Baseball Musings: Replacing the Wrong Person

June 26, 2007

Replacing the Wrong Person

The Dodgers are going to move James Loney to first base, but they're going about it the wrong way:

Nomar Garciaparra is moving across the diamond.
After spending the past season and a half as the Los Angeles Dodgers' first baseman, Garciaparra will move to third base, perhaps as early as Friday.
"We're trying to get ourselves in a position where we can be the best we can be, and that option right now is there for us," manager Grady Little said Monday. "Nomar's 100 percent on board. He's been over there before. It's not a strange place for him."

It opens up a chance for streaking James Loney to play first base. Loney is hitting .429 since being recalled from the minor leagues June 10.

"This has a lot to do with the way James Loney is swinging the bat and the way he's playing, too," Little said. "The primary factor is to try to help us win games. And we feel like this is a move we want to give a shot at right now."

This is, of course, why Little was fired by the Red Sox. Nomar has an OBA of .316 and a slugging percentage of .332. Betemit OBA is higher than Nomar's slugging percentage; he's posting a .333 OBA and a .438 slugging percentage. So why is Nomar moving to third? Nomar's batting average is .275, Betemit .198. This would not happen if DePodesta was still the GM. Benching Nomar for Loney is the only move the Dodgers need to make. Betemit draws enough walks that he's okay OBA wise, and when he hits the ball it goes a long way. Some smart GM will snap up Wilson in a trade.

Posted by David Pinto at 11:17 AM | Strategy | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I thought Little was fired because he was told by management to pull Pedro at 100 pitches no matter what, and he did not.

Posted by: Mike at June 26, 2007 12:09 PM

Little was fired because he didn't understand and use stats effectively. Pedro was just one example of that.

Posted by: David Pinto at June 26, 2007 01:05 PM

Well, all of us Dodger fans can just start hoping that the increased stress of playing third base will mean that Nomar will have to take more time off, either on the DL or otherwise. Now, if only we could do something about Juan Pierre and get Matt Kemp in centerfield full time.

I just wish the Dodgers would stop talking about trading for a 'big bat' like Troy Glaus. It seems to me that we have all we need in Loney, Kemp, and Betemit, if only they were allowed to play every day.

Posted by: Adam at June 26, 2007 01:15 PM

Nomar has been terrible recently, it's true, but the guy has a track record, and he deserves a chance to work his way out of it. When he's right, he's one of the best infielders in baseball. He was terrific in the first half of last year, and would have been even more terrific if that production wasn't coming from 1B and was coming instead from 3B, SS, or 2B. Betemit can spell the starters at 2B, 3B, and SS, and Nomar can back up Loney at 1B; then Betemit has 250 more at bats, while still giving Nomar a chance to work his way out of his power funk.

Posted by: Michael at June 26, 2007 01:27 PM

OK, that makes sense in the larger picture.

I often cite Francona as the best manager in baseball for two reasons: one, he is good at managing "personalities", which is a big part of managing a high-salaried team. The other reason is that, even if he doesn't understand or care about stats, I think he's willing enough to listen to management when they give him suggestions based on stats. I'm guessing they give him some best-practice guidelines, but allow him enough flexibility to feel like he's contributing to the success of the team as well.

Posted by: Mike at June 26, 2007 02:32 PM

Maybe he can get traded back to Boston and play SS again. As bad as he's been, he still hits better than Julio Lugo.

Posted by: nomars_girl at June 26, 2007 03:47 PM

What little offense they've got is because the DBacks went young and gave up Luis Gonzalez and now they have 4 young starters hitting under .240 so its not always great to have too many inexperienced players starting

Posted by: sapo45 at June 26, 2007 05:19 PM

Michael: Nomar also has a track record of getting progressively worse as he gets older. So which track record should we prefer? The one that says he's had one good season of the last four or the one that says he was one helluva ballplayer during the waning days of the 20th century...

Posted by: Ben K. at June 26, 2007 05:36 PM

How does a guy (Nomar) drop from 20 HRs last year to 1 HR in the first half this year? Will the real Nomar Garciaparra please stand up?

Posted by: Adam Villani at June 26, 2007 06:32 PM

Talk about watching a potentially HOF career go down the drain over the last few years...

Posted by: Yamen at June 26, 2007 08:12 PM