12/11/08

Center Field

Lets do a little comparison

Player A
.313 avg/.407 OBP/.468 SLG One home run every 38.833 At-Bats Hits .326 against lefties and .306 against righties. Player A strikes out 18% of the time.

Player B
.243 avg/.331 OBP/.477 SLG One home run every 17.76 At-Bats. Hit .282 against lefties and .231 against righties. Player B strikes out 31% of the time.

I think Player A is by far the better choice. The only thing at which Player B excels is hitting homeruns. OBP and SLG are, in my opinion, the most important statistics for measuring a hitter's ability. Any guesses on who the two players are? Player B is Mike Cameron, which I think most people could have guessed. And Player A is Rockies CF Ryan Spilborghs. Spilborghs hasn't been given an opportunity to play full-time for a whole season as he's been blocked by Matt Holliday, Wily Taveras, and Brad Hawpe. As someone who has watched Spilborghs play I know that he brings a certain energy to the team, and always seems to simply enjoy playing baseball. He does what the team asks of him and does it well. Dan O'Dowd couldn't ask for too much for Spilborghs as he has Carlos Gonzalez, Taveras, and Hawpe capable of starting in the OF, with Dexter Fowler making his way to the bigs. The Yanks should explore a Spilborghs trade rather than a Cameron trade. Spilly is 29 and Cameron will be 36 by opening day. Cameron has a $10mm salary for '09, while Spilly will make about $400K. We are just looking for a stop-gap, as Conor said, but if you can get someone better for not much more why not do it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rockies won't give up Spilbourghs if they can't resign Taveras (who is now a free agent after being non tendered). Rockies OF is Gonzalez, Hawpe, and Spilbourghs. I could see the Yankees taking Taveras on a short term (2 yr?) contract cheap.

Anonymous said...

No, the Yanks won't get Taveras. He's just a more expensive version of Brett Gardner. And the Rox might give up Spilly since they want to make room for Dexter Fowler to come to the bigs. They also might move Ian Stewart or Jeff Baker to the outfield.