When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

02.20.2008
Hot Giant-on-Giant Action Part 4, or, We Aim To Please

Someone deep in the bowels of my comment threads requested that I examine the first-base competition this spring. ¡A sus órdenes, jefe!

Unfortunately, this type of examination isn’t much more fun than the bend-over-and-cough variety, but I’ll dutifully put on my rubber gloves. Let’s see what we got here…

Dan Ortmeier

He’s young! Except he isn’t that young. He turns 27 in May and has a career path somewhere south of Todd Linden: a few pleasant minor-league highlights, such as 20 home runs at Connecticut. In the bigs he’s shown some interesting skills. Here’s what I wrote last August:

Dan Ortmeier’s combo of power and speed is enticing. As I wrote earlier, his right-handed home runs to the opposite field at Shea and Turner Field were no cheapies. That’s big-boy power, as Krukow would say. And he has the speed to turn a few doubles into triples, which would be more significant if he played for a team that knew how to get runners home from third with less than two outs. Ortmeier is not walking much, but he’s earned the right to a lot more at-bats down the stretch by showing skills few people expected. On my 2008 roster, I’ve now penciled him in as backup OF/platoon 1B.

Last year’s tiny sample size notwithstanding, he’s done little to convince me he can post average numbers for a National League first baseman. Sure, people can change. But is it change we can believe in? Is Ortmeier just a bunch of pretty words and empty slogans? Or should we cast our vote for…

Rich Aurilia

Richie is still beloved by many for his work in the previous administration. But happy days were not here again last year. Call it injuries, call it age, call it playing home games in something other than a glorified Little League field, but Aurilia has done even less than Ortmeier to convince me he can post average numbers for a National League first baseman.

The conventional wisdom is a platoon. Problem is, both guys hit lefties better. Aurilia’s three-year OPS split: .856 /.746. I can’t find splits for Ortmeier earlier than 2007, but last year his big-league split was roughly even and his AAA split was .854 /.718.

I’d like to see the Giants just give Ortmeier the everyday job, damn the platoon, for at least a couple months. As mentioned above, he probably won’t ever be a high-OBP guy but if he hits enough line drives into the Mays Field gaps, a good number of his singles could become doubles, doubles become triples. That extra base could be the factor in a few games over the course of a season. Lacking a first baseman who hits 30 to 40 home runs and gets on base 40% of the time, you take hope where you can find it.

Other options? I’ve seen musings about moving Nate Schierholtz to first base. Not gonna happen, at least this year. And there’s no one in the high minors. Travis Ishikawa will probably start the year in Fresno. If he lights it up, perhaps he’ll get a mid-year call-up, but otherwise, we’re dancing around the first-base bag in 2008 with thems who brung us.



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[February 20, 2008 8:03 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Neither are 1B average but if they can hit mid-700 OPS, I think that is adequate for the Giants. We don't need average offense to reach .500, we just need adequate offense. Anything above that would be a bonus.

[February 20, 2008 10:13 PM]  |  link  |  reply
amoose said

My request for a look at 1b was more sarcastic than anything else. Unless of course the next C. Pena is somewhere on the roster and I missed him.

[February 20, 2008 11:58 PM]  |  link  |  reply
CTPinDC said

Here in the nation's capital, the Nationals have a glut of overpaid 1B. Nick Johnson looks to be fully recovered after 17 months (!) of rehab on a badly broken leg. Meanwhile, Dmitri Young had a monster year last year. Both are scheduled to make over $8 million this year. Neither can play any other position besides 1B. Trade possibilities? Or grin and bear yet another year of below-league-average offense from first base?

[February 21, 2008 12:34 AM]  |  link  |  reply
dignan said

God our options suck.

Strap it on McClain lets do this last place thing.

[February 21, 2008 11:15 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Lyle said

I'm slowly coming around to the idea of giving John Bowker some time at 1B this year. He's a lefty hitter with power, and has never developed a reputation as a great defensive LF (and he doesn't seem suited for CF or RF). In my ideal world, Bowker is our starting LF in 2009. In fact, I'd like to see Bowker, Davis, and Schierholtz start in the OF in 2009. But with all these savvy veteran OF's we've got, I'd like to get John's bat in the lineup and 1B seems like a reasonable place to do so.

This, of course, assumes no miraculous comeback by EME or Ishikawa.

[February 23, 2008 1:13 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Pefacommish said

The Giants should take a couple of those young guys and swap them to the Nats for Nick Johnson. The Nats best 2 hitters play 1st base. The word is that Johnson is healthy, he's got 2 more years on his contract, and he's only 29.

Orty is only 2 years younger and he's never done it. Johnson, though brittle, has shown he's a major leaguer. You could ink him into the cleanup spot on this team.

The first base answer is NOT inside the organization, so stop wasting time looking there.