Michael Saunders is a Box of Chocolates
Michael Saunders had an infuriating 2014 season. Just ask Jack Zduriencik. Condor was good with the bat, sometimes even great. He played by most accounts superior defense. He did things on second base which children shouldn’t see. He missed time because of a knee hyperextension, shoulder soreness, and spent two stints on the disabled list because of a bad A/C joint in his shoulder and was lost for 50 games with an abdominal strain. All told, he played just 78 games but managed to amass 1.9 WAR and post a 126 wRC+ despite himself.
Since the end of the season, his General Manager has not so subtly criticized his conditioning, his agent had a hissy fit, the Mariners said they’d go out and shop him to other teams, then I kind of had a hissy fit, and then Saunders fired his agent joining Mr. Meister (yep, insert joke about “Broken Wings” and “Condor”) signaling who knows what about his future with the Mariners. And yet as of this blog-thing posting, Saunders is still a Mariner, and he still is as inconsistent a player as you’ll ever want on your team.
And that’s the weird part — you do want Michael Saunders on your team. But I’m not sure what you’re going to get.
In his 263 plate appearances this past season, Saunders hit .273/.341/.450 with eight home runs, 38 runs, 34 RBI, and four stolen bases, good for a 126wRC+. No doubt a good quarter of those at bats were done so while dinged up. His strikeouts were down, power back up to what we saw in 2012, his line drive rate was at a career high as was his overall contact rate. His swinging strike rate was a career low 8.4%, dropping from 11.4% and 10.4% from the previous two seasons. All systems go — except for that pesky part about staying off the trainers table.
If you look back to April 2013, Saunders had just a miserable first half, slashing .225/.303/.364 with a 27% strikeout rate and just a .139 ISO. The context here is that he was apparently playing through a particularly bum shoulder, no doubt trying to shed the injury-prone label that dogged him back to 2010. But once given time to heal up, he returned and looked a lot more like the guy we saw last season. His second half featured a slash line of .251/.350/.440 with a 23% strikeout rate, almost 13% walk rate, .189 ISO, and posted a 121 wRC+.
I wouldn’t say that Saunders has immense potential, but if he could keep his body from acting like it wants to go out and buy a red corvette with T-tops, he’s a candidate to hit 20+ home runs, steal 20+ bags, while batting something in the .260-.280 range with respectable remaining counting stats. That’s a pretty handy player to have around in standard leagues. And frankly, among the Seattle faithful, there are many who think his potential trumps this 20/20 talk — but that’s largely based on his notorious streaks where he goes all Khal Drogo and destroys everything in his path. Not that every player doesn’t go through hot and cold streaks, but check his monthly wRC+ over the past several years:
Now, don’t run out and spend wildly to get Saunders on your squad. But he’s just freshly 28 years old, so a career year could certainly be still in front of him. Still, there’s the possibility that staying in Seattle means a platoon role from a manager and front office who have apparent distrust in Saunders’ conditioning, he could get traded and thrown into the same platoon role, or his body could continue to do the Chevy Vega impersonation. Then again, he could get traded to the Reds or the Rockies and stay healthy and Yahtzee! For my money, I look at Saunders as a bench stash with upside, and I think the upside is considerable enough to be able to contribute as a 2nd or 3rd outfielder in standard formats. And then there’s the possibility that he’s on the waiver wire by May. So, you know, yay baseball.
Michael was born in Massachusetts and grew up in the Seattle area but had nothing to do with the Heathcliff Slocumb trade although Boston fans are welcome to thank him. You can find him on twitter at @michaelcbarr.
>Michael Saunders is a Box of Chocolates
i.e. Keep him well clear of Pablo Sandoval and Bartolo Colon.
Don’t forget about Fielder
I kind-of want Saunders on my team… as long as I don’t need to pay much for him, can safely keep him on the bench during the long stretches when he doesn’t play well, have a solid backup for the long stretches when he doesn’t play at all, and have a Right-handed platoon partner to play when Saunders faces left-handed pitchers. But I know what you mean… Saunders always does just exactly enough to make me think he might be a breakout player. Another frustrating season and I doubt I will still want Saunders on my team.
Michael Saunders does NOT need to be platooned, and the continued insistence on doing this by his superiors in Seattle is one more instance of how he has been mishandled there. Look at this 3-year splits: he makes almost as much contact against LHP and has historically even had decent power against them, plus his walk rates keep him valuable there too.
I don’t get the ‘injury prone part,’ having watched Michael Saunders since he came up. He had a major shoulder injury—separated in hitting the wall going for a catch—that clouded his year, but guys get hurt playing. Duh. The real problem is that his moron manager begged him go come back way too early, Michael voluntarily did so, hit like crap the while playing with a bad shoulder, and it nagged him the year. Separations take a while, and Seattle’s brass should expect this rather than play some bogus blame game. Michael did strain his oblique later in the season. This is not perhaps the most common injury in baseball, especially on uppercut swings trying for more power. The Mariners have constantly egged Saunders on to hit more HRs. He gets injured, and again we hear the blame game.
Michael Saunders has consistently outperformed Dustin Ackley at the plate, and is simply a better offensive player. Ackley has had a chronic bad ankle. Ackley didn’t hit crap the first two months. Ackley tweaked his chronic bad ankle in August and didn’t hit a lick in September. Yet what we hear is that ‘Saunders is injury prone’ while in fact it is the lesser offensive performer who is injury prone.
Jack Zd seems down on Saunders for reasons that have nothing to do with on-field effort and production. Lloyd McClendon showed up and cycled every possible alternative through Saunders’ RF playing slot, all of them guys who it was hoped would hit for ‘more power.’ The flopped there, and whenever Saunders was, reluctantly, put back in the field he far outperformed any of them. Yet ‘Saunders is an issue.’ To me, the Mariners simply want a 30 HR bat in RF. Saunders is a fine player, but doesn’t project to that, being more a 20 HR guy while making up more of his value with doubles, walks, and D. It seems from comments that ‘Saunders should spend time in the weight room’ that Seattle’s GM and manager thinks Michael Saunders somehow owes them more HRs, and is dogging it by ‘not doing what it takes’ to get more balls in the seats.
This is all just stupidity. I have no problem if the Mariners go out and acquire a 30 HR bat and put that player in RF. Blaming Saunders for not being that guy, when Saunders has done everything the team has ever asked him to do on the field, completely changed his batting approach successfully on his own, and has routinely and widely outperformed the orgs favorite son outfielder is gross. I’d be perfectly happy if the team moved Ackley, who is in fact a useful major leaguer, put Saunders in LF, got a new RFer and shut up. Instead, the team is going to talk him down and dump him. Because that’s how things get done around here. If and when Saunders is playing in a new environment, I’d strongly suggest fantasizes to pick him up, he’s a fine bat, though be it said a better real world player than fantasy asset.
Oblique injuries are *now* the most common injury in the game.
I love all the insight about the conversations that he had with his superiors there in Seattle. Were those conversations in which they egged him on to hit more HR INTENSE?! I bet they were.
Michael Saunders has hit poorly against left-handed pitchers throughout his career. Whether or not the Mariners actually platoon him is one question, but since this is RotoGraphs it seems perfectly appropriate (and not even a bit “stupid”) to suggest Saunders should not be used against LHP.
Throughout his career, Saunders’ BB% is much lower and his K% is higher against LHP. His OBP and Avg are much lower against LHP. His SLG, ISO and wRC are much lower against LHP. All of this is true despite the fact that Saunders’ BABIP is higher against LHP. So I don’t see any reasonable way to conclude it is “stupidity” (in your words) to platoon Saunders. It seems perfectly reasonable to do so.
Michael is a very laid back dude, while Lloyd McClendon, the Seattle manager, can be fairly high voltage, so if there were face to face conversations on that—I have no idea—as opposed to implied expectations, which seem to have flown around, they would have been pretty one-sided.
There were, for comparison, reported remarks from McClendon regarding Logan Morrison in mid-summer that Morrison, who was smoking line drives all over the place by then, ‘should start elevating the ball more.’ which Morrison subsequently did. Michael Saunders is a line drive hitter pretty much who never seemed to get near the exit from McClendon’s dog house all season. Post-season McClendon is quote as saying Saunders ‘should spend more time in the weight room,’ which is _not_ where you go to do preventative conditioning for an oblique injury risk but IS where you go to ‘add strength.’ Jack Zd has been vocal for three years on the Mariners’ need to acquire ‘big bats,’ and has repeatedly brought in defensively challenged guys who’ve put up be HR numbers in the past, most of whom he’s lodged in the outfield, most often at the expense of Michael Saunders’ playing time DESPITE the fact that Saunders outproduced every one of them in all-around value whenever he was on the field. Jack and Lloyd had a press conference post-season in which it was clearly implied they felt Saunders ‘didn’t do enough to help the team,’ while Saunders’ then agent said explicitly no one from the team every approached him with a program or expectation of what they wanted or that Michael refused to implement. You figure it out . . . .
So Spa, aside from the reality that you’re factually wrong what you’re saying makes sense. Saunders didn’t hit an HR off a lefty last year, but has in fact slugged better against them then RHPs in that regard for the previous two, with his walk rate about as good from either side, and his contact typically better against LHP. So if you add it all up over the last three years and Michael does _slightly worse_ against LHP if you consider that true, that is to be expected: most players hit worse same-side, the point is that Saunders doesn’t have anything like a huge drop off against left-handers but hits them quite effectively enough to start against them. He is not weak against LHP on the evidence, and gets on-base decently against them. If you want to go back early in his career, you’re going to skew the matter, since Saunders came up with a swing that didn’t allow him to hit ANYBODY at the major league level. Since he changed that, he’s done fine against LHP. Saunders sometimes bunts for a base hit when pitched away by RHP or LHP with the defense deep—and his manager seemed to almost resent it! “Homeruns, you wuss,” one can practically hear somebody muttering. Is it smart or weak to bunt against a good LHP sinkerballer one can’t get around on or elevate? You tell me; and let Michael Saunders know over there on 1B also if you think he should have hacked away.
Saunders is somewhat vulnerable to down and in from LHP because Saunders is a tall, long-armed dude so it takes longer to bet the bat head around there unless somebody hangs a pitch. Michael does more damage on stuff over the plate, and defends the plate against LHP very well, making good contact and working walks. He’s more likely to turn on an pull a hittable pitch over the plate for power from a LHP than sit on something inside to pull, and can be coaxed into the GB when pitched in. Again, everyone has their weaknesses and strengths, but in sum Saunders is not erased by LHP but hits it quite well enough to start against most lefties. Sit him against a LHP with a good sinker or slider—or keep him in for superior D, good ABs, and walks, all of which he provides consistently.
One further issue regarding Saunders is that he has consistently hit poorly in Safeco. Most players do, of course, but Michael’s production at home drags down his overall profile production. Well, he plays 50% of his games on the road, and the team needs to win there too—and often has because he’s produced there. Saunders has also become one of the more consistent LHBs on the team. Ackley and Miller both had dynamite months in 2014, but completely vacant ones as well, while when healthy Saunders always hit.
My remarks regarding ‘stupidity’ above were directed to the team’s misaligned expectations of him overall, and not particularly to the team’s platooning of him. While dumb because unnecessary, Seattle’s platooning Saunders is not in principle outright stupidity. The team a) has many LHBs, b) wants very much to increase HRs, c) Saunders slugs decently but isn’t going to hit 30 bombs in any season, and d) Saunders doesn’t hit much at home particularly for power. Putting right-hand bates with power in the line-up in Seattle in place of Saunders isn’t necessarily a bad call on a selective basis. My grievances there are two-fold. First, the team appears to genuinely assess Saunders as a platoon LHB, which is in error on his overall performance. And second, it is Ackley who should be pulled to get that extra righty bat in the lineup, not Saunders. Ackley’s performance against LHB is very similar to Saunders: overall line a little lower but plenty of positives and no excessive split. But Saunders is simply the more valuable player, hitting for better average, walking far more, much more likely to steal a base, and the superior defender. Sitting Saunders while playing Ackley, which was done all year, is utterly stupid, and seems to have a personal edge against Saunders, which was the thrust of my remarks.
Teams do lots of stupid things. One of the present, glaring stupid things being done in Seattle is the misassessment and misuse of Michael Saunders.
Well it’s now the Jay’s problem. Is he too brittle for turf?