Originally Posted By Another Season of Heartbreak.

Originally Posted By blueslackV: Do you, uh, have anyone in mind to replace Lee? I’m not exactly jazzed about D Lee but on the other hand I don’t really want to see a return to the Hee-seop Choi era.

Good first basemen are a dime a dozen, see Texiera, Mark.
Where is Giambi, mabe we can dig up Frank Thomas?

Please, tell me the last suggestion was a joke. Frank hasn’t played 1B on a regular basis since a month long stretch in ’03 and for most of a season since ’97. Balco Giambi is mostly a DH as well and wouldn’t last in the NL.

Yes, for once I am not trolling.

also, to any stats head out there looking for good fantasy stats things, i highly recommend ron shandler and the baseball forecaster. good stuff there. he of course, predicts that 08 is the new level for lee.

D. Lee 2008- 27 (WOW!) Career avg-16 (still seems high)
Pujols 2008 16 Career avg-21
Fielder 2008-12 Career avg 12
Berkman 2008-13 Career avg 12
LaRoche 2008 9 Career avg 14
Votto 2008 6 Career avg 7

Of course, as you point out, statistics can be interpreted in any number of ways and I’m really not sure what grounding into double plays says about a player other than he makes me throw my remote control across the room a lot.* But, with the exception of Pujols, Lee hits into more double plays than any first baseman in the NL Central, and if his power numbers were anywhere near Poohole’s I wouldn’t give a damn how many DPs he was hitting into.

Anyway, as you point out, the real worries are in other areas. Lee has never been very selective, and the last time he drew more than 80 walks was 2005. His OBP fell to .361 in 2008, which is way down from the .418 from 2005 and also down from his career .361. In 2007 and 2008 (seasons with 567 and 623 ABs respectively) he has hit a combined 42 home runs (compared to 46 in 2005, 32 and 31 in the two years before that).

To me, it seems pretty clear that there is absolutely cause for concern regarding Lee’s eroding offensive skills. Like I say, I like the guy and if he has another season like 08 he won’t exactly be dead weight, but it’s absolutely time to start thinking hard about an upgrade at 1st in the near future.

*Also, to be charitable, his career average for DPs is inflated by the 2008 season and if you were to scatter graph it, the 27 would be way the hell up by itself and most of the other seasons would cluster in the mid to high teens. You’re right that DPs are not the biggest worry–the biggest worry is his steadily declining power production.

Nah, it’s the power outage that concerns me. Our big strapping first baseman may be battling Mike Fontenot in the home run department if he continues on this downward slope.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/l/leede02.shtml

hey look at that, only happened 27 times in 623 ABs. less than 5 percent. looking at shandler’s baseball forecaster, i suppose if you look at the percent of grounders, line drives, and flies that he hit, that might also seem to indicate something too. why, is that a 4 percent shift in one year higher in grounders and a 4 percent decrease in fly balls? yes. yes it is. and to sum it all up, is that almost twice as many double plays than he has grounded into in many previous years? yes. so expect some regression to the good mean.

in short, the power outage is worth questioning. the double plays? not so much. and you can use stats to prove anything, 83 percent of the people know that.

Originally Posted By Another Season of Heartbreak.
If D-Lee bats 2nd it would eliminate the double play threat. Alf either strikes out or hits a homer.

Let me get this straight. If Lee’s batting second, and Soriano makes an out, and Lee grounds out to short, you’ll be happier because Lee didn’t hit into a double play? Either way the result is two outs and the bases empty, whether it’s from a 6-4-3, or just two separate batters making outs. You can’t be serious, can you? So you’ve eliminated the double play threat, but how, exactly have you improved the batting order?