Saturday, August 18, 2012

The Evil Of Two Lessers

So I'm reading the recap of last night's game from ESPN's Mark Saxon:

The Bad: [...]

Juan, two ... Mattingly must fret about it even before he calls Juan Rivera's name as a pinch hitter: the double play. It has been the bane of Rivera's career since he broke his leg playing winter ball in Venezuela five years ago. Predictably, after Hanley Ramirez led off the 11th inning with a single, Rivera came up and hit one sharply to the shortstop for an easy rally-killing double play. It was the 13th GDP of Rivera's season, a high number considering he has yet to have his 300th at-bat.

Rivera is weak sauce, no doubt. But the sad thing is, James Loney is weaker. Rivera's OWAR is -0.9, but Loney's is -1.4 (the lowest on the Dodger team, even worse than festering sore Juan Uribe). Heading into last night's game, Rivera had 12 GIDPs with 281 PAs, or 23.4 PAs/GIDP; Loney's 16 GIDPs this year (a team high) give him a PA/GIDP ratio of a much worse 21.6.

And isn't it pathetic that I'm sitting here having to calculate PA/GIDP in the first goddamn place. Or that this, Loney or Rivera, is Mattingly's choice to begin with. You guys covering 1B are both lame.

2 comments:

Dusty Baker said...

I know it would have the same rally-killing effect, but I'd rather have these light-hitting 1B guys fly out instead of ground out weakly to SS. Don't know why, but it would seem more satisfying.

Steve K said...

Love the title of the post, Sax!