Blogservations 06/08/09, Marlins 4, Giants 0

I came in late for the game, stepping in during the bottom of the 5th inning. I was pleasantly surprised to see the team up 3-0 and threatening with the bases loaded and two outs, but with Ronny Paulino’s groundout, the inning ended in typical Marlins fashion this year. The surprise silver lining for me was that I got to see a row of zeroes on Giants’ portion of the column, revealing that Sean West was pitching a gem opposite Randy Johnson.

In any case, here’s a few of my observations from the game:

Brett Carroll came up with some ironic timing for a hitting clinic.

He’ll never be confused with anything resembling a good hitter, but the one thing Brett Carroll has brought this year in limited innings is a solid outfield glove. And seeing the latest UZR values for the outfielders the Marlins are throwing out there, a solid glove might be able to help the squad win a game or two more. He couldn’t be worse than Emilio Bonifacio, could he?

Well, today Fredi gave Bonifacio and Jeremy Hermida the day off, slotting Wes Helms at third and Carroll in right field. Carroll surprisingly did not disappoint with the bat, hitting a three-run home run, his first as a major leaguer, that single-handedly added 21% to the Win Expectancy for the Fish. He added a triple and bunt single to those totals, going 3 for 4 for the night.

I maintain that the team has could have enough depth in the outfield to start Carroll in either left or right field and Hermida at the other side. Fredi likes to bring Carroll in late as a defensive replacement, but at this stage, his bat is no worse than Bonifacio’s and his plus glove can be in the game full-time. In just 77 innings of work, Carroll has provided a 5.7 UZR. Of course, small sample size is a big factor here. Looking at his career outfield totals, he’s posted a 7.9 UZR in 237 innings, a decent indicator of a good glove.

This would leave the team with Ross Gload as its onyl backup outfielder, so perhaps this strategy should be held until Alfredo Amezaga returns from the DL, which from what I hear isn’t anytime soon. Still, after advocating Carroll to start, he certainly backed me up with a good performance.

Sean West showed some impressive stuff.

West ranked as the organization’s 4th best prospect and top pitching prospect coming into this year, according to Baseball America. He had been injured in 2007 after a very solid 2006 in low-A, but recovered nicely in 2008. After a slew of injuries and ineffective starts from various Marlins starters, West got the call from AA and has done decently so far. His 5.26 FIP was heavily influenced by his start versus the Brewers, where he was hammered in four innings of work. But his other two starts showed promise, as the peripherals were fine (7/5 K/BB in 12 innings of work, 1 HR allowed) for a 22 year-old fresh off his first 8 starts at AA.

Tonight West put up a gem against the Giants, however. Having watched him starting in the sixth inning, I saw his fastball sitting at 90-92 MPH and a nasty-looking slider in the low-mid 80’s with good lateral and downward movement. I’m in no ways a baseball scout, so all I can say is what I saw, and what I saw was some solid movement on his breaking balls that were getting hitters to buckle and miss on many occasions. He was spotting the fastball decently, though the Giants weren’t doing much with the ones he was missing.

The best part perhaps was revealed in his peripherals. In eight innings of work, he put up 6 K and only 1 BB, scattering 2 hits. That’s good stuff, and it shows some of his ability to miss bats that had not been seen all that much in his previous starts. Here’s hoping tonight is the start of a good run for West the rest of the way through his major league stint this year. I suspect we’ll see him back in AA when the injury to Anibal Sanchez clears up and he’s ready to start again.

I’m anxious to see more of Chris Coghlan.

Coghlan looked great as a minor leaguer last year and was poised to be brought to big leagues this season. But with 2B blocked by Dan Uggla (and the team’s refusal to move him out of the position despite his poor range), Coghlan would have to find a new position to play. With Bonifacio struggling at the time of his call-up, many figured that would be third base, but Fredi’s insistance on playing Bonifacio moved Coghlan to left field. While Coghlan’s current line of .224/.350/.329 isn’t lighting up the sky, it’s his OBP that intrigues me and leaves me wanting to see more.

The Marlins have quite a few players in their lineup that struggle with getting on base. Bonifacio and his terrible numbers aside, we also have low OBP’s on players like Cody Ross (.305) and Jorge Cantu (.339) because they lack the patience for walks. Cantu so far has posted a 6.5% BB rate, while Ross himself has a 6.1% BB rate. Three Marlin’s regulars are posting BB rates above 10%: John Baker, who seems to be getting 2/3 of the catcher PA only, Jeremy Hermida, who seems to have lost all semblance of power and is in that sense the opposite of Ross, and Dan Uggla, who is just now returning to peak form from some bad BABIP karma.

Coghlan shows a robust 16.7% BB rate early in the season and has the .350 OBP that is at least a little deserving of a leadoff spot. All of this is in a small sample size, so we have to take it with a grain of salt. But if he can provide this kind of OBP and increase his power numbers a bit more (he is currently posting a weak 11.9% line drive % (LD%) which I suspect doesn’t match his minor league track record and should receive a decent bump, which should help his currently low BABIP), he could be the kind of leadoff hitter the team needs to compete offensively.

However, that kind of expectation may be a tad overzealous. zIPS projects a .241/.327/.353 finish to Coghlan’s year, with a BB rate down to 11.0%, closer to his minor league career values. A line like that wouldn’t exactly be a cup of tea, but the team could do worse with the talent it currently has.