Garko in the OF?
Weird. I don't think this bodes well for Garko's status within the organization.
over 3 years ago
afh4
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This kind of reminds me of 2006 with Joe Inglett and Hector Luna at 2B and whomever else we trotted out there… with the idea being that if you had 4 second baseman candidates, you really had zero second baseman candidates.
Left field is starting to become the same punchline. This can’t end well.
Interesting that first base was called a logjam. You’d have to be counting our catcher and our top OF prospect, LaPorta, for it to be considered a logjam
I like this description from Castro:
Garko is a converted catcher who plays first base like a hockey goalie. The thought of him manning the outfield is certainly a novel one.
He also mentions trying Barfield in the outfield along with Garko. I would think he’d be better in the outfield than Garko, but that’s just a guess.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
I don’t think this bodes well for Garko’s status within the organization.
or francisco’s. i suspect both will get optioned at some point this year.
I thought this was going to be a cartoon.
by SuddenSam on Jan 16, 2009 3:37 PM EST reply actions 4 recs
Yes this.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
by Buckeye Brad on Jan 17, 2009 9:53 AM EST up reply actions
That’s my guess too, just wanted to see what others might thing about this….it was only just over a half season of numbers……The league will certainly adjust to Mr. Choo.
It is lady luck that will doing the main adjusting to Choo, not the league, but he still looks to be solidly productive. His PrOPS is 877, which puts him near the top of AL RF. The more pessimistic projections I’ve seen for him are around 800 OPS, which still makes him an average AL RF. And don’t forget, he was an above-average defender out there, too, even when his arm was only at 80-85% last season. It should be at at 100% now by April.
Here’s his 2008 and ML Career splits
2008
.992 OPS vs. RHP, .359 BABIP
.800 OPS vs LHP, .396 BABIP
Career
.913 OPS vs. RHP, .363 BABIP
.703 OPS vs LHP, .364 BABIP
As you said lady luck will take a crack on him (But I still think the league will have a better plan on how to pitch to him than last year). Also the defensive point is probably the taker right here, without Gutz there really isn’t anyone that is better in RF than Choo so living with his numbers vs. LHP is probably worth it to keep him out there defensively. And I recall he had a cannon for an arm coming up through minors.
Choo has a cannon, or close to a cannon, once he’s all the way healthy, which should be very soon. Remember too that TJ surgeries often result in higher velocities, and I see no reason why that wouldn’t also apply to a right fielder.
You also have to keep in mind, the weak side of any player’s splits isn’t supposed to look good, it’s just supposed to be non-terrible. I think Choo can meet that standard.
the OF is closer to the exit than 1B. more seriously, I think the Indians are freaking out about immediate OF depth while Crowe, Laporta and Brantley are in Columbus.
But that is just crazy talk. How can you freak out about OF depth with Crowe, LaPorta and Brantley in Columbus?
I think they just want to give Garko a chance to be more valuable on the roster, with more ways to get at-bats.
This also doesn’t bode well for Dellucci.
Crowe can be removed from the discussion here. But I really think the talk reflects Shapiro’s strong aversion to being forced to bring up either Brantley or Laporta and roster them before the team thinks they are ready. Depth for late 2009 and beyond, not a concern. Depth if Shoo gets injured in April – more of a concern.
And who’s Dellucci?
he’s the imposter we’re sending into the Korean military
by APV on Jan 17, 2009 4:56 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Well, there’s day-to-day depth — depth for use in tomorrow’s game — and there’s holy-crap depth — depth in case (God forbid) Grady goes down. I think the former kind of depth is not worth worrying about too much, because Grady rests at most one day per month, and while that number may climb, it won’t be by much. As for the latter kind, I don’t think they’re worried about having someone better than those guys to call up to fill in for a while. They might even like giving Crowe the stimulation of a big-league challenge.
See I think there are two ways to think about this. I think it depends on the role for the player being brought up. If they’re bringing up someone as the 4th OF then I think Crowe gets the nod regardless of how Brantley or Laporta is doing. This way they get regular AB’s. If the call up is to be an part time to regular then whoever is doing better will get the call. I think it’s about getting those two as many AB’s and playing time as is possible whereas Crowe is most likely a 4th OF anyways.
Still the local "Barfield Bounces Back Believer" and confident that there's still a lot of Pronk in Hafner. Oh, and for all the love of Cliffy, there's still a Sleepy Kitten inside.
This doesn’t seem all that novel to me. I remember hearing about Garko when he was in the minors after we drafted him. They tried to keep him at catcher, then moved him to RF to get his bat in the lineup, then eventually settled on him playing 1B.
Obviously it didn’t work out so well or he would have stuck in the OF.
I think lenred might be conflating him with Ryan Goleski (who was just released, BTW).
by ken from alexandria on Jan 17, 2009 10:17 AM EST up reply actions
i think it’s just trying to get marte off the roster.
by Brick. on Jan 16, 2009 4:26 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I love this picture
Burn on, big river, burn on...
by Turkmenbashi on Jan 16, 2009 4:34 PM EST up reply actions
Travis Hafner is overrated. Clarity is underrated. David Dellucci is David Dellucci.
by westbrook on Jan 16, 2009 5:52 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
Whoa! That was NOT supposed to go in the subject line!
by world dictator on Jan 17, 2009 12:15 PM EST up reply actions
I don’t think it is…it’s not clickable. Did you put asterisks around it to denote action?
::recommends double colons instead::
by Logodaedalus on Jan 17, 2009 1:14 PM EST up reply actions
Someday when Delluci’s accepting his MVP award, we’re all going to look back on this thread and laaaaaaaaaaaaugh.
You know Selig? Ombudsman.
Garko has the better shot at MVP.
Still the local "Barfield Bounces Back Believer" and confident that there's still a lot of Pronk in Hafner. Oh, and for all the love of Cliffy, there's still a Sleepy Kitten inside.
other thought….could this be intended to increase Garko’s value in some way? anticipating we may not need him in the second half of the season.
Garko’s trade value as a DH/1B is minimal at this point. I doubt that playing him in the OF will improve it much.
I agree. But maybe they think they can get him a little bit of Casey Blake-style cred. No, probably not.
Heh … they have a lot in common, but think about the occasional complaints that Blake would flare up … and then take away the ability to play 3B even badly, and take away the strong outfielder skills entirely, and some of the 1B skills … and the fact that that his career high in HR is 28 rather than 21 … and there’s Garko.
Is it fair to use the “career high” comparison? Garko has 1100+ career at bats, while Blake has 3300+ career at bats.
It’s fair because the Greek God of Popups ain’t going to make it to 3000 PAs, at least not in the bigs.
And it’s fair because Garko may have already peaked. Had Blake been blessed with Garko’s good health in his 20’s, Lord knows how good he could have been. Not that Blake is an All-Star and not that Garko is necessarily an irredeemable bum, but I don’t think they are really a similar caliber of a talent, they only seem that way because we’ve been watching Garko in his prime and Blake years after.
Did Casey not break into the majors because he was hurt? Was it a health issue? If I look at his minor league stats with Syracuse and Dunedin, he seems to have played full seasons. And he didn’t do badly, either, He must have been blocked, or got the managerial cold shoulder whenever he was up.
Do you expect Casey would have done better than he did with Cleveland if he had been playing in the majors during his age 24-28 seasons? Perhaps he is one of those fabled late developers.
Especially projecting the way he will “play” the OF.
What’s the lowest +/- anybody has ever seen? I think I might have recalled a -22 for Ibanez? anything lower than that?
Don't be stupid. PUT IN MELOAN.
Not sure on +/- but Brad Hawpe had a UZR of -37.2 last year.
by rockemsockem on Jan 18, 2009 9:06 PM EST up reply actions
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