Who’s the real Jose Lopez?
Yuniesky Betancourt has been a frequent target for criticism this year, but in terms of wins, Jose Lopez is hurting us even more. The M’s are 1.7 wins below replacement level in the middle infield so far (-1.0 for Lopez, -0.7 for Betancourt). Even with Betancourt’s terrible defense and complete lack of clue at the plate, Lopez has been the worst player on the team so far.
Last year, Lopez made significant progress offensively, encouraging many of us who’ve believed in his potential. While he wasn’t going to be more than average defensively, he was still relatively young and cheap, an above-average hitter for his position, and maybe he could still add some power as he matured. This year, he’s fallen off a cliff. So what’s happened?
There are a lot of ways to look at this, each of which is just one part of the puzzle. But put together, they suggest why replacing Lopez needs to be just as much a priority as replacing Betancourt.
Let’s start with the “Lopez came into his own in 2008” theory. As Dave has frequently pointed out, you can’t just ignore his performance in previous years. A lot of people have wanted to excuse his horrible second half of 2007 because his brother died in June and he had a hard time concentrating on baseball after that. That wasn’t the real Jose Lopez, we thought. I admit to believing that myself a bit. Well, we’re far enough into the season that sample sizes aren’t quite so small anymore, and this Jose Lopez is a lot like that one:
Jose Lopez, post-ASB 2007: .213/.238/.281
Jose Lopez, 2009: .216/.259/.307
Pretty close, and if you added in his slightly-better-but-still-bad performance from mid-June (when his brother was killed) to mid-July 2007, the two are virtually the same. Some of that’s bad luck (identical .232 BABIP), but even allowing for some regression, it’s the real Lopez now and it was the real Lopez then. I’m not saying 2008 wasn’t real too, but it’s increasingly looking like Lopez’s peak, not something we can count on him to repeat year after year.
Other things are going on that are new this year, though. Here are some batted ball numbers for Lopez as a full-time player:
| Season | LD% | GB% | FB% | HR/FB |
| 2006 | 18.2% | 48.6% | 33.2% | 5.7% |
| 2007 | 17.0% | 45.7% | 37.4% | 6.4% |
| 2008 | 20.3% | 44.1% | 35.6% | 8.2% |
| 2009 | 19.9% | 34.0% | 46.2% | 4.2% |
He’s hitting line drives the same as always, but his groundball and flyball percentages have completely flipped. Meanwhile, those flyballs are turning into home runs at the lowest rate of his career. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it’s as if last year convinced him to change his swing to go for more power, while at the same time the power itself has disappeared. We may still see some drift back to Lopez’s career norms, but in general these percentages tend to stabilize pretty quickly, and we’re approaching the point where we have to look at this as a meaningful change. I’m not saying the way for him to be successful is to beat the ball into the ground like Ichiro, but Lopez will never be a big power hitter. If he thinks he is, we’re in for a lot more fly balls to the warning track.
Meanwhile, there’s the question of his defense. His UZR/150 at second base:
2006: 5.0
2007: 1.4
2008: -4.8
2009: -11.8
You have to consider fielding metrics over multiple years, so we can’t just conclude that he’s as bad as it looks this year, but he’s certainly no better than average. And you definitely have to be worried about the appearance of a trend here (much like Betancourt). The real Jose Lopez is a below-average second baseman, and the sooner we can upgrade at that position, the better.
-11.8?!? Gah, I almost choked when I saw that.
Remember what Lopez was doing very well last year? He was putting the ball through the right side hitting behind Ichiro.
From what I have seen this year, Lopez appears to be swinging under a lot of pitches, and putting them a mile high in the air, rather than trying to let the ball come further in and drive it the other way. I could be wrong, but it seems like he’s trying to pull the ball too much.
Oh, well this is only mildly depressing.
Do you think they reason they didn’t grab someone like Adam Kennedy when he was available a month ago was in hopes of Lopez putting up decent enough numbers to pawn him off on somebody? Maybe even get a little talent in return?
If possible signing Felipe Lopez this off season seems like it would be a great fit. Not sure of what his price tag would be, but seems like he could be had for a reasonable amount.
There’s lots of free talent out there…
Tug Hulett is a replacement level second baseman who happens to hit left handed with career minor league numbers of .283/.387/.408.
He’s making nothing for KC’s AAA right now.
I’m thinking we got rid of the wrong 2nd baseman in the off season.
I could be wrong, but it seems like he’s trying to pull the ball too much.
Trying to pull everything has long been a Lopez bugaboo. A righthanded hitter in Safeco Field trying to pull everything in the air will make a lot of outs.
Tug Hulett is a replacement level second baseman who happens to hit left handed with career minor league numbers of .283/.387/.408.
He’s making nothing for KC’s AAA right now.
Actually, Hulett was called up to the Royals a few days ago, so now he gets to back up Willie Bloomquist again.
That seems like it would either be a nice signing or a landmine because of an overinflated salary (see Carlos Silva’s contract), couldn’t tell you which it is yet.
It’s going to be a VERY interesting trade deadline, that’s for sure. . .
Lopez has been very disappointing all season long. I admit that I am a bit Lopez fan and for some reason to the casual M’s fan he is more likeable the Yuni (even though I do not know why). I realize that he has struggled mightily at the plate this year but I want to know what happened to the Lopez we saw tearing up the ball in the WBC earlier this year?:
Lopez : .417/.481/.917
I understand that this is very very small sample size (24 AB) and that the pitching from say Italy and the Netherlands isn’t quite as good as it is in the MLB. Maybe it was the fact that he got to play around a bunch of his Venezuelan teammates and friends? Don’t the M’s have one of the highest percentages of players from that country in the league? That can’t be it.
I hope something starts clicking for this guy because if he wants to prolong his career not only with the M’s but the rest of the league he better start collecting base hits and sure up his defense.
That being said, Lopez did have two clutch 9th inning at bats against Oakland to give us the win in both games. Let’s try and find this Lopez for the rest of the season.
To be honest, I’ve always liked Lopez… And I’ll be a little sad to see him go. But much like my childhood dog Gerry, its time to send him on his way… Well, not put him down, but you know…
Isn’t irony great?
I thought the whole point in his improvement last year was hitting line drives to right-center field. Swinging for the fences is a great way for him to make a lot of very easy outs.
And as I’ve pointed out before, if you remember those two games and forget all the other times he didn’t come through, you’re deluding yourself. His actual clutch stats this year are very, very bad. This is all subject to insanely small sample sizes, of course… but “that Lopez” that got those two clutch hits is the same Lopez who failed in many other similar situations, and selectively remembering the successes and forgetting the failures doesn’t change what you actually get if you find him for the rest of the season.