I see players signing one-year deals for $5 million or $4 million and my first thought is, “The team doesn’t expect much from them.” With teams paying around $7 million for one expected WAR, both Aaron Harang and Emilio Bonifacio should be producing less than that in 2015.
The Marlins place Emilio Bonifacio on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained thumb. Bonifacio did a great job getting on base this season with a .351 BA, and while he showed little power, did a great job of getting himself into scoring position with 20 steals in 21 attempts. It shows how weak the Marlins were behind him that he scored just 19 runs in 39 games.
The Marlins also sent Gaby Sanchez to the minors after posting a .197/.244/.295 slash line.
Emilio Bonifacio walked in the bottom of the first inning and scored for the Marlins, helping them to an early 2-0 lead against the Cubs Thursday afternoon. That brings Emilio’s OBP up to .455 for the season, as he drew his seventh walk in 13 games to go with 16 hits. Before 2011, Bonifacio didn’t get much of a chance to play, amassing 923 PA in four seasons and a .306 OBP. Note, however, that we can’t get a good read on a player before about 1500 PA. Emilo played 2011 as a 26 year old, near the start of his prime, and posted a .360 OBP in his first full season on the field. He waked 59 times, having walked 69 times in his previous seasons. He’s carried that forward into 2012 to become an outstanding table setter.
I don’t know if this was just Bonifacio maturing as a hitter, or if some coach convinced him to change his style. We saw the latter with both Sammy Sosa and Jose Bautista. Whatever happened, Bonifacio saved his career and could be on his way to a big pay day as he has two years of arbitration left.
The Marlins lost their second arbitration case of the year:
Emilio Bonifacio became the second player to defeat the Miami Marlins in salary arbitration this year.
Bonifacio was awarded a $2.2 million salary by a three-person panel on Wednesday rather than the Marlins’ offer of $1.95 million. Arbitrators Steven Wolf, Mark Burstein and Sylvia Skratek made the decision a day after hearing arguments.
I consider the Marlins front office one of the better ones in baseball, so I’m somewhat surprised that lost both cases. I’m also a bit surprised there wasn’t a settlement in the case, since the two sides were very close, $250,000 apart. I wonder if the team is under a bit of budget pressure after their off-season spending, and is trying to keep the rest of the salaries as low as possible.
With Emilo Bonifacio winning player of the month for July, David Schoenfield wonders who was the players with the worst career stats to win player of the month? I would also argue that Freddie Freeman probably deserved the award more than Emilo.
Emilio Bonifacio and Dustin Pedroia continued their hit streak battle Wednesday night. Both are getting to the point where the streaks become really interesting, Bonifacio at 25 games, Pedroia at 24. I suspect fans find Bonifacio’s streak a bit more surprising, and they should, although Pedroia isn’t a great candidate for a long hit streak either.
The proper statistic to use for evaluating the probability of a hit streak is something I call hit average (HA), hits per plate appearance. Note that players with high averages that don’t walk very much tend to post high hit averages. Ichiro Suzuki owns the highest HA among active players with at least 1000 career PA, .303. No one is really close to him as Robinson Cano and Vladimir Guerrero come in second at .286. Pedroia’s career mark stands at .269, Bonifacio at .235.
Given Pedroia’s higher HA, he’s more likely to get a hit in a game, especially the more plate appearances the players earn:
| Plate App | Pedroia | Bonifacio |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.269 | 0.235 |
| 2 | 0.466 | 0.415 |
| 3 | 0.609 | 0.552 |
| 4 | 0.714 | 0.658 |
| 5 | 0.791 | 0.738 |
| 6 | 0.847 | 0.800 |
| 7 | 0.888 | 0.847 |
Another thing working in Dustin’s favor is the Red Sox offense. Due to the high scoring and Pedroia’s spot at the top of the lineup, he averages 4.8 PA per game. Bonifacio, on the other hand, averages just 3.9 PA per game, due to his role as both a starter and a substitute. During the streak, however, he’s averaging 4.6 PA per game. So over a ten game span, Dustin gets an extra chance to extend his streak in two of the games. That means Pedroia has a .078 probability of stretching the streak another ten games, while Bonifacio has less that half that chance, .030.
Emilio Bonifacio is usually miscast as a lead-off hitter. With a career .317 OBP, he would not be my first choice for the slot. This season, however, he’s doing a fine job in the slot, coming into the game with a .348 OBP in 306 PA. He went three for three with a walk Sunday afternoon as the Marlins defeated the Astros 5-4. That raised his OBP to .356, and it’s tough to argue with that at the top of the order. He’s now walked 30 times in 270 at bats, and the rise in his walk rate made the difference. He’s only 26 years old, so maybe going into his prime he finally figured out selectivitiy.
The Marlins exploded for five home runs against the Cincinnati Reds Sunday afternoon. The biggest one belonged to Emilio Bonifacio, however. In his fifth season in the majors, Emilio hit one home run in his career, and that was an inside the park homer. Today, the ball actually left the yard for the first time in his big league career. The three-run shot in the eighth gave the Marlins the insurance for the 9-5 win over the Reds.
At 17-9, the Marlins sit in the wild card seat, one game out of first place in the NL East with Philadelphia about to play the Mets.
The Rockies struck out 10 times against Josh Johnson in six innings, but they worked his pinch count up to get in the Marlins pen early. The loaded the bases in the seventh, pitcher Jose Veras snared a line drive to end the inning. In the eighth, however, Jason Giambi delivered an RBI single to tie the game and deny Johnson the win.
The game remained tied until the bottom of the ninth when Emilio Bonifacio delivered a triple and scored the winning run as the Marlins take the game 3-2. Emilo knocked out 11 triples in his previous two year combined, but with his playing time cut back, it was his first of the year.
I heard the call of the Veras snare on the radio, and they made it sound like a fantastic play, one that saved runs. Having watched the highlight, I’m not so sure the second baseman would not have gotten to the ball and recorded the out. Still, it’s a good example of what I talk about when I talk about luck. That play could have led to two runs, with the potential for more. In other words, when the game comes down to a play where a couple of inches makes the difference between winning and losing, it’s more about luck than talent.
Emilio Bonifacio plays third base for the Florida Marlins. He can’t hit, he doesn’t walk much, and he lacks power. He doesn’t even defend well. The Marlins brought him in from the Nationals, and gave him a chance to play that lasted four months. He generated -0.6 WAR. Florida only finished five games out of the wild card. If they had invested in a 2 WAR third baseman, they might have gotten lucky enough to actually make the playoffs. My guess is no team will give a starting job of Bonifacio again.