Jed Lowrie: More Than a Stopgap?
Every once in a while, something as simple as the way a player is talked about can give us some insight into their fantasy value. Take, for instance, this recent tweet from Ken Rosenthal about Jed Lowrie and Oakland’s plans:
Lots of speculation that #Athletics would move Lowrie. Keep hearing no. Plan was for him to be two-year bridge to Russell. This is year two.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 12, 2013
There are a few things to unpack here.
First: “two-year bridge?” Don’t they know this was the fifth-best shortstop in fantasy baseball last year?
Of course, the real-life game isn’t played with numbers, we know that, and defense matters. Lowrie’s defense has been below scratch by the metrics, and is probably less well-regarded subjectively. The A’s infield was one of the worst defensive infields in the American League this year, and he was part of that. He’s played one-third as many games at positions other than shortstop, too, so his teams know he’s a borderline defensive shortstop. The team’s best prospect — Addison Russell — is on the fast track, getting time in the Arizona Fall League to prepare him for Double-A and the future. So, there are aspects of his real-life situation that go beyond his fantasy numbers and point to him being a short-term solution for the Athletics. He’s a free agent after this season, after all, and this is a team with three guys on free agent contracts.
More ephemeral and less concrete is the feeling behind the tweet. It’s not “we can’t trade Lowrie because we don’t have a ready shortstop,” it’s “we planned on him being a bridge and just letting him go, and so that’s what we’ll do.”
And yet, nothing Lowrie did last year was out of the norm. He walked a little less (7.6% in 2013, 9.2% career) and struck out a little less (13.7% in 2013, 16.7% career), but those are still within range of his career numbers. He had a .156 isolated slugging percentage last year. His career number is .163. He hit 15 homers. His career high is 16. He had a .319 batting average on balls in play. His career BABIP is .296. He stole one base. His career high is two.
Basically, he’s a doubles hitter with a good batting average at a tough position at the top of a lineup on a good team. Matt Carpenter rode a similar equation to greatness last year.
Of course we’ve left out the obvious part until last. Lowrie had 662 plate appearances last year, and his career high was 387 going into the season. He’s missed time due to: right thigh strains, concussions, a fractured right ankle (surgery), mono, non-fracture ankle problems, foot bruises, neck strains, and right hand soreness. Last year, he achieved his career high despite missing a few games due to that random ailments. He has to be considered more likely to hit the DL going forward than your average player.
His history suggests that banking on 600 plate appearances is folly. Then again, you’ll see that not all of his injuries are of the same scope. He had a healthy year last year but still missed time with thigh, neck and foot problems. He missed massive parts of two years when he fractured an ankle and needed surgery. And Lowrie himself is quick to point this out, as he told me that his worst injuries came from “Collision-type impact injuries that don’t happen a lot in baseball, but for some reason happen to me” when we talked this year.
It’s entirely possible that he’s right. A 29-year-old professional shortstop will strain a hamstring or an abdomen from time to time. You could even call him slightly more injury-prone for it. But the big gaps in Lowrie’s playing time came from collisions in the field. And there’s little evidence that shortstops are more likely to have that problem than other positions.
Given the fact that he’s not a pull hitter, makes good contact and has better-than-league average power, you could take the over on his projected batting average (.264). And if you buy that he can avoid a collision for another year, you could even take the over on his projected playing time (563 PA). Call him a stop-gap or a star, injury prone or unlucky — Jed Lowrie can play.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Great, underrated player both in fantasy and in real-life.
I know more than a few A’s fans who would love to keep Lowrie but eventually move him to 2B, where his lack of range/arm strength would be slightly less of a liability. Likely won’t happen.
Important to note that his splits have always been considerably better against left-handed pitching.
He saved my team from Castro’s mess last year. I expect him to still be a cheap underrated backup again
Who writes this stuff? Whoever it is has confused Jed’s injurues with somebody else. jed had a broken bone in his left wrist in 2008′ which required surgery in 2009. He had mononucleosis, and he has had nerve injury in his left shoulder as a result od a collision with Carl Crawford, and an ankle and leg injury as a result of being spiked while covering second base against the Giants whenhe was with Houston. Oh, and he slept on his shoulder wrong and missed a couple of games from that. No thigh strains. No concussions. No spoerts hernia or surgery for that. No right hand injury putting him on the dl last year. His injuries have been the result of collisions, except for the mono. In fact, other than the mono and the collisions, he has been quite durable. Get the facts right. But you are right about one thing. Jed can play.
I write this stuff. And I got my information from an extensive database of injury information.
Look! For example! Jed Lowrie missed two games this year for a thigh strain. “Oakland SS Jed Lowrie missed his second straight start with a tight right hamstring. He is expected to start Wednesday afternoon’s series finale.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/gameflash/2013/09/17/49675/#recap#ixzz2kUTMKNdp”
And then I talked to the player, and he blamed his injuries on collisions… while he was getting treatment on a neck problem that kept him out of a couple games.
You’re right though. I dreamed up the sports hernia. Must have switched player pages while writing or something. My bad.
There’s no way I call this guy durable, on the other hand. or am I able to blame *all* of his stuff on collisions. (He just slept on it wrong is not something we hear from other players).
We can bet on an over/under for games played next year if you like.
Not Holmeswk, but that’s an interesting bed, what would the over/under be set at? The average amount of games Jed has played per year?
I’d actually be quite interested to see the result of crowdsourcing stuff like this.
“Last year, he achieved his career high despite missing 17 games due to that right thigh strain.” He might have missed games at SS, but he didn’t miss 17, he played 154.
yeah mea culpa, must have had two injury pages open. piece is fixed.