Loading ...The Wee Willy Taveras era in Cincinnati is, mercifully, over. One of our loyal readers, however, pointed me to this post at FanGraphs that kinda sums up what we went through last year:
Willy Taveras is jobless. Not for too long, since the A’s will either lose him on waivers — not sure lose is the right word here — or he could find himself in Triple-A. His employment in limbo stems, in large part, because his on-base percentage was .275 last season. Here’s some food for thought. Zack Greinke was pretty much the best pitcher in the American League last season. Greinke’s on-base percentage against was .276. That means, Taveras got on base less against all pitchers faced than the rest of baseball did against the league’s best pitcher. …
It does surprise me that Taveras racked up nearly 400 plate appearances as the Reds’ leadoff man.
I guess there’s nothing like starting every game by facing Zack Greinke.
Heh.
(We can laugh about it now, right? Right?)
I’ll take solace in the fact that the 2009 Reds still wouldn’t have been a consider without Taveras.
Nonetheless, I’m elated that he’s finally gone. He was such a joke of a player, and unlike some of the terrible Reds of past lore, he showed no inclination of caring or wanting to improve.
On a side note, Taveras’ stats make me lose confidence in the UZR sabermetric. His UZR/150 last year was 14.1. There’s just no way.
Oops, I meant to say contender instead of consider.
why did the a’s trade for him and then designate him for assignment he is owed 4 million this year i wish i had that kind of money to just give away
Laugh about it? No…we can’t.
“It does surprise me that he racked up nearly 400 plate appearances as the Reds leadoff man.” After having endured the Corey Patterson experiment the year before, I wouldn’t say Reds fans were surprised by WTs number of plate appearances, but frustrated.
On another post I asked about the possibility of Dickerson and Stubbs playing in the outfield together but Stubbs in LF and CD in CF. Seems as though CD had some problems playing LF but was lights out in CF. That may be the only for Dusty to lead off with CD and yet play them at the same time. Defensively, Bruce, Dickerson, and Stubbs has got to be one of the best in baseball. Offensively, Dickerson’s obp, with Cabrera batting 2nd (he doesn’t mind giving himself up to move the runner along) seems to make more sense than Stubbs batting leadoff.
I’d rather see Stubbs and Dickerson at the top two spots in the lineup. Cabrera would be better off lower in the lineup where he could drive in some runs. You need your best OBP guys in the top two spots. Cabrera only had a .316 OBP last year.
But Baker doesn’t care too much about OBP. And neither does Jocketty, who was quoted this week, saying about Cabrera, “He makes up for it as a contact guy. He moves runners around, drives in runners and sometimes that’s as important or more than the on-base percentage.”
Ummm, that comment really bothers me. Baker will stubbornly play Cabrera in the two spot ahead of Votto, so instead of Cabrera getting 70 RBIs, he’ll get 50. And instead of Votto getting 120 RBI, he’ll get 90. All because Baker and Jocketty don’t think OBP is all that important,
Just remember WT. Over 400 bats in the leadoff role with a .275 OBP. He went 40 straight days in June and July without a walk. Coincidentally, that’s when the team tanked. We need guys on base for Votto. Cabrera should not be batting second. But you know he will.
I am a softy, and wonder what it is like to be savaged in the papers and on the blogs as you go out there doing your best every day. He just wasn’t good enough, but it wasn’t for lack of effort, and he had no control over where he was placed in the batting order.
I him well and hope his numbers improve. And I know that it is tough to bring down $3 million while collecting slivers. This was Jocketty’s blunder, but he did manage to dump the salary.
I think there was some question whether Willy gave his best everyday.
Not going to argue that he wasn’t good enough.
The questioin is, if everyone could see he wasn’t good enough, then why did the manager not notice it and continue to bat said player lead off?
@mcgee: What I was trying to get at was we know Dusty will bat CF 1st and SS 2nd. That having been said, I would rather have CD playing CF because his obp is higher than Stubbs. IF Cabrera is good at moving the runners along, now you hopefully have CD at 2nd or 3rd with Votto up instead of nobody on or a runner at 1st. If you walk Votto with 1 out and CD on 2nd or 3rd you have to face BP with 2 on and 1 out. I think it will give Votto more and better opportunities to drive in runs with CD leading off.
That whole thing last year where CD was awesome defensively in CF, but just terrible in LF was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. You’d think it would be the other way around.
He was so good in CF, I have to believe that he has the tools to translate that to LF defense. By all reports, he’s a hard worker. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s good out there in left this year.
@Chad Dotson: I agree it was wierd what happened in those games he played LF. I think it started in Chicago? Anyway, I would rather he bat leadoff. We all know the only way that happens if he plays CF. And that is a sad reality.
Taveras quit. Plain and simple. Worst body language I’ve ever seen a pro player display. It was disgraceful, and I think that’s what Brandon Phillips was referring to when he talked about some midseason incident that divided the clubhouse.
Also, I’ve seen in a number of places that Cabrera does a lot of the little things that don’t show up on the stat sheet (moving runners along, etc.), and his contributions have to be seen to be appreciated. Basically, he’s the opposite of Adam Dunn. I think we’ll be debating his merits all summer long. Can’t wait!
Yeah, If I was to feel sorry for someone, it would have been Patterson over Taveras. It always appeared that Corey gave his best. Can’t say the same of Willie. Don’t know how many times I watched him frozen at first. Someone with his speed and baserunning skills has to try to get into scoring position more often then what he did. It was his only positive attribute (I still don’t think he’s a plus fielder, his speed helped him not have more errors. He is a poor judge of ball position, and I pointed that out looong before he became a Red).
We watched Dickerson butcher plays in left during spring training games last year. I play softball and the ball does come at you different on the corners…but he’s a big leaguer, he should be able to fix that.
If he didn’t want to be criticized by the masses, then he shouldn’t have picked major leaguer as a profession.
I think and hope we’ll be pleasantly surprised about Cabrera. I’ve had a chance to watch him regularly with Boston and then again this past summer with the Twins. He’s an adequate hitter, and defensively, he’s not what he was, but hey, he won a Gold Glove only a couple of years ago. At the same time, he brings a little something ‘extra’ — I was about as excited when the Red Sox got him as I was when the Reds got Royce Clayton: ‘yawn, you give up THAT and get THIS?’ but he proved me wrong. He brought a kind of energy to that team that was lacking, he was happy to be there and a lot of fun to watch. He did the same last summer with the Twins, he really gave a kind of spark and personality they were lacking. It’s weird– you’ll never watch him and say ‘he’s a great player’ he just kind of does what he does, but he always does it and does it with enthusiasm that seems infectious. A lot of players, you have a feeling that though they have great peaks in a season, it always feels fragile– Pokey Reese was one of those, Phillips and Dunn too in their ways– you somehow knew that when they needed it most, he was going to strike out. Their end line is an aggregate of highs and lows. Cabrera is never super hot or super cold, like I say, he just does what he does, never seems great or awful and having that in the lineup every day is really reassuring. I think it stabilized both the Twins and Red Sox when he came over. Plus, as I say, he’s really just happy to be there, you get a sense that there’s no place on earth he’d rather be than playing baseball. I know it’s not very scientific to talk in such terms, but having played baseball for most of my life, good teams really need guys like that (the Twins used to be masterful at finding guys like that– their championship teams were full of them), guys you can literally ‘take for granted.’ The Reds really haven’t had anyone who is day to day steady like that in a long while. As I say, don’t expect him to be a world beater, ‘hot’ will be about .300, ‘cold’ about .250, and if he has lost a step, he gets in position well, makes good, accurate throws. I’m really glad they got him, and I think he’ll improve our collective mental health without us much noticing.
@Chris: Nice take on the situation.
Redleg Nation may suffer from PTSD (Post Taveras Stress Disorder) for some time to come.
This is something we discussed a lot in 2008. I really did feel sorry for Patterson.
At the beginning of that season, we all hammered Patterson for being so bad. At some point, however, a lot of us didn’t have the heart because it was clear that the guy was trying as hard as he could. It wasn’t Patterson’s fault that Dusty Baker kept running him out there to embarrass himself.
Taveras, on the other hand, was just lazy. He looked indifferent in the field, and his reaction to all the criticism was to just quit. Dusty Baker finally saw that when Taveras was injured late in the year and didn’t work at all to get himself back on the field. If you’ll recall, even Dusty was sick of him by that point.
Both terrible, both created way too many outs at the top of the order (thanks, Dusty)…but I will have a bit softer spot in my heart for Patterson. He tried to be a good Red. Taveras didn’t try nearly as hard.
Thank you. I think between he and Rolen our younger players will be very positively impacted. Even if neither one of them are around or able to contribute much in 2011, their impact may still be felt strongly and reflected in work ethics and attitudes. I didn’t agree with the Rolen signing, but once he was here I wholeheartedly supported the Cabrera one.
A guy you can take for granted? So he’s basically the position player equivalent of Bronson Arroyo, then.
I’ve read several comments now from people who’ve watched Cabrera play on a regular basis, and they all sound pretty much like this one. I’m genuinely looking forward to watching him play, and I’ll even keep an open mind with regard to “productive outs.” Maybe I’ll learn something.
You still need a left fielder. A veteran.
Dye?
@WORLD:
I have heard from multiple public sources that the Reds’ financial well is officially dry at this point and that they will be going to ST with the personnel they have now competing for LF (Frazier, Dickerson, Hesiey, Francisco?, and Balentien).
Well, if nothing else you can count on Marty Brennaman to be banging the drum for Cabrerra on this account.
I just looked at OC’s game splits from last year– by my count, his longest hitless streak was 3 games, while he had hitting streaks of 13, 22 and 15 (and that one’s active!), plus a bunch of 5-6 game mini-streaks. Like I say, seldom anything spectacular, 5-5, 6-6 anything like that, usually 1 or 2 hits a game, occasionally 3 or 4. Guys like Votto (who’s actually pretty consistent), Phillips, Bruce, I’m going to assume Stubbs may check out for a while, but when they get hot, they’re on fire. You add to that a guy who’s day to day going to get a hit (and even though from the perspective of on base, a hit is the same as a walk (and OC isn’t great there), when you’re actually playing, and especially against a good pitcher, when a guy gets a hit in front of you, emotionally, it’s a much bigger deal than a walk), there’s a potential for scoring runs on a day to day basis, which the Reds didn’t do at all last year. When you have a walk in front of you, it’s still hope, hope the pitcher is losing it, but you still don’t know, someone hits in front of you, I can’t explain it, you know rather than hope. If Dusty didn’t consistently put people who can’t hit OR get a walk in the 1-2 slots, I’d almost be willing thinking about this to defend his OBP comment from a player and team’s perspective. I wonder if or where the cutoff is with this– a guy like Dunn, who hit usually below .250 but with an OBP close to .400 at times, emotionally, how does that stack up with a guy who hits .275 with an OBP of .320, doesn’t really have much power, but gives you that hit or two day in and day out? We know about Fangraphs, I wonder what ‘Playergraphs’ would say about that? I’m too lazy to look it up, but I wonder, with the gaudy numbers of the Big Red Machine, or any other baseball dynasty, how many of those players were day in and day out consistent, just a tick above others to account for the gaudy numbers, where some get 1 hit, they get 2, but do it daily. We all know you can assemble teams of great players that don’t win, so by contrast, I wonder how many of those teams consist in players who will go say 5-5 with 2, 3HR for 3, 4, 5 games in a row, then 0fer for another stretch. You could have a bunch of guys hit over .300 that way with 30-40HR, but the team never ‘puts it together.’ The Twins, by contrast hadn’t had anyone hit 30HR in a season until Morneau a couple of years ago since I think the 80’s– they were a lot of OC type hitters and at least since the late 90’s, won consistently– never great teams, but pretty good teams every year, a tiny dynasty, I wonder if the BRM and mid-late 90’s Yankees didn’t do that, just at a slightly higher level. Something for Jinaz to figure out, I guess.
Paragraphs are your friend.
The main component of OBP for any player is hits.
The difference between .250 and .275 over 600 at-bats is 15 base hits. There’s 26 weeks in a season. So an extra hit a little more frequently than every other week?
Heh.
(We can laugh about it now, right? Right?)
No, no we cannot. Crying, screaming and the tossing of furniture perhaps. Laughing, no.
@GregD:
Bull Durham?
Willy T. back to the Astros? We could only hope as we play them 500 times a year…
Oh, inside our division. That would bring an extra smile to my face. Hopefully he has an impressive spring and drives Michael Bourne to the bench.
I think there is a good chance that Cabrera could produce at SS
Current projections for Cabrera look OK. .700 OPS/.320-something OBP
I’m also hoping he’ll gain by playing such a hitters park
now .700 might not look great or anything but when you consider this.
Reds production at SS
.636 OPS/.294 OBP 2009
.689/.321 2008
I just hope Cabrera’s awful defense last year was because of injury and not because he’s old
@BJ Ruble: Didn’t Willy make a particularly bad outfield blunder in Houston last year? Not sure why, but something jumps out in my mind. I hope they enjoy that 81 games a year (I know, that assumes a lot).
I remember him having a pretty good 1st month. There was one game I recall listening too where he had four hits. He did well in spring training too, which gave me hope. I think that there was an injury that either he covered up or the team covered up, because he had a monumental collapse. I bet he goes somewhere else and has a come back year just to make us all even angrier.
I appologize that I haven’t read all the posts yet. Got as far as three or four before I wanted to say something, so hopefully I’m not stepping in the middle of a conversation or repeating something someone already said.
The disasters known as Corey Patterson and Willy Taveras have one thing in common. Both disasters would not have occured if not for Dusty Baker. CP was signed by WK, WT was signed by WJ. (Lots of Ws, hope you followed that.) Both were overpaid, but both may have done better if not for the fact they were poorly managed. Both Corey and Willy started well at the beginning at the season. Both entered their slumps sometime in May which they would ride for then next three months. And both rode those slumps until the crowds at GABP started calling for heads on leader poles.
Dusty’s philosphy with both were, “Play them until they get out of their slumps.” At some point it starts to affect a guy’s confidence until he can’t recover. Dusty lacks a qualify of a good manager which is knowing when to let a player play through, and when to sit him.
When it becomes apparent a guy is not going to be able to play his way out of his slump, let him SIT until he figures out what’s wrong before it becomes a disaster. He’s a professional, and at one point knew how to be successful. Sitting helped Bruce, it helped Gomes, it helped Nix.
Neither player was as bad as the years they had in Cincinnati, but Dusty screwed them by continuing to playing them when something was WRONG.
with nearly 400 plate appearances, its not like WT can say he wasn’t given a chance in Cincy. Well, I guess he could still say it, but it wouldn’t be true.
HA! HA!
I didn’t mean to come off Dusty bashing, btw. I don’t dislike Dusty. I don’t blame him for everything. For the most part, I like Dusty. But IMO he has managing flaws that don’t blend well with this team and I’m not going to go out of my way to defend him.
Yep. And let’s add that Patterson could play CF. His effort especially showed in his defense. Taveras’ defense was a shock to me (in a bad way).
@Chris: Well said. I feel positive about Cabrera for 2010. But I’d still like to see Janish make the team, and get some ABs.
I realize what you’re saying here…that consistency trumps inconsistency, but, statistically speaking, that’s improbable.
Pete Rose said it best when he played for the Reds…come hot weather, I’ll be batting .300…
What he meant was this….given enough at bats, I’ll be batting .300 because the hits are random…but aggregately, I’ll be there, given enough at bats.
Frankly, this is similar to the “clutch hitting” argument. Most stats guys think there’s no such thing as “clutch hitting”…well, my argument is that there is clutch hitting, but how does an independent person know when said hitter is feeling pressure?
We arbitrarily choose “clutch situations”, but if Tony Perez has been up there 300 times in what I think is a clutch situation, why would he feel pressured just because I do? I think pressure (or clutch) is more of an individual thing…
Why do I say all this? Because in defined clutch situations, most hitters (and pitchers) perform, on average, like they’ve done in every other situation; that is, given enough plate appearances. It all works back to the “norm” which is the player’s established level of performance.
It’s foolish to think Cabrera will be the same player he was last year. Chances are his BA will drop a few points; he may pick up a few points in additional walks (veterans usually do), his power should drop a little, and his fielding should drop the most. Defensive ability is typically the first measurable skill to decline (player age leads to less quickness).
I think he’s better than Janish; he has no business batting second on any quality team; he led the American League in outs made each of the last two years, and an out is an out, whether it’s a strike out or any other “well-placed out”; the more outs a team has, the less likely they are to score. Yes, a runner on seocnd is better than a runner on first, but no where near as good as runners on first and second. And, when it comes to that, Cabrera was fourth in the American League in grounding into double plays last year; but, hey, he was first in sacrifice flies. That should make Marty happy.
Jocketty lost his job in St. Louis for ignoring stats based analysis–the first topic being OBP. I think the standings are the proof.
Mark Sheldon tweets: According to colleague @JaneMLB, the A’s released former #reds CF Willy Taveras.