Puckett Award Battles! (Frick League)

[RonCo]

Despite the relative separation between teams this year, it’s been a heck of a season down in the trenches. You can see that in the battles for individual awards, which have a vast array of worthy candidates from a wide selection of teams. Nowhere is the more evident than in the chase for the annual Puckett Award chases—the award given to the best bats at each position. These guys are a diverse mess…veterans, rookies, homer hitters and line-drivers. And there’s a lot of competition—which will make the voting interesting.

Let’s take a look at the candidates in the Frick League first:

Catcher: Of course we start with the only position where the answer is the answer: Cisco Arreola (.248/.360/.534, 37 HR, 98 RBI), of Des Moines, has owned this award for awhile, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to let it go any time soon. Arreola clubbed 37 homers and dropped a .372 wOBA (good for 5.1 WAR and a +132 wRC+). Three other guys show up as qualified and all three are good players, but really, there’s no discussion here. Arreola is a sublime player, and at age 33 is still the dominant name among Frick catchers.

First Base: Yellow Springs’ Lucas McNeill (.323/.414/.572, 31 HR, 125 RBI) is going to win this one, and may well go the net step and win his second Sawyer Silk. But the gap isn’t as far at first base as it is in Arreola’s situation at catcher. Twin Cities’ Albert Gaona (.280/.374/.533, 27 HR, 90 RBI) slugged .533 and dropped a .380 wOBA. Barely a tick behind was San Fernando’s elite pro in Tai Hoi Wie, who dropped a .280/.408/.478 line (.379 wOBA), and 3.8 WAR (vs. Gaona’s 3.7). Then you’ve got Mark Simpson (.252/.354/.522, 45 HR, 108 RBI) in Long Beach with 45 homers and 4.0 WAR. In a normal year, you’d throw those three into a hopper and select one, but again, it’ll be a big shocker if McNeill doesn’t carry this one.

Second Base: Here’s where it gets interesting. Long Beach’s Sloan Daniel (.295/.383/.503, 20 HR, 67 RBI), Yellow Springs’ Angel De Castillo (.303/.362/.529, 38 HR, 114 RBI), and Omaha’s James Monger (.301/.358/.536, 33 HR, 117 RBI) are all pretty much the same. Don’t believe me? Here are their stat lines…you tell me who to take:

Monger: 39 2B, 33 HR, .301/.358/.536, .373 wOBA, 133 wRC+
Sloan: 43 2B, 20 HR, .295/.383/.503, .376 wOBA, 134 wRC+
De Castillo: 24 2B, 38 HR, .303/.362/.529, .373 wOBA, 132 wRC+

Add the fact that they each registered 713 or 714 Plate Appearances, and you’ve got a helluva conundrum. If it was possible, you’d rather just split the award three ways and be done with it, because these three players are essentially equal, and then…when you’re done ogling over those three take a scan down at California’s Claudio Defazio (.255/.373/.427, 18 HR, 71 RBI) (5.5 WAR) and perennial superstar Jared Gilstrom (3.7 WAR), who fall just a tier below, but who will possibly draw some votes. Then there’s Twin Cities’ Xue-qin Man (.304/.333/.440, 7 HR, 63 RBI) and Seattle’s Lloyd Braun (.283/.343/.427, 8 HR, 81 RBI), bot posting over 3 WAR.

Second base in the Frick is a hotbed right now. Our guess is that this will be one of the tightest races in the mix, and at press time is just too close to call.

Third Base: Vancouver’s Rashardo Menne III (.286/.372/.425, 6 HR, 56 RBI) had a nice little sophomore season, but the voting spotlight is going to focus on Seattle’s 31-year-old veteran Jesus Gonzalez (31 doubles, 39 homers, and a .386 wOBA (142 wRC+) as he tries to fend off the spectacular power of Omaha’s 26-year-old Emilo Morales. Moraled dropped 59 balls into the outfield bleachers this year, and sits at a .375 wOBA and a 134 wRC+. Morales also carries the “edge” of pretty much never striking out.

My feeling here is a Gonzalez lean, but I’d be hard pressed to argue with anyone who sees it differently.

Shortstop: The shortstop race sees, again, three interesting candidates. The fancy numbers (.371 wOBA and 131 wRC+) favor Twin Cities’ elite hallmark Mark Wareham (.250/.392/.476, 32 HR, 89 RBI), but much of Wareham’s value comes from the walk, and Valencia’s Angel Zalapa (.263/.338/.470, 34 HR, 95 RBI) (21 years old) and San Fernando’s Angel Garcia (23) are a pair of young guns with lots of momentum and have reasonable cases. Wareham also leads in the ubiquitous WAR race (5.6 for Wareham, 3.9 and 4.0 for Garcia and Zalapa. Given the above, Wareham should probably be expected to take home the hardware this year, but the guard may be changing.

Left Field: We see this as a two-horse race between Pacific rivals in Seattle’s John Hickman (.320/.375/.548, 20 HR, 78 RBI), and California’s 22-year-old superstar Esteban Cuervo (.292/.359/.623, 42 HR, 106 RBI). Hickman, at 25, is probably the better all-around hitter, as his .320/.375/.548 line shows. He’s a line-drive guy who hit 44 doubles and six triples to go with 20 homers. His 142 wRC+ is top-notch. The problem, of course, is that Cuervo is blindingly good. 42 homers, .398 wOBA, 150 wRC+. The two WAR values are essentially the same (4.6 and 4.7, at that point, who cares?).

So, who wins?

Rational people can disagree here. We love Hickman, and note that Yellow Springs has made overtures in the past to add him to our roster. But we’ll be voting for Cuervo.

Centerfield: In reality you’ve got four guys who could win this thing: Des Moines’ Roberto Lopez is an interesting candidate with his 3.2 WAR, and some folks might just kind of stop there. But the fact is that Lopez’s WAR comes with the glove rather than the bat. He may well be the Zimmer guy, but discerning voters will probably go another way for the Puckett. Some advanced metric guys might lump Hawaii’s Jorge Vargas (.275/.322/.433, 14 HR, 45 RBI)’s .321 wOBA in with Twin Cities’ Wes Savage (.291/.312/.469, 16 HR, 67 RBI) .328, and that wouldn’t be a horrible thing—though Vargas’s wRC+ is sub-100, so that should probably disqualify him. We’ll see, though.

In the end analysis, though, this race should probably be a two-horse run pitting Savage against Edmonton’s fantastic Luis Costello (.292/.331/.511, 29 HR, 116 RBI), and we’re thinking, for our tastes, Costello should be expected to win by a nose. The 23-year-old blasted 38 doubles and 29 homers, posting a leading .347 wOBA and 115 wRC+, best in the league. In all seriousness, this was Costillo’s true coming out year, and if he wins it could well be the first of many.

Right Field: Four guys go in, one emerges. The four guys in are Seattle’s Lionnel Crepin (.290/.405/.516, 35 HR, 92 RBI), Long Beach’s Carlos Garcia, San Fernando’s Luis Maldonado (.275/.355/.546, 46 HR, 129 RBI), and Edmonton’s Mitch Dalrymple (.315/.347/.535, 33 HR, 94 RBI). The one who emerges? Sheesh…Dalrymple leads in WAR, Crepin in wOBA and wRC+, Maldonado hit 46 homers, 10 more than his closest competitor. CarGo was the steady-eddie, essentially second best in everything. We’ve made our vote, and we’re happy with it for now. But seriously, the winner here may say more about us as the constituency than it does about these players. They’re all pretty marvelous.

Designated Hitter: Boise’s Ricardo Guzman (.252/.357/.483, 30 HR, 66 RBI) (30 HR, 120 wRC+) might take a few votes here, but we think this comes down to California’s Fernando Moreno (44 HR, .242/.347/.567) and Madison’s Jon Mick (.275/.337/.542, 48 HR, 140 RBI) (48 HR, .275/.337/.542). Of the two, Mick is probably a slightly better overall hitter right now, but Moreno was more productive (leading Mick in wOBA by 12 points and wRC+ by 9.

Given this, we call this one a Moreno lean, but Mick is worthy. We’ll see what the voters think soon.

[recte44]

Moreno and Mick were so close for me, ultimately I went "old school" baseball card guy and voted for the guy that didn't hit .247 this year.

[indiansfan]

How do you leave Karyabwite out of the discussion? He led the lead in batting, drove in over 100 runs, plus all the doubles and stolen bases.

[agrudez]

How do you leave Karyabwite out of the discussion? He led the lead in batting, drove in over 100 runs, plus all the doubles and stolen bases.

It might be a case of him playing too much at multiple positions to have landed on the radar for any one. On merit he deserves to be discussed as you mention and he played the most in LF so let's toss him there. I think Cuervo is the clear cut winner there either way, but would entertain an argument for Karyabwite over Hickman for runner up. The latter is still leading in the two more important stats (OBP and OPS), but SBs might bridge the gap for some.

[RonCo]

Yes, Karyabwite drops off the radar for having played across the outfield. Not sure how the voters will see him. I agree with Kyle's view on the whole, though.

[Lane]

I'm biased of course, but I have Daniel by a hair. It's obviously very close but clear to me that he was the best hitter of the group.

Now, hopefully everyone doesn't just vote by WAR, because Daniel's is depressed due to lesser defense which shouldn't be a factor here. (And for which I appreciate you including only the offensive stats here)

[agrudez]

Now, hopefully everyone doesn't just vote by WAR, because Daniel's is depressed due to lesser defense which shouldn't be a factor here.

It shouldn't be a *primary* factor, but since the bats are all so close I have no qualms whatsoever in making it a tie breaker. It's gonna be Monger here for me.

[RonCo]

The Daniel, Monger, De Castillo triad is one of the evenly matched races around. I've actually changes my vote twice. We'll see how long my current ballot sticks.

[indiansfan]

Didn't realize until I pulled up ballot that they restricted guys if they played multiple positions, so he is not eligible anywhere.

[7teen]

Mick had a terrible September or I think he'd have won it easily for DH.