There’s a huge difference between a full year’s worth of PA over the course of a year and several years.

Here’s a question I’ve always had about BABIP: is a low BABIP really a good explanation for why a guy isn’t hitting for any power? Seems to me that BABIP would account more for guys who have had bad luck with balls “not falling in” or not getting the usual seeing-eye singles. For instance, it’s not like Marte’s been crushing gappers that are caught by Curtis Granderson everytime or like he’s been robbed of eight homers by Toriiiiiiii Hunter. He’s essentially hitting the ball poorly, and it’s looks like he’s hitting even worse than he really is because he’s not getting as many bloopers or seeing-eye singles.

Let’s not forget that those 2006 at-bats came at the end of the year after playing every day at AAA and that this year’s at bats come during and after essentially playing once or twice a week for the better part of 3 months.

So is it just prolonged awful luck, small sample size (he’s approaching a full year’s worth of PA for his career) or can he just not hit?

a) luck or b) SSS are possible, but not probable. Logically, this leaves only c) can’t hit.

My comments from yesterday’s Game Thread …

Now on to Marte. No real reason to be down on him.

He’s been a regular more or less since July 4, and his numbers are .221/.275/.368 — not good, certainly, but also not atrocious considering he had barely played at all since Spring Training before that point. This basically is his Spring Training, and there’s just no sense fretting over five weeks.

For another perspective … as of July 5, his numbers were .125 / .169 / .143, so that’s a 312 OPS during the "domino days" vs. 648 OPS since then. That is a trend in the right direction, and he is very, very likely to finish the season over .200, for those who care about that.

... and a bit later …

Well, do the math. Domino days … .125 average in only 56 AB. Since then … .221 average in 95 AB. So he’s on pace to bring it up to 200 in another 100 AB or so.

He also has a terribly unlucky .225 BABIP — which might seem like it can’t just be bad luck, but remember, it’s only 164 PA, about six weeks of regular playing time, and it’s just not that weird to have that extreme of a BABIP. His PrOPS is 650 … slashed out to .233 / .285 / .366 … and that’s taking into account groundballs vs. line drives vs. flyballs vs. popups.

So he’s merely been bad … and aside from the domino days, not incomprehensibly bad. He’s not Mickey Rouse up there.

i don’t understand the continuing fascination with marte. he’s holding down a spot on our 25 man roster on the strength of some great seasons in A+ and AA ball from four years back. scouts seem to have soured on him, and he hasn’t accomplished anything since coming to our organization.

i know that it’s extremely rare to see a 21 year old OPS .878 in AAA, but that 21 year old is now 24 (and will be 25 in november). i’m glad that we’re taking the remainder of 2008 to give him a legitimate shot to prove his worth, but to me it’s beginning to look more and more like marte’s physical development really just went in the wrong direction-whether it’s his size, flexibility, bat speed, swing, whatever-and we’ve always known that that’s just an inherent risk with young prospects.

Yes. Evan Longoria OPS’d .685 over 100+ AB’s in May (he was a bit better in April). Then he started to really hit. Should the Rays have ditched him? Marte’s obviously not Longoria, but give the guy a chance. He’s our best bunter, at this point, if nothing else.

2003: V-Mart, age 24, 159 ABs after debut season of only 32 ABs: .289/.345/.333, .678 OPS

2006: Marte, age 22, 164 ABs after debut season of only 57 ABs: .226/.287/.421, .708 OPS

I guess we could have written off V-Mart after that year too. The difference, in my opinion, is after 2003, Victor was given an everyday job and he thrived. Last year, Marte struggled out of the gate and then got hurt, only to receive 7 token ABs in September as the Tribe pushed towards the playoffs. As of today, Marte is still short of those 164 ABs that he received in an everyday routine starting July 28, 2006, while being pretty much available since day 1 (was he on the DL in May?) He hasn’t been given the same chance at PT that Victor did.

You can accuse me of cherrypicking a player here, but Martinez was the first I thought of, found the comparison to be relatively valid, and didn’t feel like going any further. I’m just surprised that all of a sudden, a 1-month sample of everyday PT is enough to know what we’ve got in Marte. As has been hinted at, start him everyday next year… the difference between him and a FA 3B is not going to make or break the season.

The entire reason that an untested Marte was worth a shot in the first place, was that we had nobody else in the system and other trade and FA alternatives didn’t look attractive. That hasn’t changed since the trade. So, until some other option becomes affordable and attractive, we may as well ride the Marte train until some other option is more attractive. We won’t know that until we know whether Marte can be league average with some additional chances. In this case, staying the course is both prudent and economical.

Here’s a more encouraging small sample size. Since his recall in mid-July, here is Asdrubal’s line:

.301/.400/.493, 10BBs, 17Ks, 86PAs

I think the best thing we can say about Marte since he’s gotten regular playing time (and maybe the only thing we can say with certainty) is that his defense has been quite good. And that might be all he needs to do to hold onto the starting position heading into 2009.

free marte

If anyone has a copy of the Bill James Goldmine lying around, there’s a great section in there under I think the Royals about rookie third basemen. It’s about Alex Gordon and a couple of other young third basemen (it might be under one of their teams, sorry) and he basically shows that very few great third basemen have produced well during his first extended stint in the majors.

His argument hints at the idea that the position is just too hard defensively but mostly he just points out that it doesn’t happen-if I remember correctly, he shows how putrid both Schmidt and Brett were.

None of this will make any difference. The Indians will sign Casey Blake to a three-year deal and Marte will go on to play third base in the NL.

In a year or two we’ll learn that Marte’s reported age is three years too young, and that somehow the Braves and Red Sox knew of this all along, and it’ll all make sense.

But it’s cool. Water under the bridge.