Category: MLB Player Bios

Marcus Semien 2018: A Career Year?

11/25/2018

by Phoenix Desertsong

Baseball fans love talking about career years for their favorite players. The 2018 A’s had a lot of good years from a lot of their players. But one of those players, Marcus Semien, had a lot better season that his baseball card stats would suggest. In fact, what drove Semien’s career year success was not his offensive stats, but rather his defensive stats.

According to FanGraphs, Marcus Semien compiled 3.7 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) in 2018. This beat his 27 home run “breakout” season in 2016, in which he earned 2.1 WAR. So, what took Semien from an average major league shortstop to an above average one? The key to his value lay in drastically improved defense at shortstop.

Marcus Semien has always hit for power. But he’s always suffered from low batting averages (career .249 BA), low on-base percentages (career .319 OBP), and erratic defense. He actually wasn’t bad on defense in 2015, but he was “worth” -15 defensive runs between 2016 and 2017. So, what changed?

Marcus Semien and His Improved Defense and Defensive Stats

A lot of people are skeptical of defensive statistics, as they tend to fluctuate significantly from season to season. However, consistently excellent defenders and consistently bad defenders usually are bore out over the course of a player’s career. Erratic defenders are harder to pinpoint. As we’ve learned over the years, defense is actually a quantifiable asset. It comes down to what plays a player “should” make.

In his career through 2018, these were Semien’s defensive stats broken down by the likelihood of a play being successfully made:

Impossible (0%) 0%
Remote (1-10%) 0%
Unlikely (10-40%) 11.3%
Even (40-60%) 15.7%
Likely (60-90%) 61.1%
Routine (90-100%) 95.9%

In 2018, these are his numbers

Impossible (0%) 0%
Remote (1-10%) 0%
Unlikely (10-40%) 12.5%
Even (40-60%) 21.1%
Likely (60-90%) 61.9%
Routine (90-100%) 96.8%

While those percentages are definitely better than his career averages - which are boosted by his 2018 numbers - they don’t seem like that much. Still, all you need are a handful of made plays in those 10-40% and 40-60% ranges to make a big difference in your defensive value.

Those numbers made Semien worth 9 Defensive Runs Saved and 6.4 UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating per 150 games played). That’s well above-average, although not quite Gold Glove calibre. But what stands out about Semien’s year is how my OOZ (Out of Zone) plays he made: 133. Previously he had made 106 in 2016. His RZR (Revised Zone Rating) was .869, far above his career average of .803, which includes 2018.

This is definitely an improved defensive player. Will he keep this up? It’s completely possible, as defense is a skill that can be learned and improved over time.

Marcus Semien Batting in 2018

For a career year, you’d expect Semien to have a breakout with the bat. That’s not what happened at all. Marcus Semien had a batting average of .255, right in line with his career stats. His on-base percentage was merely .319 and his slugging percentage a fairly low .388. That’s not a great batting line. However, as he plays in Oakland, notoriously not a good pitcher’s park, that batting line of .255/.319/.388 is nearly league-average. He also was a positive on the basepaths with 14 stolen bases, although he was caught 6 times.

There are a couple of interesting things to point out, however. Semien saw more pitches at the plate in 2018 than ever before in his career: 2881. He also saw far more balls, 1102, than ever before. He also hit more line drives and fly balls than ever before, and had a career high 19 infield hits.

Is Marcus Semien Poised for a Better 2019?

When you see improvements across the board like this, it’s very likely you have an improving player. Marcus Semien is only 28 years old and in his prime. The Oakland A’s may enjoy even better results from their shortstop moving forward. If he’s able to produce even half of the defensive value that he did in 2018, he could be an above-average shortstop going forward.

While StatCast seems to think that Semien was a bit lucky with only a .299 expected on-base average (xwOBA) and .329 expected on-base average on contact (xwOBACON), he also had more batted balls in 2018 than ever. If Semien squares up just a few more fastballs going forward, this is a sneaky good, very underrated player.

While Marcus Semien may not be your first choice at shortstop for a fantasy baseball team, or even your fourth or fifth, he’s possibly not seen his best year yet.

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Does Lou Whitaker Belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame?

2/22/2018

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by Phoenix Desertsong

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons user Aaron Caldwell

Tigers great Alan Trammell was a great shortstop. Yet, the Tigers great was still in the conversation for the Hall-of-Fame until 2018 when he was finally inducted by the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. Meanwhile, his double-play partner, second baseman Lou Whitaker, was no longer eligible to be voted in traditionally due to a lack of support from the Baseball Writers Association voters.

Not only is this sad for Tigers fans, but he is more deserving of being in the Hall-of-Fame than most of his second base peers, including 2011 inductee Roberto Alomar. While he could still enter the Hall through a Veterans Committee decision, it's clear that he's been snubbed for too long.

Was Lou Whitaker Unfairly Snubbed in the Hall of Fame Voting?

A sponsor of Lou Whitaker’s Baseball-Reference page brings up an excellent point. Alomar had an adjusted OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) of 116 over his career with 7 teams. Whitaker also had an adjusted OPS of 116 over his career with only one team. They both played about 2300 games and Whitaker amassed 69.7 WAR compared to Alomar’s 63.5 WAR in 12 fewer games. Like Alomar, Whitaker was a Gold Glove-caliber defender and won three Gold Glove Awards. Alomar won 10 Gold Gloves, but compiled only 2.4 defensive WAR. Whitaker had 15.4 defensive WAR.

Of course, both second basemen spent much of their careers alongside plus defensive shortstops. Alomar had Cal Ripken in Baltimore and Omar Vizquel during his Cleveland years. Whitaker had Trammell alongside for virtually his entire career. It’s likely that Vizquel actually made Alomar look even better than he was. But it’s a pretty clear consensus that Alomar was a great glove man. Still, according to the statistics, Whitaker was even more valuable on the defensive side of the ball.

The main reason that Whitaker isn’t in the Hall of Fame is that, to put it simply, he’s a quiet, humble, low-key guy. He never seemed incredibly concerned about being in the Hall, actually saying that if he didn’t make it the first time to not bring his name up again. Obviously, writers remembered this and most left him off of their ballots. Of course, this was just Whitaker’s humility. But his play should’ve been enough to earn him a place, right?

Alomar and Whitaker By the Numbers

With statistics like WAR (wins above replacement) only now becoming mainstream, baseball card statistics (Average, HR, and RBI) have long been the deciding factors in who is chosen for the Hall of Fame and who’s not. But Whitaker’s and Alomar’s “counting numbers” are relatively the same – 244 HR, 1084 RBI and 2369 hits for Whitaker and 210 HR, 1134 RBI, and 2724 hits for Alomar. None of those are the “shoo-in” numbers, as no major milestones like 300 HR or 3000 hits were reached by either of them. The extra 300 hits do help Alomar’s case, but not incredibly so.

Alomar’s career OPS was higher than Whitaker’s, .814 to .789, but the only real baseball card stat where Alomar had the edge was in career batting average (.300 to .276). Their on-base percentages were very similar, Whitaker at .363 and Alomar at .371. Slugging wise, Alomar also had the edge, .443 to .426. So offensively, Alomar had an edge, but not outrageously so.

The Hall-of-Fame Value of Gold Glove Awards

Really, the only advantage that Alomar had over Whitaker was his ten Gold Gloves. But after doing some research on Fangraphs.com, it appears that Alomar was not quite the glove man that people believed. For his career, his Total Zone rating was -3. That means Alomar's defense was worth a total of 3 runs below average over his career. By Total Zone, Whitaker was worth 77 runs above average. According to Total Zone, Alomar only had three truly very good seasons at second: 1998 with the Orioles and 1999 and 2000 for the Indians. Most of the time, Total Zone had him being worth negative runs in almost every other season that he played.

In any case, Alomar is definitely still worthy of being in the Hall of Fame. But if he is, then the runs that Whitaker saved on defense put him in the same exact category as Alomar, especially as both had career batting lines 16% above league-average. Alomar was always a higher-profile player on some extremely good teams, however, and so he was seen as a much better player by the writers.

It’s incredible to see just how much better Whitaker was on defense than Alomar, according to the numbers. But, considering Alomar added more value on offense, they’re fairly equal. In any case, Lou Whitaker belongs in the Hall of Fame. Hopefully, the Veterans Committee fixes this mistake in the future.

How Much is a Lou Whitaker Baseball Card Worth?

While most of Lou Whitaker's baseball cards don't have the same value as his Hall-of-Fame double play partner Alan Trammell, he does have a very valuable rookie card. That is, if that card is flawless! The 1978 Topps Rookie Stars 2nd Baseman #704 rookie card features Lou Whitaker along with Garth Iorg, Dave Oliver, and Sam Perlozzo. In graded PSA 9 condition, this card was selling for as low as $40, although in late 2018 to early 2019, one PSA 9 copy sold for $67 and another one for $92.

PSA 10 Gem Mint copies of the Lou Whitaker rookie card are rare (PSA only has 45 tens in their population report) and a flawless PSA 10 copy sold for a staggering $999 in January of 2019. Other PSA 10 copies have sold in the past for over $650. PSA 8 copies are much more affordable, though, often at a price point of $30 or less. There were near-mint lots of the card available on eBay for a similar price. The demand is definitely there for the Whitaker rookie card, even though he's not in the Hall of Fame.

Without a doubt, Whitaker being inducted into the Hall of Fame by one of the Era voting committees would do great things for his baseball card values. While his rookie card is the only valuable Lou Whitaker baseball card, the price on high-grade examples of his 1978 Rookie Stars card keeps growing!

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