SI: What Texas wants for Tex

[bryanman8]

I see what you are talking about I mean he has the highest RC27 for a firstbasemen in the AL for the last two years. 4th in the majors both years behind some guy in St. Lous who must be overrated also, Lee, and I think helton one year and Delgado the other. He stinks completely over rated. Bryan I feel you may have discovered recreational drugs right before you tried to pick this fight with the world.

Wow, very mature.

RC/27= Not park adjusted. Not all-inclusive. Not adjusted for position. You're not counting his huge, unexplained fall-off this year. You're not considering that his OBP, which is considered by some to be 3X more important than SLG, is not that great.

I think the infatuation with a 1Bmen who's only OPSing .870 in Texas this year is nuts. True, it's an off year, yes, he is great, is young, would do quite well here--but people make him out to be a 1B guy with a David Ortiz bat, 1000+ OPS, far better than all the other 1B options. A 30 VORP isn't too great. It's worse than Brian Roberts and like 60 or so other people.

Very good? Yes. Very overrated? IMO, yes.

Fight? I'm not picking a fight. I'm expressing my opinions.

[Rockbird]

IMO, dare I say it, underrated. Has had two straight very solid defensive years, along with year after year of outstanding batter years including an absolutely amazing one this year.

He's intangiably overrated and overpaid, but I don't think he's even close to overrated anymore by fans such as us. We grind him so much and he's got a .900 OPS this year with 28/31 steals and good fielding.

I still think he's overrated by the hype he recieves from playing NY and his ridiculously high contract. Im not saying he's not having a good year or doesn't usually have good years, but just like you admit Texiera is good to very good but overrated, I feel the same about Jeter only worse since because he plays for the Yankees, he's like this baseball demi-god. He's likely HOF bound. If he played for the Royals...or the Orioles...no way.

[luismatos]

I'd trade Tejada to Texas for Teixeira and a good reliever they have not named otsuka (since they won't part with him). Tejada is better right now. Teixeira is gonna be great. Teixeira is better defensively than Tejada and we can still go after Lee or Soriano to sure up LF and then put in Fahey at short until Rowell is ready. BTW, I'd take Fahey's glove and stick plus Teiexeira's glove and stick over Tejada's glove and stick plus Millar's glove and stick. I don't know about you guys, but I went to the Minnesota games and the double play combo of Nick Punto and Jason Bartlett really impressed me defensively. They were doing things I haven't seen done by a double play combo since we had Cal and Robbie. I want that back! Look at what the Twins have done since Bartlett has come up-they have the best record in baseball. People are saying Tejada is more valuable because he is one of the best hitting SS's, but because of his defense he drops down. I think his position is the most important one defensively and we have a SS with lackluster effort night in/out. Give me a light hitting ss with an excellent glove and Teiexeira at first and I'm happy.

[Flosman]

Wow, very mature.

RC/27= Not park adjusted. Not all-inclusive. Not adjusted for position. You're not counting his huge, unexplained fall-off this year. You're not considering that his OBP, which is considered by some to be 3X more important than SLG, is not that great.

I think the infatuation with a 1Bmen who's only OPSing .870 in Texas this year is nuts. True, it's an off year, yes, he is great, is young, would do quite well here--but people make him out to be a 1B guy with a David Ortiz bat, 1000+ OPS, far better than all the other 1B options. A 30 VORP isn't too great. It's worse than Brian Roberts and like 60 or so other people.

Very good? Yes. Very overrated? IMO, yes.

Fight? I'm not picking a fight. I'm expressing my opinions.

First you did want to pick a fight or be overly dramatic, evidenced by making a controversial statement like it is hidden knowledge with out initial support. If you were just laying out your view you would have done just that.

Now to your points I chose rc27 because it is a sabermetric stat which I thought might please your fancy instead of the ones all of us who are baseball dolts generally use to evaluate at a quick glance.. Does not have to be adjusted for position because I ONLY compared him to qualified first basemen.

Second his 370-380 OBP each of the last two years and this year is pretty darn good not Giambi but pretty good.

BTW his power problems early in the year have been explained, maybe not by your statistical models but scouts and his hitting coach have said: He developed a minor problem in his mechanics that created excessive topspin on his balls hit in the air thereby hitting sinking linedrives instead of balls that carried. Problem fixed and the balls are flying out of the yard again. It happens to all players sometime or the other over the course of a career. Or maybe he just did not face Bruce Chen Enough early in the season:p .

Also you choose to use this partial season to judge him instead of the past two fullseasons, which are by some measure the best of all the firstbasemen in the AL. If I did that you would say sample size, sample size, sample size. BTW it is VERY likely his OPS is over 900 again this season the way he has been hitting recently. But that is JMO.

[Sports Guy]

Mark Teixeira VORP: 28

Miguel Tejada VORP: 60

Tex WARP3: 7

Miggy WARP3: 10

Tex OPS: .870

Miggy OPS: .900

So, Tejada is around 3 wins better than Tex this season. That's an incredibly large number of wins for individuals to beat eachother by by that metric

.

I am not even sure what Tejada has to do with Tex being overrated.

Also, his away splits are disgusting

Yes they are but I don't think it will matter. The guy has been a beast at every level he has ever been on.

(which will always concern me; don't use Soriano as your free pass--you thought he'd be pretty awful too, and there's been plenty of guys who were overrated with not enough thought put into their splits. Quite frankly, no one knows how to correctly understand home/away splits).

H/R splits bother me as well but Tex is that good so they don't worry me with him. Something tells me he could hit in OPACY just fine.

He doesn't walk an incredible amount

He is on a 90-100 walk pace. How many more times would you like him to walk? He has been in the low 70's before this year...Anywhere from 75-100 is fine with me.

His batting numbers for a 1Bmen are not excellent.

Which numbers are you talking about? He is 12th in slugging and 13th in OPS this among all first baseman. Last year he was 6th in OBP and 4th in slugging. The year before he was 4th in OPS and 4th in slugging. His OBP has put him in the top 10(11th this year) over the last few years. He is averaging 40 homers and well over 100 RBI's over the past few years.

His RC/27, which has fallen to 13th amongst first baseman this year was 5th and 6th the last 2 years.

His ISOP the last few years was 2nd and 5th as well.

Seems to me that he compares pretty well to other first baseman.

There's a number of reasons. He's darn good, and I'd love him, but he's very overrated

Along with what i said, he has won a GG, is only 26 and he has shown he is durable.

And that is before you talk about his economic impact he could have with the Orioles. He is also a switch hitter that hits well from both sides of the plate.

So, besides his H/R splits, i don't see how you have a leg to stand on here.

[tuOsfan]

i've heard through the grapevine that Tex was a big steroid user when he wrestled in high school

[Guest rbrhett]

Yes they are but I don't think it will matter. The guy has been a beast at every level he has ever been on.

H/R splits bother me as well but Tex is that good so they don't worry me with him. Something tells me he could hit in OPACY just fine.

I think Bryan is right in a way. H/R splits are very important. For example, you state that he would do just fine in OPACY; the stats don't back it up. His numbers at Camden the last three years : .686 OPS, 1 HR, 6 RBI in 56 ABs. That matters. And if you look at how well he has hit in division rival parks, the numbers are simply scary. Fenway: .716 OPS in 36 ABs; Skydome .558 OPS in 58 ABs; Yankee Stadium .745 OPS in 71 ABs; the only place he hit well is at the Trop and that is against the Rays. It matters there.

I think Tex is a great 1B playing for the Rangers, but only an average hitting 1B playing for anyone else. Yes, he is a good fielder and his numbers might improve if he was not playing for Texas, but his stats don't lie. I will give it to you that you have been right about other players, most notably Adrian Gonzalez, but in this case Tex has a decent track record of non-success away from home as a starter.

And yes Bryan you are right when you say a guy can be a good player but still over-rated. Don't let that crack by Flosman bother you. He is just mad b/c you are 13 or 14 and yet he can't understand your logic. He has to make himself feel superior.

[Moose Milligan]

Why would you trade Tejada for Tex? How's that help us improve our offense? Big bat for big bat, how's that help us out?

[srh523]

WOW! Now there is an uncalled for, thrown in response to derail the thread!

[Guest rbrhett]

Why would you trade Tejada for Tex? How's that help us improve our offense? Big bat for big bat, how's that help us out?

No I wouldn't b/c we maybe solve one problem but open a much larger one. Bedard and Miggy for Tex is just stupid.

Tex as an O would give us probably 25-30 HRs and 100 RBI, a .280 AVG and probably an .850 Max OPS. Gibbons could do that if he stayed healthy playing 1B. He won't be as good of a fielder, but he can hit like that. He has done it before.

So my solution, as I said in a previous thread a few days ago, go sign Frank Thomas as DH, sign Soriano to play LF, move Gibbons to first possibly with a good RH hitter to platoon and if Smoltz's option is not picked up, sign him to anchor our rotation. The Os would make the playoffs with those additions in my opinion and we don't open any holes to satisfy our need for a 1B or LF.

[ELC]

This year, his OPS is .870. Which is very good, and certainly above average, but the raw number is not that much better than Tejada, and he plays in a bandbox, so his numbers are likely to go down a bit if he moves away from Arlington. Miguel is a top-5 to top-10 player in baseball, depending on who you ask, and the only shortstop you can mention in the same breath as him is Jeter. And with Teixeira, we suddenly have a gaping hole at shortstop, where it is extremely difficult to find offense. On the other hand, it's relatively easy to find first-basemen that can hit .790-.810 and be a significant improvement over this year's 1b production

Interesting that this year his H/R splits are:

Home: .261 .334 .438 .772

Away: .301 .414 .558 .973

...which is basically opposite to what they were the previous three seasons.

This combined with what Soriano has done in a pitcher's park this season compared how dreadful he was away from Arlington last year shows you can't place too much value in them.

[Mark Carver]

I think Bryan is right in a way. H/R splits are very important. For example, you state that he would do just fine in OPACY; the stats don't back it up. His numbers at Camden the last three years : .686 OPS, 1 HR, 6 RBI in 56 ABs. That matters. And if you look at how well he has hit in division rival parks, the numbers are simply scary. Fenway: .716 OPS in 36 ABs; Skydome .558 OPS in 58 ABs; Yankee Stadium .745 OPS in 71 ABs; the only place he hit well is at the Trop and that is against the Rays. It matters there.

The past 4 years, he's had...

Camden Yards = 75 PA

Fenway Park = 70 PA

Skydome = 56 PA

Yankee Stadium = 71 PA

Tropicanna Field = 71 PA

Above = too small a sampling over 4 years to actually judge how he'll do. That's what 18 PA per year in each ballpark?

[ejf1025]

Bryan-

I disagree that Teixeira is "overrated," I think he's rated right about where he should be around the game. Just not here; got to remember people have been salivating over him since he left St. Joe's.

I totally agree about Jeter. It's gotten to the point where people just hate for the sake of hating because he's the Yankee Capo. The guy is EXCELLENT. His D isn't as bad as people think and he's just a menace for opposing pitchers. He'd be the most popular player, by far, on any team he played on. He just happens to play for the most unpopular team, so everyone hates him.

Now...as for the Teixeira debate, that's some gall- Tejada and Bedard! I suspect Blalock, maybe someone else was coming our way too. But bah! We're not giving you our best hitter and best pitcher just because he's a local boy.

[srh523]

I dont think I can remember a thread with so many stats in it!

Tex is a horse but we need someone to compliment Tejada not replace him.

This is like trading Manny for Ortiz it would make no real sense. You need them both to accomplish the goal!

[Guest rbrhett]

The past 4 years, he's had...

Camden Yards = 75 PA

Fenway Park = 70 PA

Skydome = 56 PA

Yankee Stadium = 71 PA

Tropicanna Field = 71 PA

Above = too small a sampling over 4 years to actually judge how he'll do. That's what 18 PA per year in each ballpark?

I agree the sample is small, but when you add that up you get 343 PA, or half a season. In those 343 PA, he has 9 HR, 21 BB, 48 SO, 27 RBI, 15 2B, and an OPS of approx .744. Those numbers are not good. Like I said, he would be a 25-30 HR guy here with an OPS of maybe .850. And you also have to remember that the Rays and Os have had VERY bad pitching the last three years. He could and should have feasted on that, but didn't with the exception of this year. I do agree he is young and things can change, but when you compare Tex to a guy like Soriano, and Tex will get almost as much as Soriano as a FA BTW, there is no comparison in what the two guys can do. Soriano may not walk as much, but he is a hitter and has had MUCH better success at OPACY and the other four parks in our division. With the unbalanced schedule, that is important.