Archive for Jayson Nix

Last year, Jason Donald, Jayson (not Laynce) Nix, Drew Sutton, Mark Grudzielanek and Luis Valbuena played second base for the Indians. Andy Marte joined this stupendous crew once you include third base.

Not a single one topped a .307 wOBA for the year. Donald’s .253/.312/.378 made for the best of the bunch.

That is a crisis, ladies and gentleman. And crisis usually means opportunity in fantasy baseball. If you were able to guess the correct owner of the second and third base roles in Cleveland next year and beyond, you could take advantage of that opportunity in your keeper league now.

Of course, the leaders in the clubhouse are Mssrs Donald and Nix, as they finished the year in those roles, are under control, and the Indians are in no shape to push their prospects onto a team that most likely won’t contend next year. But Donald and Nix are flawed, and there’s little reason to think that they’ll improve next year.

Donald’s strikeout rate last year (23.6%) was just too close to his minor league rate (23%) to think he can reduce it too much, and he never even showed average power in Triple-A (.146 max ISO at that level). His career-high in stolen bases was 12, too, so speed won’t be the reason he sticks around. His defense could improve – he is a former shortstop – but will it be good enough to float a poor bat? Luis Valbuena showed us that former shortstops with poor bats and too many strikeouts don’t always stick as slick-fielding second baseman, right? Nix may have some upside – he has power, at the very least (.165 ISO) – but he’s over 700 PAs into his career and he strikes out too much and has a career .248 BABIP. He may or may not be a poor fielder, too. This is not a foundational pair.

Cue Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Cord Phelps. Somewhere in this trio the team hopes to find two infielders.

Phelps is coming off a great year (.317/.386/.506), and it was good enough to make Carson Cistulli’s MLE hot list. He’s the closest to the major leagues – he played a full year at Double- and Triple-A – and therefore he may get the first shot once Donald and Nix underwhelm. But his power sort of came out of nowhere (his .189 ISO at Triple-A was preceded by a .100 at Double-A, and a .102 in High-A). He may make a good re-draft name to file away, but as a long-term keeper don’t spend too many resources to get him.

Phelps does not have the upside of Arizona Fall League attendee Jason Kipnis, for example. His career .307/.386/.486 shows that he has a bat worth targeting. He’s walked about ten percent of the time, struck out about twenty percent of the time, and showed above-average power at every level. At the AFL all-star game, he flashed the leather with a great pick at third base and then hit a ringing double off of Chris Carpenter after the Cubs’ prospect hit triple digits on the stadium gun. Get excited.

Chisenhall had a poor 100+ at-bats Double-A in 2009 but he also had an inexplicable .176 BABIP there. Otherwise, he’s shown good power overall (.183 ISO) and the potential for more. He’s only struck out more than 20% of the time at one level, as well. Given a healthy and productive start to the 2011 season, he may also get a shot at a major league job soon, and his more extended power run also places his upside above Phelps’. Everyone will find a favorite among the three, but with a crisis on the infield in Cleveland, there’s assuredly opportunity for two of these men to step forward and provide value.

I still can’t find anything, and my earthly belongings are on a truck somewhere between New York and California – with New York being more likely despite me being in California. Ain’t moving grand? That said, let’s get on to the meat of the matter. To the Waiver Wire, dudes!

Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland Indians (42%)
This should serve as a reminder that Cabrera is still alive. The team has already begun talking about a rehab assignment, and he may be back soon after the All-Star break. Maybe the injury will sap some of his power, but it’s not like Cabrera was smacking the stuffing out of the ball anyway (.081 ISO) and power is not really his game. His feet should be fine – although one stolen base in 140+ 2010 plate appearances doesn’t inspire confidence. So wait, why do we like him? Well, Cabrera can put up a nice batting average (.287 career) and plays at a tough position. There are plenty of owners out there looking at worse situations at shortstop, and if they wanted to get ahead of the game and owned an open DL spot, they could drop their current shortstop, pick up Cabrera, and then pick up Jason Donald (1% owned in Yahoo leagues) for the meantime. Emulating the Cleveland Indians isn’t usually the way to go, but in this case, it should make for a player with a decent batting average at the very least. While Donald’s walk rate is not inspiring (4.9%), he doesn’t strike out much (18.2%) and his BABIP (.330) is not out of line for a man with his above-average wheels or current line drive percentage (22.9%). It looks like he can continue putting up the stats that he’s sporting right now in the short-term future.

Jayson Nix, Cleveland Indians (1% owned)
Hey, it’s Cleveland Indians’ Middle Infield Day! Chalk this up as a win for deep league owners, as most mixed leaguers will want to stay clear of the Cleveland ‘situation.’ Carson Cistulli noted that a) Cleveland’s lineup is wicked young; and b) Nix will be in the mix going forward. Young lineups and bad teams mean opportunities for fantasy managers, and if Nix wins the playing time at second base, he will be more than relevant in deeper leagues given his ability to put up above-average power (.185 ISO this year, .190 last) for a middle infielder. He even has a little speed (10 stolen bases, 2 caught stealing in 2009). Donald will shift over from shortstop once Cabrera returns and should give Nix a run for his money, but at some point, Nix’ batted ball luck will have to change. Do you know that his career BABIP is .234? That’s putrid. Even coming in 451 plate appearances, that is not sustainable. Yes, he’s a fly-ball hitter (48.3% career), and fly balls have worse BABIPs, but this is just ridiculous. Perhaps he needs to work on his line drive stroke (13.1% career, 10.6% this year), but the best news right now is that he has playing time for two weeks and the chance to catch fire. Long term, it’s either Donald that wins at the position, ostensibly for his defense, or as Satchel Price pointed out in his excellent “2013” series, Jason Kipnis for his good-looking bat.

With little apparent interest in retaining Orlando Cabrera, the White Sox decided early on during the offseason to shift Alexei Ramirez from the keystone to the shortstop position. The “Cuban Missile” is lauded for his athleticism, though most defensive metrics rated him as below average in his rookie campaign. Ramirez’s move opened up a three-way competition at second base, with an ’08 first-rounder making his presence felt as well.

The front-runner for the job at this juncture is Christopher Getz. Profiled by Marc Hulet back in February, Getz is a University of Michigan product with a line-drive swing and ability to work the count. The left-handed hitter posted a .407 OBP at Low-A Kannapolis back in 2005, but his full-season debut in 2006 (.256/.326/.321 at AA Birmingham) did not inspire great hopes of everyday deployment at the highest level. The ’05 fourth-round selection rebounded in a return engagement to Birmingham, controlling the zone (11.5 BB%, 10.8 K%) on his way to a .299/.382/.381 line in 319 PA. Unfortunately, Getz’s year was cut short by a stress fracture in his left leg.

Promoted to AAA Charlotte in ’08, Getz seemingly displayed more pop. He smacked 11 home runs, far surpassing his previous career high in a single season of three, and compiled a .302/.366/.448 slash line with a .146 ISO. However, that relative power display could be explained by the hospitable environs of Charlotte: with a three-year HR park factor of 1.32 (32% above average), it’s hard to find more inviting home digs for a batter. Getz’s AAA work translates to a .258/.311/.359 showing in the majors, per Minor League Splits. There’s no star potential here- Getz is 25 and is just cracking the big leagues- but he could be worth a look in deep leagues or AL-only leagues. The former Wolverine (seemingly healed from a broken wrist suffered in August) straddles the line between useful utility man and stretched regular.

Jayson Nix, 26, is a former Rockies farmhand who stays employed based on the merits of his leather. The 2001 supplemental first-round pick earns accolades for his defensive work, but his bat just hasn’t materialized: he’s a career .260/.330/.415 minor league hitter. He did mash at AAA Colorado Springs in 2008 (.303/.373/.591), but that was his third go-around the Pacific Coast League, so skepticism is warranted.

Speaking of middle infield prospects who haven’t quite panned out, Brent Lillibridge went from sought-after youngster in the Adam LaRoche/Mike Gonzalez deal a few years back to a throw-in as part of the Javier Vazquez swap this offseason. Drafted in the 4th round by the Pirates out of the University of Washington in 2005, Lillibridge was an on-base fiend during his full-season debut in 2006. Splitting the year between Low-A Hickory (.299/.414/.522) and High-A Lynchburg (.313/.426/.423), the rangy shortstop drew an ample amount of walks and wreaked havoc on the base paths, stealing 53 bags in 66 attempts (80%).

Following that stellar showing, Baseball America ranked Lillibridge as the 93rd-best prospect in the game, and PECOTA’s bells and whistles were whirring as well, forecasting a .276/.349/.429 major league line based on his ’06 work. Sent to AA to begin the 2007 season, Lillibridge held his own (.275/.355/.387), but his K rate jumped to nearly 30% and his walk rate was pared down to 8.9% from nearly 15% the previous year. His plate discipline further eroded at AAA Richmond, as he drew a free pass just 5.9% of the time on his way to a .284/.329/.435 line.

The wheels fell off the Lillibridge prospect wagon in 2008, as he was downright brutal back at AAA (.220/.294/.344). He walked a little more frequently (8.5%), but the high whiff rate (25.4 K%) and minimal power (.124 ISO) felled him. His short time with the Braves did not engender any lasting memories, as he swung at 36.8% of pitches thrown out of the zone on his way to a .257 wOBA. Perhaps there’s still hope for the 25 year-old in terms of becoming an everyday player, but his eroding patience at the plate might put him down a Nixian path to utility infielderdom.

The most interesting player (and the one with basically no shot of winning the job) is Gordon Beckham, a 2008 first-rounder selected out of Georgia. The 22 year-old rated as Chicago’s #1 prospect and is considered a highly-polished offensive player. Even with an admittedly mild cast of characters vying for the second base position, Beckham should return to the minors and hone his craft for a year. There’s no sense in rushing a guy with 58 official at-bats to the majors at the expense of his long-term development.