TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Play Dusty for Me

Portrait of a Serial Rally Killer

Today is Day Six of the Corey Patterson era at the lead-off spot for the Chicago Cubs. The Dusty Baker theory of management has promoted Corey to this spot after accumulating a .326 OBP (career: .302) with a walk to strikeout ratio this season of 30/106. Corey has managed to strike out consecutively five times during his brief tenure as the lead-off hitter, 9 overall. He has scored 3 runs during this period -- two of them on homers -- but he's stolen three bases. He's swung at the first pitch in over 80% of his at-bats as a leadoff man.

Whom did Patterson replace? The platooning second-base duo of Todd Walker and Mark Grudzielanek. Grudz was injured the first half of the year, during which Walker leadoff most of the time and played second. Grudz has an unremarkable career OBP of .328, a bit below average for all major leaguers. He's got an OBP of .311 this year. Walker has an OBP of .371. Grudzielanek's walk to strikeout ratio is 8/20; Walker's is 35/41. It's not like Grudzielanek has extra power or speed over Walker: Grudz has averaged six homers a year over his 11-year career and has slugged .357, Walker about 10 homers per year with a .440 slugging average. And Walker's working on his career-high year with 13 homers. So of course, the obvious solution when Grudzielanek returned to the roster from the DL was...platoon them.

After a month of this platooning, when Garciaparra was added to the roster, Dusty decided to insert Nomar in the two-hole and name Patterson his leadoff hitter. Patterson, said Dusty, "could be like a Lou Brock guy." On this point Dusty is correct in some ways: Brock was a big strikeout guy, especially for his era, and had only a slightly above-average career OBP of .343. Lest you think I'm being hard on Lou due to the pitcher-friendly era he played in: Brock in 19 seasons made the top ten in OBP only once, when he finished ninth in 1971. Of course, Brock was a superb base-stealer in an era when that was an asset to the offense. Patterson and Brock's OBP were virtually the same at the age of 24. Brock had good pop for his era; Patterson has below average pop for an outfielder in 2004 (compare his 13 homers to Walkers' 13 at second base).

It's possible Patterson may join Feldman and Haim among the great Coreys of our time, but even in the unlikely event he turns into Lou Brock, the question is: is being a Lou Brock the right thing for this era of baseball? And do you get to be a Lou Brock by swinging at the first pitch nearly every time you go up there?

This has to be the disturbing part for Cubs fans...why, with Walker doing a perfectly acceptable job as a leadoff man -- he's as aggressive a baserunner as there is, considering he's not a base-stealer -- did Baker feel it was necessary to first platoon Walker with a lesser player, and then replace him in the order with a player who surpasses him in only one category, stolen bases?

Because that, baby, is the Dusty Baker way. He may ride it all the way to the hall of fame if his clubs keep making him look good, through no fault of his own. (Dusty is a three-time manager of the year: Bonds won the MVP each year Baker won Manager of the Year.) But apropos of my post a couple of days ago about Dave Justice the Regular Season Guy vs. Dave Justice the Post-Season guy, it may not fly the Cubs to the ring-fitting.

posted by The Crank 3:02 PM