPS. The bottom line is this; Pujols isn't a bottom feeder, and he's not bringing down the Cardinals' season.

Now, I will breakout the mathematics again and breakdown what some of these numbers actually mean. Pujols is 18 RBI's short of the National League lead. He is 52 points short of the lead in batting average and 49 points short in slugging percentage. He is 104 points behind on OPS.

But in terms of actual production, what do those numbers mean?

With his current number of at-bats, Pujols needed 22 more hits to rank number one in batting average. That's 22 more line drives that aren't caught, 22 more bloops that find grass, or 22 more seeing-eye singles. There are any number of ways Pujols could have gotten those hits, but nevertheless he was 22 hits shy.

Pujols only needed 20 more total bases to be leading the N.L. in slugging percentage with his current number of at-bats. That equates to five more home runs, seven more triples, 10 more doubles, 20 more singles, or any combination in between.

The above two stats leads to OPS along with walks and hit by pitch.

It's easy to look at the numbers, compare them to seasons past and call this season a slump for Pujols, but when we are talking about 22 more hits or 20 more total bases, there's not much separation between the "Pujols of old" and the "Pujols of new."

While I understand his numbers are not on pace with his career average, he is still going to maintain his consecutive streak of years with 30+ home runs and 100+ RBI's.

Pujols might not be the best player on his team this year with Lance Berkman's numbers, but he's still the best player in the league. His mildly reduced performance this year is not the difference between first and second place.

Let's give Pujols a little more time before we all jump off the "decreased productivity" bridge.