A Case for Joc Pederson
Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 7:57 pm
there is little doubt that a few years back before his injury, Matt Kemp was arguably the best player in NL who got his MVP stolen. The fact that Kemp is still getting paid like a MVP, seems to validate his historical performances leading up to his contract extension, that indeed he was a great one. the problem isn't that he was once great and now trying to get back into thick of things, but what he is getting paid that hinders our payroll, no matter how small our Guggenheim money seems to be bothered by it... and so is Crawford and Ethier's deals. not only we have three outfielders who are overpaid, but they all have shortcomings out in the outfield with their gloves too. in case of Crawford, it is his throwing arm, or lack there of. for Ethier, it is his foot speed... not bad for a corner, but not close to being good as a CF. for Kemp, he seems to lose the ball in the air quite too often and still takes bad angles, misjudges the balls in flight. in other words, a guy with some lack of fundamentals to man up the CF but have overcome it with his athletic abilities, which seems to have diminished a bit from his injuries, and only getting older from here to lose what he had physically and have not caught up mentally with CF's discipline.
it seems too often that we have 5 corner outfielders on the roster, also counting in Yasiel and Scott Van Slyke.
it is also a baseball dogma, if you will, that you need a good up-the-middle defense if you are going to compete in this league. we have ailing AJ just coming back at C which is respectable, but that seems where it ends. Hanley is a subpar defensive SS. Dee was down right miserable at SS and had to be moved to 2B and still making his share of errors, although now much more palatable now that he is not our SS, and Kemp and Ethier rotating the CF.
on top of all these dilemmas, we still have Hanley asking for a 130 million dollar extension and another potential for a deadweight, considering Hanley's history of motivation issues, injury issues, and now aging issues, plus having Seager, Erisbel, and Alexander Guerrero all waiting down in the minors for infield positions.
now the million dollar question here is, or perhaps 25 million dollars per year question is (or are),
#1 do we add yet another heavy contact when we are carrying Crawford for 20, Kemp for 20, and Ethier for 17 per year right now and for the foreseeable future?
#2 if we do, then what happens to all the prospects that are coming up and have money committed to?
#3 and what about our up-the-middle defense?
if we answer to these questions in reasonable manner, then the only conclusion that would come out of, should be
#1-A) then who do we keep and who do we let go?
#2-A) which prospect has more value to replace the current player at position?
#3-A) does the end result improve our UTM defense?
my personal answers to these questions are
Answer to #1 and #1-A) : no we shouldn't stack the team up with old, aging, declining players who are underperforming in hopes that they regain their old form. if that was the case, might as well sign Manny to a million or two dollar deal to our team and hope he can regain his old form. that would be a less risk in terms of cost - benefit analysis. if we need to prioritize the player's worth to our team among these four, I would rate
Hanley > Kemp > Ethier > Crawford.
therefore I would get rid of Crawford and Ethier and move Kemp to a corner OF and resign Hanley to bolster up our lineup.
A to #2 and #2-B) : the prospects need to come up, and replace what we need defensively first, then their bats second. with Joc Pederson, we solve both problems in our OF and in the lineup better than what we currently have. he is an instant upgrade. plug him in CF, move Kemp to LF, Yasiel becomes everyday RF, and Joc is already showing better power and contact than two lefties we already have. the cherry on top, is Joc also is a lefty, so we don't lose out on lefty-righty diversity in our lineup. Hanley can still man up the SS this year and perhaps next, with Dee's sudden emergence, he maybe a lock on 2B even if he goes through a predictable long stretch of a slump this season. now that leaves Uribe's 3rd base as the only place for a prospect next season. will any of our infielder prospects be ready by then? there is a great possibility that we will not bring up a player from the minors this year or next for the infielder position. no way in hell Seager is coming up to be a bench player, when he is called up, he will be an everyday player. Uribe would make a great pinch hitter than a utility player, but we all know about Juan's focus when in contract year. after the 2015 season however, we can move Hanley to 3rd, plug in Seager, Guerrero, or Erisbel, whomever wins that SS job, and unless Dee declines rapidly, one of the cuban imports will become our utility guy, leaving the other or Seager, if lose the job, be a trade commodity.
A to #3 and #3-A)
if these moves are made, say by 2016, we can sport Joc in CF, with Kemp in LF and Yasiel in RF, which would be a fearsome defensive OFers as well as offensive crushers, we could sport at least above league average glove in Seager, a perennial gold glover in Erisbel Arruebarruena, or just a younger version of Hanley at SS. it won't be a lock down defensive up the middle, but much better than what we currently have.
to sum up my yet another drunken stupor of a rant, all of these ideas gravitate towards one single move we can make right now to improve the team, which can start the cascade of avalanche that can set this team on the right course... and that is bringing up Joc right now, as we trade hopefully both but at least one of the lefty outfielders we have in redundancy.
bring JOC PEDERSON up, and we can move on. Joc can give us the same jolt we needed when Yasiel was brought up last season, perhaps in much quieter, making all the routine plays and more from the CF while slugging 20 or more Hrs for the remainder of this season, kind of a way.
it seems too often that we have 5 corner outfielders on the roster, also counting in Yasiel and Scott Van Slyke.
it is also a baseball dogma, if you will, that you need a good up-the-middle defense if you are going to compete in this league. we have ailing AJ just coming back at C which is respectable, but that seems where it ends. Hanley is a subpar defensive SS. Dee was down right miserable at SS and had to be moved to 2B and still making his share of errors, although now much more palatable now that he is not our SS, and Kemp and Ethier rotating the CF.
on top of all these dilemmas, we still have Hanley asking for a 130 million dollar extension and another potential for a deadweight, considering Hanley's history of motivation issues, injury issues, and now aging issues, plus having Seager, Erisbel, and Alexander Guerrero all waiting down in the minors for infield positions.
now the million dollar question here is, or perhaps 25 million dollars per year question is (or are),
#1 do we add yet another heavy contact when we are carrying Crawford for 20, Kemp for 20, and Ethier for 17 per year right now and for the foreseeable future?
#2 if we do, then what happens to all the prospects that are coming up and have money committed to?
#3 and what about our up-the-middle defense?
if we answer to these questions in reasonable manner, then the only conclusion that would come out of, should be
#1-A) then who do we keep and who do we let go?
#2-A) which prospect has more value to replace the current player at position?
#3-A) does the end result improve our UTM defense?
my personal answers to these questions are
Answer to #1 and #1-A) : no we shouldn't stack the team up with old, aging, declining players who are underperforming in hopes that they regain their old form. if that was the case, might as well sign Manny to a million or two dollar deal to our team and hope he can regain his old form. that would be a less risk in terms of cost - benefit analysis. if we need to prioritize the player's worth to our team among these four, I would rate
Hanley > Kemp > Ethier > Crawford.
therefore I would get rid of Crawford and Ethier and move Kemp to a corner OF and resign Hanley to bolster up our lineup.
A to #2 and #2-B) : the prospects need to come up, and replace what we need defensively first, then their bats second. with Joc Pederson, we solve both problems in our OF and in the lineup better than what we currently have. he is an instant upgrade. plug him in CF, move Kemp to LF, Yasiel becomes everyday RF, and Joc is already showing better power and contact than two lefties we already have. the cherry on top, is Joc also is a lefty, so we don't lose out on lefty-righty diversity in our lineup. Hanley can still man up the SS this year and perhaps next, with Dee's sudden emergence, he maybe a lock on 2B even if he goes through a predictable long stretch of a slump this season. now that leaves Uribe's 3rd base as the only place for a prospect next season. will any of our infielder prospects be ready by then? there is a great possibility that we will not bring up a player from the minors this year or next for the infielder position. no way in hell Seager is coming up to be a bench player, when he is called up, he will be an everyday player. Uribe would make a great pinch hitter than a utility player, but we all know about Juan's focus when in contract year. after the 2015 season however, we can move Hanley to 3rd, plug in Seager, Guerrero, or Erisbel, whomever wins that SS job, and unless Dee declines rapidly, one of the cuban imports will become our utility guy, leaving the other or Seager, if lose the job, be a trade commodity.
A to #3 and #3-A)
if these moves are made, say by 2016, we can sport Joc in CF, with Kemp in LF and Yasiel in RF, which would be a fearsome defensive OFers as well as offensive crushers, we could sport at least above league average glove in Seager, a perennial gold glover in Erisbel Arruebarruena, or just a younger version of Hanley at SS. it won't be a lock down defensive up the middle, but much better than what we currently have.
to sum up my yet another drunken stupor of a rant, all of these ideas gravitate towards one single move we can make right now to improve the team, which can start the cascade of avalanche that can set this team on the right course... and that is bringing up Joc right now, as we trade hopefully both but at least one of the lefty outfielders we have in redundancy.
bring JOC PEDERSON up, and we can move on. Joc can give us the same jolt we needed when Yasiel was brought up last season, perhaps in much quieter, making all the routine plays and more from the CF while slugging 20 or more Hrs for the remainder of this season, kind of a way.