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If the M's get a David Segui-like performance at 1B for the next two years, I'll be one happy camper. Not spending big on 1B might get Lee resigned.
G Money's Kotchman-Segui Comp
Had to 'promote' this idea just 'cause it deserves traction.
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=== Taro ===
Wak mentioned that Kotchman has made some mechanical changes to his swing this year (shortening his swing). Is this the work of Eliot? Have they managed to quicken what was once a slow bat?
I honestly haven't watched many games recently, but was wondering if anybody could point out the specific changes that were made.
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=== jemanji ===
He's pretty quick, admittedly.
Shortening the swing would dovetail with the fact that he's been able to scoop low fastballs better. As mentioned earlier, a pro hitter once told us that he dealt with low pitches by simply dropping the back knee. Didn't get really what he meant, until watching Kotchman this year.
I do like the way he's dropped his whole body to go down and get the low ones. That's not something you can accomplish with a Jay Buhner or Bret Boone swing.
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=== G-Money ===
That.
When Casey started dropping his shoulder and golfing low FBs into the outfield with authority I got interested.
Not seriously interested, since they were just singles, but he wasn't doing that when I watched him before. And since he's still keeping his head above water, bravo for him.
My comp for Good Kotchman has been David Segui, not Grace. Grace (119 OPS+ career over a LONG career, some years at 130+) is the next notch up from Segui (110 OPS+ career, hit his stride at 28 and done at 35, only had 1 full year over 124).
But there's definitely nothing WRONG with being Segui - great glove, 15-20 HRs, 30 doubles, and a vacuum for infield ricochets from his teammates.
If Kotchman can be Segui, I can be satisfied at his price point. The difference between the 115 OPS+ that makes the glove-master-at-1B viable and Kotchman's previous 95 is just too much for me to swallow.
I don't think it's gonna last, but I'd be more than happy to actually welcome Kotchman to the team if it does. Right now his first couple of weeks have been as good as anyone could have dreamed them to be.
Congrats to him.
~G
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=== jemanji ===
I was a big Segui fan, and not just because of the Kingdome bloodlines. :- )
Love the Segui comp on two counts: (1) I thought Segui was a fine ballplayer, a guy you could win a pennant with, and (2) the parallels between the two are compelling.
Kotchman's swing, at its best, does remind of Segui -- lots of top hand, Billy Williams-style line drives, plenty of left bicep involved, etc. And of course, Segui was very slick with the glove also.
The caveat: David Segui was ripped to shreds, tremendously physically powerful -- one time I was in the 1B crowd at the Dome and Segui, hitting LH, rifled a line-drive off the boards in LEFT field that you could hear echo throughout the Dome. But: Safeco's fit to Kotchman could possibly compensate for the fact that Kotchman doesn't use, IMHO, creative training methods.
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Can see what San-Man means with the Mark Grace comp - a first baseman with a 1.00 EYE, a great glove, and questionable power. That's reasonable. SSI might have Grace towards the bottom of its top-20 comps list because his .400 OBP's and 130'ish OPS+'s comp'ed Grace to the John Olerud class. Grace was a fairly deserving All-Star: David Segui plus a notch or two.
If Kotch can reproduce that, we've got somethin' worth havin' :- )
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If Kotch can redux Segui, we've got a completely different conversation. A 115 OPS+ with 30 doubles and 20 homers and Kotch is a good player, no argument.
Four doubles and three homers do not overthrow an evaluation IMHO, but will cheerfully admit that am now intrigued as to whether Kotchman can pull off a Segui imitation.
And if that's what the coaching staff actually did -- teach Kotchman to go compact to the ball and dip the back shoulder when needed, covering his death zone -- then that is some Majah League Coachin'.
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Comments
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But Sean Casey seems like a near perfect comp to me. I can't say much about the swing comparisons, but physically, and comparing patience, power, and ball in play style they are extremely similar. They even have a similar history of minor injuries that helped to hold back their careers. Of course until this year, Kotchman wasn't striking line drives like Casey did, so that'll be a big part of his continued success, that, and his improved patience at the plate, which is really the only solid statistic yet available.
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Wak said "I think" so it might very well be speculation on his part.
Its more likely this is a hot streak since just last week his GB ratio was above 50% and his ST peripherals were certainly in line with his career GB, power ratios as well.
IF hes successfully shortened his swing though, the analysis on him changes.
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For what Kotchman would become if he could get the OPS+ up to around 110, 115.
It seems to me that there are any number of these guys, first basemen who came up as super blue-chippers as Sean Casey and Kotchman did, who turned out to be decent technicians in the majors but who just didn't have the same talent as their peers.
So they wound up hitting around .300, okay walks, disappointing power, "validated big leaguers" but not driving their teams toward winning seasons.
This is kind of how I've seen Michael Saunders, though Saunders didn't come up ballyhoo'ed.
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Sean Casey minus about 40 points of BABIP (which is pretty significant).
They have been very similar either than the fact that Kotchman is terrible at making quality contact (career 17.8 LD%) and Casey was excellent (23 LD%).
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No problemo going with the Segui comp ... especially since between age 28 and 34 Segui's OPS+ was ... 120. :-)
Honestly - they're so darn close to the same hitter, it hardly matters. But, Segui is a better comp, because it took him 5 partial seasons to work out the kinks ... at which point he played the next 7 seasons at almost the identical level that Grace did.
Of course, Grace is a natural selection for me - since I watched him play on WGN, (being an NL guy), so I was used to seeing great ABs - no Ks - who lashed out a single almost every game - and would lash out doubles instead, when he was in a groove. But, Segui is probably just a hair stronger comp, (IMO).
I do believe - at age 27 - we have not yet seen the best of Kotchman. And part of the reason why? He happens to be teammates now with two of the best left-handed hitters of the last century. It's not like Anahaim or Atlanta was exactly friendly to left-handed batters.