Loading ...In last night’s game recap, I noted that our shortstop’s feet look like they’re stuck in cement. In response, some commenters urged patience with Alex Gonzalez. After all, he hasn’t played much in a year and a half.
That’s a reasonable request, I concede. However, I disagree…in part, and I wanted to expand on my comments in that thread. There are two aspects to my argument here:
OFFENSE
With respect to his bat, I agree that it we should be a bit patient with him. His bat is going to come around eventually, and you don’t bury someone just because of a bad week at the plate.
Of course, you have to remember that he’s never been a very good hitter anyway. What’s his bat going to return to? He was, frankly, a bad hitter before coming to Cincinnati, with three straight decidedly below-average seasons at the plate (Gonzo has never had an above-average year at bat). He’s 32 now, and he hasn’t played in a year and a half. Why should anyone expect that he’ll be anywhere close to average with the bat at this point?
But he’s clearly not going to hit .143 for the rest of the season. In fact, if his main competition is Paul Janish, there’s a better-than-even chance that he would end up out-producing Janish, even if slightly, over a full year.
DEFENSE
Defensively, I disagree totally with calls for patience. First of all, his defense has been just bad so far. Gonzo really doesn’t have any range any longer. Heck, Gonzalez’s range had been in a fairly steep decline over the three years before the injury.
Now we have a 32 year old shortstop, coming off a knee injury, who hasn’t played in a year and a half, and whose range had been declining steadily already. There is a good argument that his range before the injury was worse than Jeff Keppinger’s defense last year.
This year, after all we’ve mentioned above, his RF/9 (range factor per 9 innings) is by far the worst of his career.
Now, as we constantly do here at RN, I must urge everyone to realize that we are talking about a small sample size. However, the stats do bear out what we’ve been seeing with our eyes: that Gonzo hasn’t moved very well laterally this season.
Case in point: that ball he dove for yesterday would have been fielded cleanly by Janish. And it was Jason Kendall running, not some speed demon, yet Gonzo was barely able to throw him out. As Chris noted in the game thread, “(e)ither the ball was slowly hit, in which getting to it (should have been) no big deal; or it was hard-hit, in which the play was closer than it it should’ve been. (The truth is somewhere in the middle).” Either way, Gonzo doesn’t look good in the analysis, Thom Brennaman’s praise notwithstanding.
No, I don’t want to wait for the defense to return. If he’s healthy, it should already have returned. If he isn’t healthy, and that’s the explanation for all this (and that’s a possibility, since the guy could barely play 9 full innings this spring), then send him on a rehab assignment until he’s right.
But if he is healthy, then I think this is what we have to expect from him. Below-average defense and, even at his best, below-average hitting.
I don’t like Janish much, but he could give us the below-average hitting and combine it with above average-defense, methinks.
Wow Chad. I agree 100%. If you aren’t able to do the things you need to do, you are hurting the team. The team can’t fall 10 games below .500 hoping Gonzo gets right. Here’s the conversation I think should happen:
Dusty – How you feeling?
Gonzo – I feel real good. Nothing stiff or sore. I feel a little rusty but my health is 100%.
Dusty – I think what I’m hearing is you have some pain in your knee?
Gonzo – No. No pain. I feel great. I can’t wait to get back out there.
Dusty – So, this pain is it all the time or just when you move laterally?
Gonzo – Seriously skip, there’s no pain… ever.
Dusty – Well I think based on the fact you are experiencing some pain when you move laterally, we are going to place you on the 15 day DL and let you have some rehab assignments in Louisville.
Gonzo – Do I get any say?
Dusty – Nope.
Gonzo – See you in June.
Then bring up Castillo, Valaika or Rosales to platoon with Janish at SS until June. The defense won’t be worse and through one week the offense won’t be worse either.
I don’t see what the problem is with sending Gonzo down to AAA to figure out his batting woes and playing Janish for a couple weeks. That is unless Gonzo doesn’t have options, which is a definite possibility. Even without options, I would rather see Janish in there hitting at a .250 clip and not losing much (if anything) on the defensive side than having Gonzo out there hitting .053 and having your aforementioned defensive abilities. It’s a lot easier to hide a .250 bat than it is an .053. Truthfully, I feel the same way about Hernandez and Hanigan. But that’s just not going to happen.
Now, as we constantly do here at RN, I must urge everyone to realize that we are talking about a small sample size. However, the stats do bear out what we’ve been seeing with our eyes: that Gonzo hasn’t moved very well laterally this season.
Defensively, the stats don’t bear anything out. Having 6 days of defensive data is the equivalent of 2 games of offensive data. You would never make such claims based on 2 days of offensive data. Heck, you should never make those claims on 6 games of offensive data.
I agree that Janish is probably a better option at SS than Gonzalez, but don’t use 2009 stats to make that argument. They are meaningless when it comes to projecting future performance.
Yeah, I’ve been saying this a lot in the offseason. Back in February, I actually didn’t expect Gonzalez to play much this year, especially to make the team out of the gate. I wasn’t impressed with his defense in 2007, and I thought his ‘07 offensive numbers were flukish.
How can anyone expect after a year+ layoff that he would revert to his mid-20’s defense + match his career years offensively?
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, Joel, and that’s why I made the explicit point that it’s a small sample size. My point was that my eyes are telling me the guy can’t move, and the stats (whether they’re valid or not) don’t disagree with what I’ve seen.
Still doesn’t change the fact that this guy was on a decline defensively before the (serious) injury, and expecting him to be good defensively after all that is just silly, IMO. I predict that his career as an effective defensive SS is over.
My bigger point, that I didn’t make explicit, is that even beyond the stats, I have a hard time judging a players ability based on a week’s worth of games. Defense can slump just like hitting and pitching, and just as it’s too early to declare a bad season for Jay Bruce because he looks awful at the plate right now, I’d say the same kind of leeway should be given to Gonzalez before we declare his abilities to be deceased.
FWIW, I really dislike range factor and would much rather use a play-by-play metric to rate a player’s defense. UZR rated Gonzalez as a solid shortstop in 2007 and his rolling 3-year averages were fairly consistent to that point. His RZR at The Hardball Times was consistently good prior to his injury. Overall, he rated well when you look at his actual opportunities instead of the estimated opportunities that is built into RF.
Now I agree with the sentiment that he should probably be sent to Triple-A. Even if he’s healthy, I don’t think he’s in “playing shape.” After missing a year of playing time, I wouldn’t guess that a player can pick right up where they left off, especially with leg injuries. But I also don’t believe that we know anything about what kind of a shortstop Gonzalez can be. And while I don’t think there is any way that he can match Janish’s level of defense, I also don’t have any confidence that Janish is capable of providing the minute level of offense that Gonzalez will likely provide.
Joel is correct. Observations are OK but using the stats are misleading and worthless at this point.
Am I missing something here or is the team 4 and 4, 3 and 2 within the division?
Sending him to the minors is not an option, he would need to clear waivers. There does need to be patience. This isn’t like the Friday night co-ed softball beer league. You take a year off at the big league level and it is probably going to take a month or better to get it back.
If he still struggles May 15 then this discussion might be reasonable. If you are still a game over .500 on May 15 then maybe you continue to let it ride.
Is he ever going to be 28 again, no way. Bit can a 32 year old Gonzalez playing to his potential bring more to the table than a rookie Janish, absolutely.
I think Gonzalez would clear waivers with no problem.
I think the common sentiment is that, whether or not Gonzo is ever going to be any good again, he ain’t right now, and needs to be sent down to work on it. If it doesn’t work out, move on, and if it does, he isn’t a liability in the meantime.
After reading up on range factor, it seems to me it’s more a product of every other guy in the game than the guy you’re talking about. If you have a fly ball pitcher, play against a lot of lefties, get a lot of strikeouts, your SS isn’t going to get any work.
Gonzalez has already made about half a dozen plays in eight games that Keppinger never comes close to sniffing, including 2-3 double play turns that were tremendous. Gonzalez has long been known for positioning. There was a liner in the hole he snared in the second game of the Mets series because he had drifted to the slot on the pitch location. There was a skidding stop up the middle on a sure hit that he turned into an out against the Pirates.
So, frankly, I have no idea what shortstop some fans are watching. Or maybe you’re just eyeballing the erratic and often-flawed defensive measures to tell you something your eyes and acumen are failing to do.
Janish should be the everyday SS until Gonzalez proves he is the better SS.
bring on Valaika!!!
Gonzalez has never been good at the plate so his struggles are there are not surprising. His defense ability seems to be more talk than show to me as far as since he has been with the Reds. He is about that age where some players just fall off the cliff. Honestly, I think Janish is far better defenively and slightly worse offensively. Rosales would be a huge upgrade offensively but a downgrade defensively.
This whole notion of thinking Gonzo was the answer coming into the season has been far fetched for anybody who has looked at his stats/trends over the past few years.
My opinion: Gonzo is washed up, worthy of a bench spot only if he is really that good of an influence on EE, otherwise he should be gone. Janish or Rosales should be starting.
I’m hesitant to use observations to judge a players defense. For example, you have no idea if Janish would have gotten to that ball or not, or if he would have thrown out Kendall or not. You might think that, but you really can’t say with anything certainty.
I also agree with Mark in CC that Gonzalez has a greater potential worth to our team than Janish, especially on offense.
I think people are getting a little too caught up in an early season slump.
I don’t think it’s just an early season slump that is driving these comments. A lot of folks here have been for another SS solution before the season (and before spring training) even started.
I agree w/ Mr. Redlegs. His in-game defensive work has been just fine, the botched DP notwithstanding. In order to take the job of a veteran, Janish needs to be so good he can’t be ignored. That’s how this works. So far, he hasn’t shown it. Any rational manager will stick with the veteran and rightly so. You could make the exact same argument about Hernandez/Hanigan, but we don’t hear a peep about that. Give it time, it will sort itself out.
blazers, I’m a big Valaika fan, but he has looked terrible at the plate so far in Louisville. Rosales, however, is tearing it up.
Is there any chance that those who have called for a SS change since before the season are already biased against Gonzo? I know I was frustrated he hasn’t played since ‘07 with the contract he got. People got frustrated with Griffey when he wasn’t playing due to his injuries. For now, I’m inclined to agree with Mark in CC. This is probably a .500 or just above team if things go well. Changing out Gonzo for Janish isn’t going to move things one way or the other unless Gonzo really continues to struggle.