Category Archives: Ivan DeJesus

Who Tops Your Dodger Prospect List?

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It’s a big day if you’re at all interested in the Dodger minor league system, because today is the day that Baseball Prospectus prospect maven Kevin Goldstein put out his Top 11 Dodger list. Along with John Sickels’ list from last week, that’s two of the bigger names in prospect ranking who have weighed in on the Dodgers (Baseball America will do so on January 21), so I figured now would be a good time to compare the two, particularly with a lot of discussion about Ivan DeJesus around here lately.

Goldstein’s piece at BP is behind the paywall, so I’ll only be showing the list here. If you want to see his reasoning and each player’s pluses and minuses, which is really the meat of it, you’ll need to have a BP subscription.

#
Goldstein
Sickels
1
Zach Lee
2
3
4
5
6
Zach Lee
7
8
9
10

Nine players appear on both lists, and both men have the same players in the top six, though ordered differently. The main difference here appears to be Zach Lee, who Goldstein has ranked #1 but is only #6 for Sickels, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that – Sickels admits that he likes him better long-term than Jansen and De La Rosa, but wants to see Lee throw at least one professional pitch first.

Not found on either list? DeJesus. Sickels puts him in the “others of note” section, below the top 20, and though Goldstein also goes to 20, DeJesus’ name doesn’t appear at all. While the Dodgers system has definitely improved since a slight lull brought on by the promotions of Kemp / Kershaw / Billingsley / Loney / Martin / etc., it’s hardly Royals-level deep, so the fact that he’s getting zero respect from any of the prospect guys isn’t a great sign for him.

******

Here’s a fun note from Jack Moore at RotoHardball:

Ted Lilly faced 785 batters in 2010.  218 of them reached base.  Ted Lilly turned the average batter he faced last year into some sick combination of Jose Lopez (.239/.270/.339) and Aaron Hill (.205/.271/.394).

Of course, as Moore goes on to note, while that sounds awesome, Lilly’s high home run rate means that he tends to allow runs even when runners aren’t on base.

******

I did a Q&A over at Giants blog Splashing Pumpkins, which is kind of an awesome name. I ended up going on more of a Matt Kemp rant than I intended, I think.

Should the Dodgers Be Looking For A Lefty Bullpen Arm?

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Ponder this: it’s the first week of January, yet there may not be a single pitching spot up for grabs when camp starts in roughly six weeks. While the offensive side may see mild competition at backup catcher and the possible addition of a low-cost righty outfielder (and as I have been for months, I’m still on board the Lastings Milledge train), the pitching staff seems to be entirely set, barring any unexpected trades.

The rotation is obvious, as Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda, Ted Lilly, and Jon Garland will head up one of the more solid starting groups in the game. Then, assuming the Dodgers carry seven relievers – as they almost always do – it seems pretty obvious that the seven are going to be Jonathan Broxton, Hong-Chih Kuo, Kenley Jansen, Vicente Padilla, Matt Guerrier, Ronald Belisario, & Blake Hawksworth. You can quibble about Belisario and Hawksworth, I suppose, but each are out of options and I doubt either is exposed to waivers, particularly with Belisario reportedly throwing well in winter ball. Behind them, there’s familiar names like Travis Schlichting, Jon Link, and Ramon Troncoso in the mix as well, ready to start at ABQ and come up when depth is needed. It’s a solid group.

Yet the question must be asked: should the Dodgers try to ensure that there’s another lefty in the bullpen alongside Kuo? If so, who?

Kuo may be the only southpaw in that group, but he’s of course hardly your typical lefty reliever. He may well end up with part of the closer’s job again, and since he’s dominant against all batters there’s no need to restrict him to just lefties anyway. Now, you don’t have to have a second lefty, but since Kuo generally doesn’t pitch on back-to-back days and may be held back for the 9th inning anyway, there’s a real risk that the team would almost never have a real situational lefty available for big spots in the 7th and 8th innings.

Unless you’ve really got your heart set on Dana Eveland, the only viable internal candidate is Scott Elbert, who has begun to make the transition from starter to reliever. Elbert was impressive in the AFL, his power stuff (10.4 K/9 in the minors) would play well in the bullpen, and I’d love to see the longtime prospect finally break through. Elbert comes with obvious risk, of course; not only was there the well-known leave of absence that cost him much of last season, but until he harnesses his control (5.0 BB/9 in the minors) relying on him in late-inning situations may be dicey. Considering that he didn’t pitch in the minors last year after June, starting him off back at ABQ may not be the worst idea in the world.

If you’re willing to look outside the organization, there’s several veteran options who may come at a reasonable cost – and no, I’m not talking about Brian Fuentes, who is overrated and reportedly wants a three-year deal. There’s a few familiar names out there, including several former Dodgers. Let’s take a look at who’s out there with their 2011 ages, 2010 K/BB stats, and 2010 performance against lefties…

Will Ohman, 33 (9.2 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, .636 OPS vs. LHB)
Ohman’s 2009 in Dodger blue was nothing less than an injury-filled disaster, as he pitched just 12.1 terrible innings before being non-tendered. Yet Ohman had several successful seasons before that and bounced back with Baltimore and Florida last year, starting his year with 25 straight games without being charged with a run. Though his walk rate was certainly higher than you’d like, he’s still getting lefty hitters out; his 2010 OPS is nearly identical to his career mark of .646.

Joe Beimel, 34 (4.2 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, .653 OPS vs LHB)
Beimel was something of a fan favorite in LA during his three seasons as a Dodger (2006-08), and was vocal in his preference to stay with the team. He had to wait until March of 2009 to sign with Washington, and made it only until July before being traded to Colorado, where he’s been ever since. Though he was successful against lefties in 2010, it was significantly lower than his career mark of .720, and the declining K rate is a concern.

Dennys Reyes, 34 (5.9 K/9, 5.0 BB/9, .862 OPS vs LHB)
Yep, that’s the same Dennys Reyes who was signed as an amateur by the Dodgers in 1993 and pitched in 25 MLB games before being included in the horrendous “Paul Konerko for Jeff Shaw” debacle of 1998. Though the loss of Konerko is obviously the most egregious, Reyes has made a career for himself as well, pitching in over 600 games for 9 teams since leaving LA. Reyes very nearly signed a $1.1m deal with the Phillies last month before it fell through, so we know what his price range is. That awful line against LHB last year may be an aberration, since he’s been very good against them over his career (.669), yet it’s not promising, and he fell apart in the second half last year after a good start.

Ron Mahay, 40 (6.6 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, .520 OPS vs LHB)
How old is Ron Mahay? He tried to make it as an outfielder in the Boston system in the early 90s, briefly appearing as a replacement player in 1995, before converting to pitching and getting back to the bigs several years later. Despite his age, Mahay was death on lefties in 2010. That’s not a rate he’s managed for his entire career, but he’s still sub-.700 against them over 14 seasons, and he did strike out three times as many as he walked last year.

Randy Flores, 35 (5.8 K/9, 4.4 BB/9, .888 OPS vs LHB)
Yep, .888. I almost didn’t include him, but figured I might as well just to be complete, and it is at least down to .780 for his career. Still, Flores doesn’t seem like the right kind of fit here.

So does anyone here interest you? Reyes and Flores are non-starters for me, and though Beimel was fun to have around, his performance has been decent at best. I’ve always been a big Ohman fan – yes, I’ll admit that part of that is because he’s perhaps the funniest guy in the league – though I wonder if his poor 2009 experience has soured the relationship on both sides. That leaves Mahay, who signed just a minor-league deal last season and was excellent.

Of course, if you do sign any of these guys to a major league contract, then one of the current seven has to go. Perhaps that’s the long-rumored trade of Broxton for an expensive left fielder. (Unlikely.) Or perhaps they want Jansen to gain more experience in the minors. (Very unlikely.) Maybe “being traded for Ryan Theriot” isn’t enough to guarantee Hawksworth a spot. (Possible.) Or maybe Belisario takes a wrong turn on the way to Arizona and somehow ends up in Siberia. (Even odds.)

So your choices are:

1) Go with just one lefty in the bullpen.
2) Add Elbert, find a way to dump someone else.
3) Add one of the free agents, find a way to dump someone else.

Me? If it’s cheap – less than $1m, or even better a minor-league deal – I’d try to get Mahay and see if Hawksworth slips through waivers. If not, then let Elbert and Hawksworth battle it out in camp.

*****

I, for one, will be so happy when Adrian Beltre finally signs somewhere so Dodger fans can stop hoping that he’s coming back. Beltre’s a fine player, but he’s not a superstar, and he wants superstar money. Not that signing him for 3B and pushing Blake to LF wouldn’t be fun and all, but the Dodgers have to be at or near their payroll limit, and I just can’t see how fitting Beltre in would work – especially when you don’t know if you’re getting awesome Beltre (2004, 2010), or average-to-slightly-above Beltre (most other years).

******

I should have mentioned this the other day when I noted that Ivan DeJesus didn’t make John Sickels’ top 20 Dodger prospect list, and that I didn’t align with people who are hoping that he’d claim the 2B job in camp, thus pushing Juan Uribe to 3B and Blake to LF. The Dodgers recently announced the roster for their offseason development camp, which starts later this week in LA and features some of the brightest prospects in the system, like Jerry Sands, Dee Gordon, Trayvon Robinson, Rubby de la Rosa, and Chris Withrow. Seven attendees of last year’s camp saw big league time in 2010 – Carlos Monasterios, John Ely, Jon Link, Travis Schlichting, Kenley Jansen, A.J. Ellis and Russell Mitchell.

Ken Gurnick describes it as…

This will be the fourth year of the developmental minicamp, which is designed to take the best and brightest of the farm system, accelerate their Major League arrival and aid acclimation to what they will encounter when they get there.

Yet DeJesus wasn’t invited. Nor was he given a token call-up last September, like Mitchell and several others were. It’s not that I don’t like DeJesus - far from it – it’s just that all the signs seem to be pointing in the wrong direction for him, and that he won’t be the second baseman in 2011. We’ll learn more about how he’s percieved when Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus prospect expert, publishes his Dodger system review on Tuesday.

On The Topic of “Aces”

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Other than pointing out that Jack Morris wasn’t really any better than Orel Hershiser the other day, I’ve tried to steer clear of the Hall of Fame debate around here. Part of that is because gallons of virtual ink has already been spilled on the “Morris vs. Bert Blyleven” and “no, you can’t just baselessly accuse Jeff Bagwell of juicing” debates, and the world hardly needs another viewpoint on that. Also, none of this has really been Dodger-related, since no prominent Dodgers are up for inclusion.

However, a Twitter conversation I had with SI’s Jon Heyman (and for all the garbage everyone gives him, I respect that he’s at least willing to have the conversation, wrong as he may be) brought up a topic that we’ve been talking about here on this blog for years: the topic of “aces”. This has been relevant to the Dodgers for a while because uninformed media members continually state that the Dodgers need an ace, conveniently ignoring the ascent of Clayton Kershaw.

This all started this morning when Heyman asked, “why was morris ace of great teams and bert no. 2 on good/bad/soso teams?”

That right there is a huge problem, for two reasons. The term “ace” is so subjective, and in large part is not something a player can control. Remember, the point of advanced statistics is to eliminate the noise of things that a player cannot control and focus on the things he can. It’s why we know wins are stupid, because they don’t account for offense or defense. It’s why we know RBI are irrelevant, because it’s almost entirely dependent on coming to the plate with men already on base.

Trying to declare someone an “ace” is just as troublesome. First, what determines an “ace”? Is it being the Opening Day starter, as so many have pointed to in defense of Morris, who made 14 straight such appearances from 1980-1993? By that logic, Vicente Padilla was the ace of the 2010 Dodgers. (h/t Chad Moriyama on that one). Is it having the most wins? If so, Chad Billingsley was the ace of the 2009 Dodgers, and you don’t need me to remind you how people felt about him after the season. Is it who starts the first game of the playoffs, as Heyman seems to be claiming with Morris? If so, then Randy Wolf was the ace of the 2009 team, as though choosing your Game 1 starter doesn’t depend on opponent, location, or how the rotation lined up if you weren’t lucky enough to clinch early. In 1993, Jack Morris was 7-12 with a 6.19 ERA for a championship Blue Jays team. He started on Opening Day. Was he really that team’s ace?

So right there we can prove that identifying someone as the “ace” is subjective and nearly impossible. But it doesn’t stop there. Even if you could find a way to identify someone as the “ace” (yes, I’d suggest WAR or ERA+, but clearly that won’t satisfy everyone) there’s also the issue of competition. As I argued to Heyman, players don’t put together the roster, and neither do the managers who choose playoff and Opening Day starters.

What that means is that you could be the third best pitcher in baseball, but if you’re teammates with one of the two guys better than you, technically you’re not the “ace”. I’m sure there’s dozens of examples, but two that came to mind immediately for me were Don Drysdale and Tom Glavine. Drysdale’s a Hall of Famer, and Glavine likely will be. Yet for much of their careers, they were outdone by teammates Sandy Koufax and Greg Maddux, who are probably two of the five best pitchers of all time. Does not being the “ace” make Drysdale or Glavine any lesser pitchers, just because they happened to be paired with legends? I think not. It’s just more evidence why trying to determine an “ace” is silly, because I’m sure we would have preferred Glavine in the mid-90s to whomever you considered the Dodger ace at the time, like Hideo Nomo or Ismael Valdes.

Heyman’s reply to that was that Blyleven wasn’t paired with talent like that on the Twins, Pirates, and Indians, and therefore if he was really that good, should have been the unquestioned ace. Yet I’m having trouble seeing what exactly made him not the ace. He started on Opening Day 12 times, if that means anything to you, just one less than Morris. Is it because he didn’t start the first game of the playoffs? His teams made the playoffs just three times; in 1970, the first of those times, he was just 19 years old. In 1979, he’d pitched in the final game of the season, making him unavailable for Game 1, plus he had well-known personal issues with Pirates manager Chuck Tanner. The same happened in 1987, where he’d pitched Game 162 and pitched Game 2 while Frank Viola – a very good pitcher in his day – started Game 1. As Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues points out, C.C. Sabathia didn’t start Game 1 of the 2008 NLDS either. You know why? He was pitching a complete game on the last day of the season to push the Brewers into the playoffs. Yet you’d consider him an “ace”, wouldn’t you?

If Blyleven wasn’t seen as the ace of his teams at the time, it’s because unenlightened spectators of the day placed far too much importance in his unimportant win/loss record. It’s because circumstances out of his control prevented him from pitching Game 1 of the playoffs. It’s because we know more now than we did then.

But mostly, it’s because claiming someone as an “ace” is often impossible. There’s no standard for it. It’s often based on flawed statistics like wins, or a manager’s gut feeling on Opening Day, or who your teammates happen to be, or how the schedule plays out for the playoffs. There’s probably no such thing as an “ace”, and it shouldn’t be a concern in Hall of Fame voting.

(This will not stop me from calling Clayton Kershaw an ace all season long, of course.)

******

Back to the Dodgers, this isn’t good news for anyone hoping Ivan DeJesus would grab the 2B job in camp, thus pushing Juan Uribe to 3B and Casey Blake to LF. Over at Minor League Ball, John Sickels ranks his top 20 Dodger prospects. It’s no surprise that Dee Gordon, Jerry Sands, and Trayvon Robinson are the top 3, but DeJesus didn’t even make the list, rather placing in the honorable mentions. I said back in October that I didn’t think he was ready to make the leap to start the year, and Sickels’ assessment doesn’t add a lot of optimism there. That’s not to say I think DeJesus is a non-prospect – far from it. He’ll have a major league career, but it’s unlikely he’ll be above average, or someone we should be waiting on to break through. Yes, his AFL performance was impressive, but don’t put too much stock into small sample size stats against varying competition.

Should Ivan DeJesus Get a Shot at the 2B Job?

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We’re taking a one-day break from season reviews to point out that Ivan DeJesus is off to a hot start for Don Mattingly’s Phoenix Devil Dogs of the AFL, hitting .370/.433/.593 with a homer in seven games. Granted, seven games is a meaningless sample size, and that minimal impact is lessened even further when you’re talking about a fall league of varying competition, so let’s not put too much stock into that stat line. That said, the opportunity to play directly for the new manager of the big club provides a chance to make an impression beyond the numbers.

For his part, DeJesus’ goal is clear:

“I need to be ready in Spring Training,” he said, “and get that job at second base.”

That’s what he wants, of course, but the more pertinent question for us is, is that what we want? Among the many holes the Dodgers have headed into 2011, second base is perhaps the largest. I’ve been through the horrendousness of non-tender candidate Ryan Theriot more than once, and Jamey Carroll shouldn’t be seen as a full-time option at the position. With Blake DeWitt in Chicago, the trade market largely barren beyond Dan Uggla (who’s likely to be priced beyond the Dodgers’ reach), and the free agent market not offering much (and no, Orlando Hudson will not be returning), there’s clearly an opportunity for DeJesus to make his mark.

First, some background: DeJesus was drafted as a shortstop in the 2nd round of the 2005 draft, a pick the Dodgers received as compensation for losing Adrian Beltre to Seattle. Most reviews of him – both predraft and during his first two seasons – mentioned above-average glovework and good on-base skills, but worried about a total lack of power. He largely lived up (?) to those preconceptions between 2005-07, not once generating an OPS over .800 due to puny slugging numbers, but showing encouragingly improving OBP, with marks of .354, .361, and .371 during those years.

In 2008 at AA Jacksonville, DeJesus had a true breakthrough year despite not turning 21 until May, making him one of the youngest players in the league. His .324/.419/.423 line got him a spot in the Futures Game during the All-Star Break and earned him the Dodgers’ 2008 Minor League Player of the Year title.

Heading into 2009, hopes were high. Baseball America had him as the #6 Dodger prospect, while Baseball Prospectus had him at #2 thanks to some kind words:

De Jesus has an excellent chance to outdo his father, a glove-first shortstop who spent 15 years in the majors, and Junior’s pedigree certainly factors into a basic baseball intelligence that raises every aspect of his game. For the second year in a row, his stock rose, and he earned the organization’s Minor League Player of the Year honors for his season at Jacksonville. Though he doesn’t project for much power, Ivan the Younger is a patient, contact-oriented hitter who works the count and sprays line drives to all fields. He’s a strong defender as well, with steady hands, good range, and a solid arm; some feel that second base may be his ultimate destination even with Hu’s fall from grace.

With Orlando Hudson signed for just one season and Rafael Furcal always at risk of injury, the hope was that DeJesus would continue to progress at AAA in 2009, and challenge for a middle infield job in 2010. Those were hopes were dashed when he broke his leg sliding into home during a spring game in early March, costing him the entire season (save for four late season rookie-league games).

The injury was serious enough that he had to be shut down during winter ball in Puerto Rico, and he was still feeling pain during this year’s camp, despite proclaiming himself healthy. Now more of a second baseman than a shortsop, 2010 was seen as a big test, and DeJon Watson had plenty of nice things to say about him in a March interview with Baseball Prospectus, who also claimed he had the “best plate discipline in the system”.

Depending on how you look at it, 2010 (.296/.335/.405) was either a step backwards or a nice comeback. His OPS dropped 100 points from 2008, mainly because while he struck out exactly as often as he did in 2008 (81 times), his walks dropped by more than half from 76 to 32. On the other hand, he’d missed over a year with a serious injury, jumped up a level, and still hit nearly .300 while setting a career high in doubles (33) and tying his high in homers (7).

That said, not in DeJesus’ favor is that he didn’t receive a September callup alongside fellow infielders Russ Mitchell, Chin-lung Hu, and John Lindsey. At the time, Ken Gurnick mentioned it in an mlb.com article:

Clubs send a message with the players they call up in September. For the Dodgers, the most glaring omission from the list of callups is second baseman Ivan DeJesus Jr., who hit .299 with 89 runs scored and 70 RBIs at Triple-A Albuquerque after missing the entire 2009 season with a broken leg suffered in Spring Training.

DeJesus was drafted in the second round in 2005 as a shortstop, but he played second base this year, and scouts say his range and footwork around the bag need improvement, perhaps the aftereffects of the injury.

Sources also claim that DeJesus, the son of longtime Major Leaguer Ivan DeJesus, is in the doghouse because he has yet to grasp some of the subtleties of teamwork and game approach. He is scheduled to play in the Arizona Fall League.

So what say you? I’ve seen it suggested in several places that DeJesus ought to be given a real chance to win the 2011 second base job, but I’m not so sure. He’s still quite young (won’t be 24 until May), and he’s only had one year as a full-time second baseman, which is important, judging by the scouting comments from the Gurnick article. Another year in ABQ’s high-offense environment, another year off the injury, and another year refining his 2B fundamentals don’t seem like a bad idea at all to me, and if he can parlay that into a late-season call-up, then you give him a shot in 2012 – when he’ll still be just 25.

Still, someone has to play 2B, and it absolutely cannot be Theriot, who may make nearly $4m in arbitration. You can either pay a comparable cost to get better (though not star-level) production than Theriot, or you can get Theriot-level performance for about 25% of that cost. So if DeJesus continues to impress Mattingly in Arizona, and completely tears up the spring, then sure, I wouldn’t be upset to see him there. I just think that it’s probably better for both him and the team to get a stop-gap solution at second base (not that there’s a ton of options, but it’s not hard to do better than Theriot) with an eye towards DeJesus later in the year or the year after.

I Have Bad News and Worse News

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Bad News: As I mentioned yesterday, this whole “making me sympathize with Scott Boras” thing needs to stop, now-ish. Because it’s really making me feel dirty. The kind of dirt that just a shower won’t wash off; we’re talking a full bio-hazard cleansing here, complete with guys in radiation suits spraying you with pressure washers as your clothes are incinerated and the ashes launched into space.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – Scott Boras is not the “good guy” here. It’s his own stubbornness and refusal to see the truth that’s gotten us to this point. As ESPN’s Jayson Stark astutely noted,

When you’re mixed up in a major free-agent negotiation with Scott Boras, you know it’s going to take a really … really … really … long … time. So you know you’re going to need patience, patience, more patience and also, well, patience. But on this Manny Ramirez front, Boras has outdone himself, even by his own slow-mo standards. Think about this. On Wednesday, it will be exactly four months since the Dodgers offered Manny a two-year, $45 million contract.

And now, FOUR MONTHS LATER, what are these two sides still talking about? A two-year, $45 million contract. Is this the theater of the absurd, or what? How many weeks ago, how many months ago, would an agent who was a deal-maker have gotten this done? But not this agent. He’s so obsessed with squeezing every last non-deferred penny out of this contract that he has somehow allowed the offseason, for this player, to extend into March.

So it’s pretty clear that Boras could have avoided this whole mess months ago had he merely accepted the reality of the situation. But, as we all know, the sides are merely $1.5 million apart now, and Boras made what seems to be a reasonable counteroffer, as I noted yesterday. And what was Frank McCourt’s response?

Because he said so.

That was more or less the reason Dodgers owner Frank McCourt gave Sunday morning for refusing to consider a proposal made to him by Manny Ramirez’s agent, which differed from an offer the Ramirez camp made last week only in the timing of the payments.

“He won’t even consider it.” Surely, there must be a mistake. I like Dylan Hernandez a lot, but he had to have misheard here; why would McCourt just ignore an offer after he gave Boras such grief for doing the same?

But why not consider the offer when the two sides appear to be so close?

“Because we’re going to start from scratch,” McCourt said.

But why start from scratch when you’re so close?

“I answered it twice,” McCourt said.

Oh. Well, now I understand. What exactly are you trying to do? You have Boras down to just about your offer; are you trying to drive Manny into the arms of the Giants? This is getting ridiculous, and not only because I feel like I’ve made the same post four days in a row. Yes, Frank, you hate Scott Boras. WE GET IT. We all do, no argument there. But you know what I’d hate to see more? Manny Ramirez, starting left fielder for the San Francisco Giants, hitting a ball so hard to left field that it collapses the head of Juan Pierre, starting left fielder for the Dodgers. (Well, okay. There’s some part of me that wouldn’t hate that. Love you, Juan!) So please, Frank. I’m begging you. We all are. Enough with trying to run up the score, and enjoy your victory. Just end this already.

ivandejesus.jpgWorse News: As mentioned in several places, shortstop prospect Ivan DeJesus, Jr., broke his left leg on a play at the plate in this morning’s game and is likely out for the season. While the Dodgers still have pretty nice depth behind Rafael Furcal in Chin-Lung Hu, Tony Abreu, Mark Loretta, and possibly even Blake DeWitt, this is a pretty big blow for the man named as the Dodgers #2 prospect by Baseball Prospectus. Reaching Triple-A, as he almost certainly would have this year, at 21 would have been pretty impressive, and although he’s still young, losing an entire year of development is a killer. Besides, look at the “bad” section from that BP report:

He has slightly above-average speed, but there is some concern that he’ll play his way off of shortstop if he loses a step or two, which would downgrade his projection dramatically.

Let’s hope that this broken leg doesn’t take away any of that speed, for his sake and ours. And yeah, that might not be the greatest picture in the world of him… but I didn’t want to jump on the “Shea Hillenbrand sliding into second base” train that everyone else did.