Trade Jo while you can!

[Zyme]

I would like to see Jo traded. He's a great defensive catcher and all but he is a dead pull righty, in a ballpark in no way suited for that role. He would do much better in national league park with a short porch in left. Somewhere like phili or colorado. With how well he did gunning out runners, he would be worth getting a good prospect out of it (its not like the mariners dont have plenty of prospects at catcher to work with).

[Basketball Jesus]

1. “While you can” would probably have been some time before they signed him to that terrible extension.
2. Neither Philly (just traded for Paulino) nor Colorado (Chris Iannetta and a somewhat expensive Yovit Torrealba) need Johjima
3. Unless the Mariners eat most of his contract, Johjima has very little trade value. Getting back anything more than some 28-year-old Double-A hitter would be a major coup.

[Ex-hippie]

3. Unless the Mariners eat most of his contract, Johjima has very little trade value. Getting back anything more than some 28-year-old Double-A hitter would be a major coup.

I would do exactly that: trade Johjima plus, say, $12 million for a 28-year-old Double-A hitter.

Bill James and Marcel the Monkey project Johjima to bounce back a good deal in 2009, improving his wOBA from a wretched .272 to a merely weak .321 or .306. Still, that's not much production, and he doesn't handle pitchers well... and oh yes, he turned 32 last season, an age at which a catcher's career can easily fall off a cliff. Maybe, maybe, a team could take a flyer at half his salary, but who? Even the remaining catcher-starved teams -- and by the way, I wouldn't take Philly off the list, even with Paulino -- seem to have better options. For example, Milwaukee has Jason Kendall, who outproduced Johjima last year and is only two years older. Cleveland has the Victor Martinez disaster to deal with, but seems to be fine with Kelly Shoppach. Boston needs to replace the corpse of Varitek, but Theo Epstein is too smart to take on Johjima. He seems to be our most untradeable player not named Carlos Silva.

[BlackMamba]

i've never understood the difference between NL parks and AL parks... aren't they the "same"?

[Ex-hippie]

i've never understood the difference between NL parks and AL parks... aren't they the "same"?

Pretty much. Of the 30 ML parks, if you rank them by park factor in 2008 and split them into three groups, you have:

Top 10 park factors - 5 AL, 5 NL
Middle 10 park factors - 5 AL, 5 NL
Bottom 10 park factors - 5 AL, 5 NL

You get this exact same result whether you go by overall runs or by home runs. The supposed pitchers' paradise of Comerica Park in Detroit actually ranks ahead of renowned launch pads like the GAB in Cincy, Citizen's Bank in Philly and Minute Maid in Houston. And AL parks are at the very top of both lists (Rangers #1 overall, Camden Yards #1 for homers). San Diego's Petco, an NL park, is at the very bottom of both lists.

And if you go to 2007, 7 of the top 10 overall are AL parks.

I'll stop here but you get the point: basically, you're right.

[Basketball Jesus]

I would do exactly that: trade Johjima plus, say, $12 million for a 28-year-old Double-A hitter.

Bill James and Marcel the Monkey project Johjima to bounce back a good deal in 2009, improving his wOBA from a wretched .272 to a merely weak .321 or .306. Still, that's not much production, and he doesn't handle pitchers well... and oh yes, he turned 32 last season, an age at which a catcher's career can easily fall off a cliff. Maybe, maybe, a team could take a flyer at half his salary, but who? Even the remaining catcher-starved teams -- and by the way, I wouldn't take Philly off the list, even with Paulino -- seem to have better options. For example, Milwaukee has Jason Kendall, who outproduced Johjima last year and is only two years older. Cleveland has the Victor Martinez disaster to deal with, but seems to be fine with Kelly Shoppach. Boston needs to replace the corpse of Varitek, but Theo Epstein is too smart to take on Johjima. He seems to be our most untradeable player not named Carlos Silva

I think back in our discussion about the offseason, I advocated trading Johjima plus cash to the Astros (who are looking for a C) for Geoff Blum or some crap like that. I still like that idea.

[BlackMamba]

i've never understood the difference between NL parks and AL parks... aren't they the "same"?

Pretty much. Of the 30 ML parks, if you rank them by park factor in 2008 and split them into three groups, you have:

Top 10 park factors - 5 AL, 5 NL
Middle 10 park factors - 5 AL, 5 NL
Bottom 10 park factors - 5 AL, 5 NL

You get this exact same result whether you go by overall runs or by home runs. The supposed pitchers' paradise of Comerica Park in Detroit actually ranks ahead of renowned launch pads like the GAB in Cincy, Citizen's Bank in Philly and Minute Maid in Houston. And AL parks are at the very top of both lists (Rangers #1 overall, Camden Yards #1 for homers). San Diego's Petco, an NL park, is at the very bottom of both lists.

And if you go to 2007, 7 of the top 10 overall are AL parks.

I'll stop here but you get the point: basically, you're right.

[PhilipNelsonFan]

Mamba, to paraphrase what a minor-league catcher once told me, park factors are the culmination of the factors related to the field's orientation to the site and how the elements (sun, wind, etc.) play within the building itself. Turf quality also is a bit of a factor.

[Ex-hippie]

Oh, sorry about that. To figure a park factor, you just take the average total runs scored in a team's home games and divide it by the average total runs scored in that team's away games (both the team itself and its opponent). Because both home and away teams are taken into account, it controls for home-field advantage. The higher the number, the more of a "hitter's park" it's considered to be. If, for example, there are 10 runs scored on average in a team's home games and 9 runs scored on average in its road games, the park factor is 10/9 = 1.111, which means the home field is more or less a hitter's park. There's some randomness and variability from year to year, but you can get a pretty good picture.

ESPN has the numbers here. The imaginary field in my example would have ranked 5th overall in MLB.

They also do a similar exercise for home runs, not just total runs, to give a sense of how easy it is to hit out of a particular park. On the ESPN page you can sort it by home runs (or by hits, doubles, triples, or walks -- and a park can, in fact, affect walks, with wind patterns, glare from the sun, etc. etc.).

Anyway, my point is: if you go through the list, either for total runs or home runs, the AL and the NL come out pretty even overall.

Of course, since this thread is about Johjima, I would point out that it's quite possible he will benefit from going against NL pitchers, though not necessarily from hitting in its parks.

[BlackMamba]

ooooohhhhh... ok, ok... i get it... thanks!!!!