The Hardball Times, easily the best free resource of Sabermetric studies ran a very interesting and thoughtful article about the much discussed Micah Ownings that got me thinking this morning. If you haven't heard about this young man, he's a pitcher originally with the Diamondbacks now with the Reds, but that's not really why people talk about him. Indeed, if you were to look at his very pedestrian numbers thus far, an ERA+ of 95, a WHIP of 1.336 you'd think there isn't much to say about the guy. But it is his batting numbers that are so fascinating, absolutely crushing the ball at a .314/.345/.569 clip, as a pitcher! The guy has an OPS+ of 127! As you can imagine, there has been a great deal written about the guy, a guy who clearly has such talents with the stick who can pitch a little is a rare commodity indeed, and as Colin Wyers in the article so deftly asks, should they just make him into a hitter? Is it even worth him pitching so-so when that's taking away from his clear skills at the plate? Its a fascinating read and it has a whole lot more real good staticial analysis that anything I'll throw up here, but the whole question got me thinking; why change anything at all about Micah? Isn't he infintely more fascinating as he is?
Now the article doesn't precisely that something must be "done" about Micah, but the inferrence is clear and for good reason. Certainly if Micah is such a prolific hitter, imagine what he would do with 500ABs, what kind of hitter would he be? Now while I profess to be a great appreciator of sabermetrics and I can't say I have the same grasp of it the way these guys do, but I think its just not enough data to make a reasoned position on the matter and no clear cut solutions either, perticularly on where do you play him? Say you make him an outfielder, where does he play on the Reds? Dickerson is in left, Bruce is in right field, can you expect a pitcher play a competant centerfield? Do you take a chance putting him in the infield? For sure there is no clear cut answer to where you could even feasibly put him in everyday.
But for me at least I hope Micah stays as a pitcher because he's great just the way he is. Indeed, as I have stated before I love the idea of a guy who can throw it and hit it darn well, a guy who can dominate every facet of the game because he is in a unique position to do. Sure a fielder can make some nice plays in the field and get some big hits, but that's only a few sparse plays of the game, a pitcher is involved with all the important action throughout the game. Especially today as the game is so specialized and pitchers just routinely never take batting pratice and look like it when they're at the plate it's refreshing to see someone to come in at the nine hole and just crush the ball, there's nothing like it. So while he's not a great pitcher, league average is still good enough for the back end of the rotation in most NL rotations, enough to justify giving him the ABs to keep up our fascination. Because if he is converted to an outfielder I fear we'll never hear from Micah Ownings again, he's better in this small sample, apart from the scrutiny of 500+ ABs where pitchers can find his holes and make him look average. Indeed just look at the not so big separation from his batting average and on-base percentage, if he's not hitting he's not going to be that productive of a hitter. Keep Micah as the exception of the rule because its more fun that way.
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