posted on Friday, May 23, 2008 3:16 AM
by
Jim
Weighing Orlando's worth
During
Thursday's 3-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians, Orlando Cabrera dropped a Toby Hall throw that should've ended the sixth inning and instead shoved Mark Buehrle into the usual doom-tinged situation of having to work around a defensive miscue. The throw was a little towards first, but Cabrera had plenty of time to place the tag on Ben Francisco had he caught it.
He didn't.
And Hall was charged with his first error of the season.
Such is the charmed life for Cabrera, who started his night strongly with a leadoff single and the first run of the ballgame, and watched it go downhill from there. Along with the non-error, he grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, stranded a runner in scoring position with a grounder to second and botched a sacrifice bunt in a key late-game situation.
Thanks to work by A.J. Pierzynski, Brian Anderson (
who credited Harold Baines) and Carlos Quentin, nobody had reason to bring up any of Cabrera's miscues in the space allowed. The news is that the White Sox have an eight-game winning streak.
We all know he's struggling with his bat. He's a BABIP-dependent hitter, and with
a career-low line drive rate thus far,
his BABIP hasn't fallen this far in eight years. He's probably due for a hot/lucky streak somewhere along the line, where he'll return to his slightly-below-average-for-a-shortstop self offensively.
But it's the defense that I'm having a difficult time reconciling. He has only been charged with one error this season, but the drop of Hall's throw today added another error that he hasn't been charged for to his list. The others that I know of:
- May 12: A soft, low liner eats up Cabrera on the short hop.
- April 29: Failed to charge a chopper, threw wide of the bag.
- April 26: Routine feed to Pablo Ozuna is too wide to start a double play.
- April 19: Partially to blame for early throw in blown rundown.
- April 18: Partially to blame for not covering base in blown rundown.
- April 4: Botched a potential double play ball, only gets one out.
- March 31: Falls on his butt after not seeing a liner hit right at him.
Counting the drop Thursday along with this list, there are roughly four that should have been errors his way -- the others are outs he may have missed, but couldn't be ruled as an error by any scorer. I'm also not counting any balls he maybe should have gotten to, because that's subjective and reliant on positioning that can't be accounted for. At any rate, it's clear that
his league-leading .995 fielding percentage should be taken with a grain of salt.
But then I checked the plus-minus leaderboards and was surprised to find out he ranked second in plus-minus among shortstops, behind only Atlanta's Yunel Escobar and tied with Colorado's Troy Tulowitzki. Considering the above evidence, that's slightly baffling.
At the same time, there are times he's been amazing. He played incredible defense throughout the Toronto series, has made a couple great throws behind runners who have overrun the bag and has flashed the jumpthrow on a couple of occasions.
So when it's all said and done, Cabrera is likely a solidly above-average defender at short. I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of that, because Cabrera is not easy to root for at this point, largely because it seems he's not held accountable for his mistakes.
Nobody will likely talk about how badly Cabrera botched the sacrifice situation Thursday, while guys like
Alexei Ramirez and
Brian Anderson have been raked over the coals for failing to execute. And he gets credited
for helping create a more functional offense when
no other Sox hitter has been worse with runners in scoring position. He's now 5-for-40 in such situations, with a .315 OPS, and has only cashed in a runner on third in three of 16 opportunities.
It seems stereotypical for a Sox fan to complain during an eight-game winning streak, but I'd like to think I'm doing this for ultimately good reasons. It's more or less a clearing of brain space, because I don't enjoy holding grudges or actively disliking a guy except for extreme cases.
There are some instances like the Timo Perez, Andy Gonzalez or Darin Erstad eras, where we are exposed to their presences for all the wrong reasons and a proper backlash is required. But Cabrera can and should be a valuable member to this team as the season progresses. It's just frustrating to watch him get the Golden Boy treatment for accomplishments he achieved outside of Chicago.
*******************
But if you want positive,
this free Baseball Prospectus article has plenty of it. The key point:
Start with the defining characteristic of these White Sox: stability.
The White Sox have used 13 position players all year, and 13 pitchers.
Those totals of 13 position players and 26 players are the fewest in
the majors (although the
Phillies
have used just 12 pitchers). The White Sox have made two transactions
since opening day, swapping out the last spot on the staff between
Mike MacDougal and Ehren Wasserman, and moving
Alexei Ramirez
on and off the restricted list due to some visa issues. They haven’t
had an injury, they haven’t made a significant lineup change, and they
haven’t played around with roles. The nine White Sox regulars have
accounted for 355 of the team’s 414 starts this season. The five
starters have made 45 of the team’s 46 starts. The bullpen has featured
six pretty effective pitchers more or less locked into roles.
Will Carroll
can quantify the effect of injuries by looking at the missing playing
time, expected performance, and salary paid to DL’d players. What
happens when those costs are zero? Not having to move down and use the
replacement players, the #26-#35 guys in an organization who are
constantly moving on and off rosters around the league, has significant
value to a team. It’s not just that the White Sox have been
healthy—they have—it’s that almost no one has performed poorly enough
to lose their roster spot. Certainly Juan Uribe’s sub-600
OPS has his playing time in jeopardy, but until Ramirez or
Pablo Ozuna
out-hits him, no change is warranted. The White Sox have been very
fortunate, given the age and histories of their players, to have this
kind of roster stability so far. It is a competitive advantage.
Furthermore, the Sox have used
the same lineup 19 times this season. Last year, Ozzie Guillen used one lineup
no more than eight times. That's the hidden benefit of league-average players, which is
perhaps what the Sox missed more than anything in 2007.
*******************
Minor league roundup:- Lehigh Valley 7, Charlotte 2
- This is the Wes Whisler we're used to -- 10 hits, one strikeout over six innings, leading to seven runs. To be fair, only four were earned.
- Brad Eldred provided both runs with his 16th homer.
- Royce Huffman and Dewayne Wise had two hits apiece.
- Josh Fields went 0-for-4; Jerry Owens went 1-for-4.
- Birmingham 8, Huntsville 6
- Kyle McCulloch picked up the win despite giving up six runs (five earned) over six on nine hits. He struck out three.
- Robert Hudson had a perfect day -- 2-for-2, a double, three RBI and two walks.
- Javier Castillo went 4-for-5 with two RBI; Victor Mercedes and Noah Hall had two hits apiece.
- Jon Link shook off the blown save yesterday with a scoreless ninth.
- Frederick 9, Winston-Salem 2
- C.J. Retherford went 4-for-4 in vain.
- Michael Dubee was rocked for seven hits and seven runs over three innings.
- Steven Spurgeon struck out nine over five innings in relief, giving up the other two runs on three hits.
- Delmarva 5, Kannapolis 4
- Sergio Miranda went 3-for-4 with two RBI out of the ninth hole.
- Jim Gallagher and Sergio Morales had two hits apiece.
- Kevin Skogley filled the box score: 3 2/3 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 7 K.