Rangers Position Previews: Infield & DH

The penultimate entry in our Position Previews series (I’m putting off writing about the bullpen sort of like I’m putting off my colonoscopy) isn’t filled with much intrigue. You can probably count on at least 150 games apiece from Chris Davis, Ian Kinsler, Michael Young and Elvis Andrus.

The major questions here seem to be whether Joaquin Arias or Omar Vizquel will be the opening-day utility man, and whether Justin Smoak will force the issue at first base in May or August.

After the jump, we’ll break down the infield position by position and I’ll take a couple of positions that probably won’t be real popular with some of you.

1b) Chris Davis / Hank Blalock / Justin Smoak

Let me put into perspective just how good Chris Davis really was during his first look at big league pitching:

Last year, Ryan Braun – who turned 25 in November – established himself as the elite power-hitting youngster in baseball in his second season for Milwaukee. Braun was an All-Star, invited to play on Team USA, named to every post-season NL All-Star squad, won the Silver Slugger award and was third in the National League MVP vote.

Chris Davis – who turned 23 on Tuesday – was almost exactly as good as Braun last season. In fact, he was so “almost exactly” as good as Braun, it sort of defies belief.

Davis hit .285 / .331 / .549 / .880. Virtually identical to Braun’s .285 / .335 / .553 / .888. They each posted a BB/PA ratio of 0.063. Their BB/K ratios were very close (0.23 for Davis and 0.33 for Braun). Braun’s isolated power number was .268 while Davis’s was .264.

On the cumulative numbers, Davis was actually slightly better than Braun. Davis had 48% as many at-bats as Braun last year. So let’s look at Davis’s cumulative numbers vs. 48% of Ryan Braun’s cumulatives:

Chris Davis: 17 homers, 55 RBIs, 23 doubles
48% Braun: 17 homers, 50 RBIs, 19 doubles

Davis, like Braun, is going to strike out a lot and you often think of guys like that as being prone to slumps. But this is one of the things about Davis that has not only fascinated me but which has led me to believe that he is not destined to be a streaky power hitter: he never, ever slumps.

When he was first promoted to Frisco in 2007, Davis hit safely in 22 of 30 RoughRiders games and went more than one game without a hit only once. Back with Frisco in 2008, he hit safely in 35 of 46 games and went more than one game without a hit only once. And finally with Oklahoma last summer, he hit safely in 22 of 27 games before ending his Triple-A stint with a three-game hitless streak…the only time he went more than one game without a hit.

As a 22 year old rookie, he did have a rough go of it in August (.228 / .307 / .406) but it wasn’t as bad as Braun’s September (.208 / .304 / .356) and Davis rebounded from his rough August to hit a robust .325 / .349 / .554 September, showing once again that he’s has an outstanding knack for making adjustments which, I believe, will only get better.

2b) Ian Kinsler / Joaquin Arias / German Duran

Ian Kinsler is the best baseball player on this club (yeah, I said it) and pretty clearly one of the ten best players in the American League. He’s the best leadoff man in the American League and would be the Rangers best option to bat cleanup behind Josh Hamilton if he wasn’t.

Last year, Kinsler was arguably better than Dustin Pedroia, the American League MVP.

Pedroia: .325 / .376 / .493 / .869
Kinsler: .319 / .375 / .517 / .892

Because of a sports hernia that cut short his season, Kinsler had 79% as many at-bats as Pedroia. So let’s compare Kinsler’s cumulative numbers against 79% of MVP Dustin Pedroia:

Ian Kinsler: 18 homers, 71 RBIs, 102 runs, 41 doubles, 26 stolen bases (caught twice)
79% Pedroia: 13 homers, 65 RBIs, 93 runs, 42 doubles, 16 stolen bases (caught once)

A team of nine Ian Kinslers would beat a team of nine Dustin Pedroias by a score of 7.2 to 6.85.

And don’t let anyone tell you that Kinsler — who came up as a shortstop — is a liability defensively at second base because he led AL second basemen in errors. Kinsler has the best range factor of any MLB second baseman (5.77). Pedroia’s was third-to-last among qualifiers at the position (4.75). That means that Kinsler gets to one more ball per game than Pedroia does – 162 a year, assuming both play every game. That’s huge.

3b) Michael Young / Travis Metcalf / Hank Blalock

I think the world of Michael Young but the outlook here isn’t quite as rosy as it is for Kinsler. I wish it was, but it just isn’t.

Like most normal people in the post-steroid era, Michael Young is beginning his decline as a hitter as he moves towards his mid-30′s (he’s 32). It’s happened to virtually all of his peers at shortstop this decade. For example, Derek Jeter posted an .843 OPS at age 29 in 2003 and .771 at age 34 in 2008. Miguel Tejada posted an OPS of .894 at age 30 in 2004 and he’s at .729 at age 34 last season. Edgar Renteria posted an OPS of .874 at age 27 in 2003 and .699 at age 32 in 2008. Orlando Cabrera posted and OPS of .807 at age 28 in 2003 and .705 for the White Sox in 2008 at age 33 and Young had an OPS of .898 at age 28 in 2005 and a .741 at age 31 in 2008.

People tell me that Young’s poor OPS can be attributed to the fact that he broke a finger in late July and kept playing but that doesn’t explain away his .267 / .302 / .383 / .685 performance in May or the fact that his OPS has been in steady decline for years, dropping from .898 in 2005, to .815 in 2006, to .784 in 2007 and finally .741 last year. Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projects him to be even worst in 2009 (.279 / .335 / .395 / .730).

I think Young will outperform that projection and I think that there’s a good chance that he’ll improve off of his 2008 numbers, but the days of getting an OPS of .820 or better out of Young are almost certainly behind us now and even with improvement, he figures to be no better than league-average offensively at his new position. As a third baseman, Young’s 2008 OPS would have ranked 19th out of 22 players who got at least 450 at-bats at the position. An .800 OPS would have ranked 12th out of 22 qualifiers at the position last year.

On the bright side, Young figures to be an asset defensively at third base an you can’t really put a value on his leadership. On a club full of kids, Young’s example of consummate professionalism is enormously important.

SS) Elvis Andrus / Joaquin Arias / Omar Vizquel

Elvis Andrus is smart, energetic, athletic, charismatic and has a great love for the game. He is a lot of fun to watch. He’s got every tool but one (power). He’s blessed with leadership qualities in spite of the fact that he’s always been not only the youngest player on his team but the youngest player in his league.

Andrus turned 20 with about a week to go in the 2008 season. He finished the year having hit .295 / .350 / .367 in a full season of action in the Texas League. Solid enough. But better still is how he did it.

As the league’s youngest player, Andrus hit .260 / .302 / .310 in April. He improved to .278 / .343 / .322 in May, upped it to .309 / .385 / .397 in June and peaked in July with a .333 / .382 / .423 line before regressing just a bit with a still very fine August (.303 / .351 / .393).
PECOTA projects Andrus to hit .247 / .299 / .332 in 586 plate appearances this year.

I think that will turn out to be about right, perhaps just a touch low. I expect that Andrus will, as he always does, improve throughout the season.

Andrus is an intelligent kid and an intelligent baseball player. He has phenomenal bat control and has an uncanny knack for situational hitting, excelling in the hit-and-run.

Defensively, his skills are off the charts. You will be stunned by his range and his arm. Yes, he made 32 errors last year, but more than half (17) came in the first two months of the season and he made just three errors in August.

There will be bumps in the road, but remember that you are looking at a kid who won’t turn 21 until August. Watch him grow and enjoy the process.

DH) Hank Blalock / Frank Catalanotto / Max Ramirez

If you mash the 2007 and 2008 seasons together into one, Blalock hit about .290 / .345 / .520 / .865 with 22 homers and 71 RBIs in 466 at-bats. I’ll bet you that’s not far off from what he does in 2009. It’ll be a dropoff from the production Texas got out of Milton Bradley at the DH position in 2008, but not too bad. David Ortiz posted an .875 OPS for Boston in 2008 and it’s not at all unreasonable to think that Blalock will be right there.

The 2009 season will almost certainly mark the end of the Hank Joe Blalock era in Texas and it’s pretty sad. Back in 2002, Blalock was ranked as the third best prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America, behind only Josh Beckett and Mark Prior and through his first couple of seasons in the big leagues, he looked like he was the second coming of Mike Schmidt. There’s no way around calling Blalock’s tenure as a Ranger a massive disappointment relative to what could have been.

UTIL) Joaquin Arias / German Duran / Omar Vizquel

I don’t see the point in keeping Omar Vizquel around. The 24 year old Arias is a vastly superior bat (he’s pretty much always going to hit about .300 / .320 / .400) and though his arm is not back to it’s plus-plus pre-2007 level, it’s probably marginally serviceable at short right now.

I used to think that Arias’s upside was Tony Fernandez. His pre-injury defensive skills were superior to Elvis Andrus’s. He was dazzling. He can pick it and he can get to balls that nobody can get to. After spending his entire life at short, he was forced to play second almost exclusively in 2008 due to the weakness in his shoulder. So, unlike Vizquel, he’s got a feel for playing on both sides of the keystone. Even if his arm is only 75% of what it was before he was injured, that’s going to be better than average.