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NL All-Star Report: The Emergence Of San Francisco’s Melky Cabrera

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Perhaps no outfielder has been much of  revelation this season—at least offensively—as San Francisco left fielder Melky Cabrera.  Acquired from Kansas City in the offseason, Cabrera has been good for solid defense—usually as a centerfielders—and showing stretches of being able to hit for average with some consistency. He’s given a desperate Giants’ offense much more, posting an on-base percentage/slugging percentage stat line of .393/.520, hitting seven home runs and driving the ball in the gaps with consistency.

Cabrera is only 27 years old, so it’s quite possible that uptick in his slugging percentage might be legit, as he rounds into form physically. He came to the majors in 2006 and spent four years with the New York Yankees. After a promising first year where he hit .280 and had an OPB eighty points higher, his offensive numbers tailed off, though he continued to play good defense and on a team stacked with hitters that was enough. After the team won the World Series in 2009 he was traded to Atlanta and when his production promptly tanked, I wrote him off. That proved to be a mistake. He found his bat in Kansas City last season and with 18 home runs showed the first flashes of the power he’s demonstrating again in 2012. Whether you think he should be an All-Star starter or not, he’s earned a place in the conversation and is part of a group of nine corner outfielders posting numbers worthy of a trip to Kansas City for the All-Star Game on July 10.

TheSportsNotebook’s All-Star outfield focus started with centerfielders, since I’m going to ensure any outfield trio has at least one person who can play a credible center. Obviously that’s not a ballot requirement, but for the sake of clarity and covering all players, the next phase of evaluation throws all the corner men into the same pot. Here are the eight additional players worthy of a  serious look…

Carlos Gonzalez (Colorado): His offensive production is dazzling, even allowing for the Coors effect, because the lineup around him is struggling. Gonzalez is slugging .603 thanks to 17 home runs and has an OBP of .386, and he’s 50-plus in both runs scored and RBIs. You name it, he does it.

Ryan Braun (Milwaukee): Braun has been even better than his MVP season of ’11, with a .311 batting average and 20 home runs in a lineup stripped of Prince Fielder in free agency and then almost everyone else via injury or underperformance.

Carlos Beltran (St. Louis): The de facto replacement for Albert Pujols in the Cards’ offense, Beltran’s .402 on-base percentage, combined with 20 home runs ensures St. Louis isn’t missing Albert yet.

Giancarlo Stanton (Miami): After a slow start, the numbers have caught back up, as Stanton has hit 17 home runs. His on-base percentage of .355 is solid, although relatively low when you compare him to other members of this upper crust.

Jason Heyward (Atlanta): He joins Stanton as the only ones is this first group of nine with an OBP under .370, but with a .510 slugging percentage, Heyward has shown that 2011’s troubles were just a sophomore jinx.

Jason Kubel (Arizona): Over from the Minnesota, Kubel has adjusted nicely to being in the desert with a .371/.518 line and made up for a loss of power by Justin Upton on the other corner.

Who deserves to go to Kansas City? When I log on to MLB.com and vote this week, I’ll only choose one of these players, as I’m going to give votes to both Andrew McCutchen and Matt Kemp, covered in the centerfield post. That one player would be Braun. If we follow the centerfield/corner outfield format to a  tee, I would add Gonzalez to the list.

Twelve more corner outfielders having a season worthy of a mention are the following…

*Martin Prado (Atlanta), Bryce Harper (Washington) and Hunter Pence (Phi) have the kind of OBP/Slugging balance that could enable them to make a run at the top tier with a hot second half and TheSportsNotebook will revisit this and all other positions again in September. Harper, in particularly, with his .357/.480 line is close to All-Star caliber and just needs to close the playing time gap after a call up that was relatively late for a June evaluation. Pence had been making a good case for himself before a recent slump pulled him down to ..343/.466.

*Jay Bruce (17 home runs for Cincinnati), Alfonso Soriano (14, Chicago), Michael Cuddyer (11, Colorado) and Corey Hart (15, Milwaukee) are hitting the long ball, but all four need to radically increase their consistency in getting on base. With Soriano, that’s a lost cause at this stage of his career, but Bruce needs to improve and become a more complete offensive player.

*David DeJesus (.361 OBP for Chicago), Justin Upton (.352, Arizona), Gregor Blanco (.350, San Francisco), Juan Pierre (.356, Philadelphia) and Bobby Abreu (.368, Los Angeles) can get on base, even if they don’t hit for power. With Abreu, he’s only got 146 at-bats and we’ll see if he can stay healthy playing the field every day. And Upton, as mentioned further up, is someone that Arizona counts on for more than casual mention for one-dimensional success.

And for the sake of due diligence, here are the remaining corner outfielders who have gotten enough playing time to be considered regular starters…

*Will Venable (SD)—His .331/.445 stat line isn’t bad, considering he hits in Petco
*Lucas Duda (NYM)—With a .345 OBP and 11 home runs, Duda’s got potential to move up the list.
*Ryan Ludwick (Cin)—With nine home runs, he’s said to be rounding into form. It’s only been four years in the waiting.
*Garrett Jones (Pit)—Nine home runs can’t make up for an atrocious .271 on-base percentage
*J.D. Martinez (Houston): Similar to Jones, he’s got 10 home runs, but low OBP. But he’s still 50 points higher than Jones in on-base percentage and young enough to think this might be the start of something good.
*Carlos Quentin (SD)—He just got back from knee surgery and is tearing it up, hitting .452 with six home runs in his first 23 games. Quentin could be playing himself into a deadline trade to a contender.
*Logan Morrison (Mia), Brian Bogusevic (Hou) and Jose Tabata (Pit) are all terrible.

NL All-Star Report: Pittsburgh’s McCutchen Fills CF Void

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By the middle of May the race to be the National League’s best centerfielder looked like kind of like the race for the NBA title during the Michael Jordan era—it was about watching to see who would finish second. That’s how dominant Matt Kemp was for the Los Angeles Dodgers, as he rattled off a .444 on-base percentage and a stunning .719 slugging percentage in a tough hitter’s park, keying his team’s scorching start. Then Kemp went down with a hamstring injury. Then he came back and promptly re-injured the hammy. Now he’s just hoping to be able to play in Kansas City for the July 10 All-Star Game.

You might still choose to vote for Kemp as a reward for both last season, when he should have won the MVP award (and that has nothing to do with steroid allegations surrounding Ryan Braun) and his fast start (that’s what I intend to do), but this particular feature of TheSportsNotebook is about tracking where players are based strictly on the body of work for the 2012 season and by that standard, Kemp’s lack of playing time clearly leaves him short and opens the door for others. But any hope of a real debate on that has been effectively closed off by Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen.

McCutchen has an on-base percentage/slugging percentage stat line of .398/.577. While PNC Park might be friendlier for a hitter than Dodger Stadium, the Pirate lineup takes the phrase “lack of support” and brings it to new levels, especially for a contender. The team is 15th in the NL in runs scored and the presence of McCutchen is the one thing that separates them from San Diego and with Pirate pitching as good as it is, McCutchen’s “get on my back and I’ll carry you” kind of season is what’s enabling his team to win close, low-scoring games, rather than lose them and why he has passed Ben Roethlisberger as the most valuable athlete on the confluence of the Three Rivers.

The injection of the Pirate centerfielder into the MVP race isn’t a major shock, as you could see him coming as a star for the past three seasons. He’s been a full-time player for three years and in 2009 introduced himself with a .365/.471 stat line. The following two seasons saw him jump to 570+ at-bats per year (a leap of 140 from ’09). The on-base percentage held steady in the mid-.360s, and the home runs increased and reached 23 last season. What’s noteworthy is that while his batting average dropped 27 points in 2011, he made up for it by upping his walk totals from 89 to 126, thus showing the kind of balance a star player needs. Right now he’s not needing to walk, with a .340 batting average, although if Pittsburgh doesn’t get him some help one wonders how much longer opposing pitchers will give him anything to hit. Particularly given his 13 home runs, setting him on a pace for a career high. Whatever the rest of the season holds for McCutchen, the record tells us he’s going to produce and he’s going to play a good defensive centerfield. He’s far and away the best centerfielder in the National League based on the season to date and should create a good debate with Kemp once both are back and healthy—who knows, perhaps the two stars will even go head-to-head in the National League Division Series.

Colorado’s Dexter Fowler isn’t the choice for the top spot, but he deserves mention and quite possibly a place in Kansas City as an NL backup, pending how the rest of the rosters shake out. The Rockie centerfielder has a .374/.518 line making him clearly the best of the Kemp/McCutchen challengers. Let’s also give a nod to Atlanta’s Michael Bourn, with his.356 OBP setting the table, a .440 slugging that’s pretty good for a leadoff guy and an excellent defensive season. Both are close enough to the leaders to make a run at this spot when TheSportsNotebook revisits the topic in September.

Moving down the ladder to centerfielders who are good, but nowhere in shouting distance of the league’s best, are Miami’s Emilio Bonifacio and St. Louis’ Jon Jay. Both are geared more strictly to getting on base without much power, but they each do a solid job in creating action on the base paths. Health is a factor here—Jay just got off the disabled list after a separated shoulder, and Bonifacio just went on after a hand injury that will keep him out to mid-July.

Gerardo Parra and Angel Pagan, in Arizona and San Francisco respectively, aren’t tearing it up, but both have OBPs in .340 range. Parra supplements that with respectable power, having popped six home runs and slugging .437. Pagan plays good defense, an invaluable asset on a team geared more to run prevention than production. And a shout-out also to New York’s Kirk Nieuwenhuis. He’s now playing left field, but has gotten his share of time in centerfield along the way has compiled a .339 OBP. The Mets are currently playing Andres Torres in center, hoping the veteran can stay healthy and build on his own .333 OBP.

Now let’s move to the three big disappointments. Milwaukee’s Nyjer Morgan leads up this group, as he’s doing nothing with the bat and is not notable defensively. For as many injuries as the Brewers have had, it’s the failings of players like Morgan and second baseman Rickie Weeks hurt even more, as they were supposed to be the 1-2 punch at the top of the order. Instead the only punch they’ve delivered is one to the collective gut of Brewer fans. Washington’s Rick Ankiel and Philadelphia’s Shane Victorinio are also having lousy years with the bat, something that’s more surprising in the case of Victorinio, but just as disappointing in either case. Unlike Morgan though, both Ankiel and Victorino excel in the field at a critical defensive spot.

Jordan Schafer for Houston and Cameron Maybin in San Diego fall into the area I did when I went to college in my freshman year. Bear with me on this story. I hadn’t worked out all summer and when I did my bench-press, I forget the weight amount, but it was something awful. The strength coach just said to write “improvement needed” on my card. A nice way of saying there was still time, but a lot of work was ahead. I’ll extend the same niceties to Schafer and Maybin. And I suppose we could say the same for Chicago’s Tony Campana, but in the case the improvement is going to have to happen by shipping him out of town and getting a new player in there.

NL All-Star Report: Bryan LaHair A Bright Spot For Cubs

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The Chicago Cubs haven’t had much to cheer about this season, but one of the bright spots has been the play of first baseman Bryan LaHair. He was—and for that matter still is—seen as  a placeholder until the team is ready to call up Anthony Rizzo from Triple A, and the 29-year-old LaHair had never done anything spectacular or even noteworthy in his time in the big leagues. But as we go into Wednesday’s games he’s having a great year with the bat, vaulted himself onto the front tier of National League first baseman in the All-Star race, and is opening up some interesting discussions over what the future might hold.

LaHair’s 171 at-bats this season are already a career high and the only other time he went over the century mark was 2008 in Seattle, with a pedestrian .315 on-base percentage/.346 slugging percentage as the result. So even though his 59 at-bats in Wrigley last year were productive there was no reason to be excited. But it proved to be a harbinger of things to come, as LaHair has posted a .377/.508 line this season.

Now becomes the question of what to do with him, as Rizzo has to be moved up the major leagues eventually. There’s talk of moving LaHair to the outfield and with veterans like Alfonso Soriano and David DeJesus on the corner spots, there is room to trade one of the two, particularly DeJesus whose contract situation is less cumbersome than Soriano’s. But what about dealing LaHair himself? His value is not likely to go higher than it is right now, given how late his career got on track. And there are teams such as the Dodgers that need hitting at first base. Then again, perhaps other teams see LaHair the same way as I do—his value is only going down from here—and the trade market might not be attractive. But if I’m Cubs GM Theo Epstein, I’m seeing LaHair’s strong first two and a half months as an unexpected commodity to try and cash in for some prospects.

Whatever the future holds, LaHair has given his fans a compelling reason to choose him for the National League All-Star team. He joins Washington’s Adam LaRoche in the area of unlikely stars, as LaRoche has hit 11 home runs and has 42 RBIs and given a mediocre offensive team enough runs for its pitching staff to win games. Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt, after a slow start, is proving to be the hyped young hitter he was when he arrived at the end of last season, with a .362/.514 line and is certainly the player of the future at this spot.

But while Goldschmidt might be player of the future, LaHair the story of the present, and LaRoche the lynchpin on a first-place team, the first base spot in the National League is owned by Cincinnati’s Joey Votto. He won the MVP two years ago, had just as good a season in 2011, signed a big long-term deal in the offseason and in a depth-deprived Reds’ lineup has posted a surreal .479/.643 line. Votto’s got to be the choice at this position with all discussion surrounding his MVP candidacy.

Two up-and-comers at this spot are in the NL West with Yonder Alonso for San Diego and San Francisco’s Brandon Belt. Neither have the power to be All-Star caliber, at least not yet, but they are both young and good contact hitters. I’ll put Garrett Jones from Pittsburgh in this group on a limited basis—the plus being that he has one good attribute, which is a decent slugging percentage, at .474, but the downside being that there’s no upside. Alonso and Belt are only going to get better.

St. Louis and Milwaukee were hit by injuries to their starters at first base, although that’s as far as I’m willing to go in putting Lance Berkman and Mat Gamel in the same sentence. Both teams found good replacements, especially the Cardinals where young Matt Carpenter got his shot and ripped off a .356/.519 line, while the Brewers’ Travis Ishikawa slugged .516. Unfortunately both of these players also hit the disabled list and will return sometime this month.  And of course no team awaits the return of its first baseman more anxiously than the city of Philadelphia with Ryan Howard. They’ve had to get by with Ty Wigginton whose value lies in his versatility in the infield, not being trotted there out each day at a position that demands a high level of production. The question for Philly is whether Howard will still be able to drive the ball for power after that Achilles tear and whether his team will be close enough for it to matter. The projected return date is still early July, as it’s been all season.

Finally we come to the disappointments and that’ s a big group in this year’s class of National League first baseman. Freddie Freeman got off to a decent start in Atlanta and has hit eight home runs, but the .296 on-base percentage is awful. James Loney for the Dodgers has been so subpar for so many years in a row now, I probably shouldn’t even dignify him with the disappointing level. He’s just not very good and Los Angeles needs to upgrade if they are serious about making a pennant run. And in the NL East, New York’s Ike Davis and Miami’s Gaby Sanchez are each hitting sub-.200 in spite of track records that suggest that should at least be second-tier talent in the NL at this position.