Jose Lopez Outlook

by ~ August 4th, 2008 at 5:24 pm

Jose Lopez has had a lot of ups and downs with the Mariners and many fans, myself included, were ready to give up on him coming into this season.  I was hoping that Yung Chi Chen would somehow challenge him for the starting job this Spring, or that the rumored Cha Seung Baek for Ray Durham  trade would be made.  He’s been hitting though, and it appears that he’ll be around for a while because of it.

There are still questions about whether he’ll be able to put together an entire season after dropping off the past couple years; questions that won’t be completely answered until the 2008 season is in the books.  Manager Jim Riggleman said on a recent pre-game show that Lopez is arriving early and getting extra work in alongside Raul Ibanez and Adrian Beltre, something he hasn’t done in the past, which is good to hear since there have also been concerns about his work ethic and focus in the past.  (Off topic, but this is the reason dealing guys like Ibanez and Beltre isn’t always an easy decision.  Raul has always been known as someone that takes the young guys under his wing and is fluent in both Spanish and English, which doesn’t hurt, while Beltre is considered by some teammates as the unofficial captain, according to what Shannon Drayer told us recently.)

If Lopez is part of the organization’s long term plans I don’t think he’ll stay at second base.  He’s arguably the worst defensive second baseman in the game, mainly because his range is so limited (see comments).  There will be better options at the position coming up through the system, including AAA’s Luis Valbuena, who is an above average glove and should be able to pull his weight with the stick after some more time with Tacoma.  Yuniesky Betancourt could even be moved to second base, where he would be much better suited due to his own lack of range, and where he showed he could excel after his call up in 2005.

Lopez may be better off at third base and could be moved there whenever Adrian Beltre departs, whether it be via trade or via free agency next year; a position switch that is made plausible by the organization’s lack of impact third base prospects.  He has played a handful of games at third throughout his career and proved that he has the throwing arm to handle the position.  He has struggled at times, but that can be attributed to unfamiliarity.  His bat doesn’t really fit the mold of a corner infielder at this point, which is the main problem, though he has been hitting well in the fifth spot recently.

Lopez had been hitting better than ever in the 2-hole this year and despite not walking enough for that spot, his .314/.331/.428 line was pretty solid.  He had a 101 OPS+ (OBP plus SLG, ballpark adjusted), which is one point above a league average hitter.  In 97 plate appearances in the 5-hole (23 games) his line is .322/.351/.533, which is good for an OPS+ of 132.  His slugging percentage in that slot is over 100 points higher than in the 2-hole, thanks to the 4 homers he’s hit there compared to the 5 home runs he hit in the 2-hole over 350 plate appearances.

Keep in mind that those 5-hole stats are based on an extremely small sample size, and we can expect the numbers to taper off a bit, especially once pitchers remember to stop throwing inner-half fastballs to him like they did in the 2006 season’s second half, though the raw power is no fluke.  As a prospect Lopez was thought to contain quite a bit of power.  He was putting up solid power numbers as a very young minor leaguer, including 13 homers and 35 doubles as a 19 year old in AA.  As a 20 year old he posted 18 homers over 482 at bats between AAA and Seattle.  He turns on that inside fastball as good as anyone in the game, and could become a force if he ever learns to jump on other pitches. 

The thing many of us seem to forget, myself included, is that Lopez is just 24 years old.  This is the fifth season that we’ve seen him, so it seems as if he’d be much older, but he is the same age as many of the system’s top prospects who’ve yet to see any big league action.  Despite his age Lopez has nearly 2000 MLB at bats under his belt, giving him a foundation that many players do not get.  He’s still a few years from hitting his physical prime, so he has time to become the offensive force the organization thought he would be as a top prospect years ago.

If Lopez can continue to develop his offensive game he’ll be a big part of Seattle’s lineup for a long time.  He is currently under team control through the 2011 season.  If the organization can realize that moving him to third will save runs, then that’s just icing on the cake.

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  • Brandon

    Better to keep lopez than yuni in my opinion.

  • http://www.seatownsports.net seatownsports

    agreed. it’s so weird to see lopez right behind Ichiro in the AL hit leaderboard

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Dustin Shires

    I’m not sure where you got your “arguably worst second baseman” thesis from, because you listed “lack of range” yet his OOZ (outs make OUT OF ZONE), which implies range, is 3rd best among regular second baseman. You may say that he lacks range, but he’s solid on balls hit in his range, and he makes a lot of plays out of his zone, which tells me that he does indeed have range.

    Lopez is a good second baseman.

  • http://www.seatownsports.net seatownsports

    yuni on the other hand has terrible range..did you see his miscommunication with jeremy reed on sunday?

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Jon Shields

    My “arguably the worst defensive second baseman” statement, that was based on arguments I’ve read that he is indeed the worst defensive second baseman starting right now, not my own research. It would be really convenient for me to find those arguments right now, but I can’t remember which site it was on (one of Lookout Landing, USS Mariner or Prospect Insider, I think). Oh well.. here we go.

    There are no perfect defensive stats or metrics, and even the most SABR-obsessed fan will admit that (though there is a new system that will be ready for next season that is supposed to be a step closer, so I have read). There are too many variables, but overall the available metrics out there are still a much better judge than old fashioned fielding percentage, though still don’t combine all aspects of a players defensive game. For example, stats like Fielding Average, Range Factor (RF) and Fielding Runs (FR) are better than fielding percentage for various reasons, but they still don’t account for balls hit that a player should’ve gotten to but didn’t.

    If you’re a reader of the blog, you know we try not to use a lot of the different metrics, mainly because most people don’t know what they are and it just makes for a confusing read. I myself don’t look at those numbers a lot (more “no time,” less ignorance… I hope), but I’ll do my best to put together a rebuttal to Dustin’s argument based on what defensive stats and metrics are available.

    Jose Lopez ranks dead last among MLB starting second basemen in Zone Rating (ZR). ZR represents the percentage of balls hit in his zone turned to outs, not countings balls hit that are deemed uncatchable (“bermuda triangle,” etc), meaning that Lopez isn’t getting to balls that he should get to and is only making about 74% of the outs he should be making, which is a huge drop from previous years showing that his range certainly isn’t improving. It USED to be pretty solid (around 83% in previous years). Lopez also is near the bottom in the Revised Zone Rating (RZR), which is obviously a similar measurement but takes out some variables.

    Dustin says he’s making plays out of his “zone” based on his OOZ stats, yet his ZR ratings show that he’s not even getting to balls that are IN his “zone.” So what gives? I don’t believe that there is any way to ‘win’ an argument on fielding, because there is no way to measure it completely accurately at this point, and a lot of it is based on what you see and what your gut is. However I will say this: Dustin is the first person I’ve read to say Lopez has GOOD range this year.

    Like I mentioned before, I had recently read something that was pretty in depth, but I can’t find it (ARGH!). For what it’s worth, Jason A. Churchill from Prospect Insider mentioned that he’s “getting worse defensively” in his latest post. Not a lot of info, obvioulsy, but Churchill is a baseball scout and knows what he’s talking about. Anyway, that blurb from Churchill isn’t my argument, but just a little add on that’s worth whatever you make of it.

    Jose Lopez isn’t a good defender overall; I’m sticking with it, but there is no difinative way to prove it that I know of.

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Dustin Shires

    Lopez isn’t the worst. He’s 5th worst.

    My argument was never that he is a good fielding second baseman. My entire post was about your statement that he has no range, making him the worst. Yet he has clearly shown that he’s close to the top in making plays out of his range.

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Jon Shields

    err.. he is dead last in ZR (link), as I said, and near the bottom (4th worst) in RZR (link), as I said.

    “Lopez is a good second baseman” sounds like an argument that “he is a good fielding second baseman;” heh.. Anyway, I don’t know how you can say a guy has range when he isn’t reaching balls that he is expected to get. How he has such a low ZR/RZR and high OOZ completely baffles me, so I don’t know where this debate goes from here.

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Dustin Shires

    Yo I couldn’t tell ya where we should go with this next, because his fielding contradicts numbers… Poor on balls hit right at him, yet he makes great plays that aren’t in his range. I couldn’t tell ya.

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Jon Shields

    ^He’s not “poor on balls hit right at him.” If that was the case his fielding percentage would be a lot lower than it is, because not making an out on a ball right at you implies that you flubbed it and committed an error. He’s just not getting to balls within his designated range, something I notice often when watching. He has a knack for almost getting to a ball. He appears especially bad at getting to balls on the first base side.

    So what’s more important: making the plays you should be making, or making the ‘web gem’ here and there? I would go with the former.

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Dustin Shires

    I shall say that making the every day play, instead of the weekly web gem. That stat you listed, ZR, has nothing to do with extreme range. Those are balls that are able to be gotten to, and like you said, he’s last. That isn’t good.

    And yes, for two years now I have noticed that he is just short on balls hit into shallow right. He nearly gets there, but always comes up short!

  • canadianrocket

    Jose Lopez never struck me as a spectacular 2B, but I thought that he was a little more than average. From what I’ve seen, without all of the stats, Lopez will make some of the plays he needs to, and some plays that he shouldn’t be responsible for. Maybe I’m still in the boat where Lopez is young, and he is only 24, but he’s already played a few seasons and he hasn’t really improved.

    On Yuni, whatever happened to the crazy double play combo him and Lopez were suppossed to be? Or the fact that Yuni was suppossed to be a ‘magician’ (I use that term loosely) in the field? Not many ‘magicians’ make 16 errors in a little over half of a season. Maybe if he could put a few more hits up we’d forget about his problems in the field that he encounters. Hanley Ramirez could fall in to that category, who has made 19 errors already, but hits close to .300; hits 25-32 HR; could easily get to 200 hits, and steals 30+ bases.

    I remember the other night Betancourt showed tremendous range to get to a ball, and then totally blew it with a crappy throw to first. It’s just stupid things like that make us question his fielding credentials. Although, it’s not like he makes a great range play then blows it with a throw every night…