MVN - Most Valuable Network

Not so much fun with Mike Jacobs

I actually wanted to get into a little something about how horrific our catching situation is right now, but instead I’m going to go with another hot topic right now. That being (in my best Jerry Seinfeld impression) “What’s the deal with Mike Jacobs?”. You know that was a pretty good impression.

Let me start off by saying his 18 homeruns are awesome. If he was in the American League, he would be one off the lead. Then again, if he was in the American League, he could be a designated hitter, but we’ll get into that later. Compared with those first baseman that have enough at bats to qualify, Jacobs ranks in the bottom of nearly every major category. He’s 13 out of 14 in batting average at .233. Only Ryan Howard’s .218 is worse. Mike’s on base percentage is dead last at .262. Next closest is Ryan Howard at .311. That’s embarrassing. One thing Jacobs does exceptionally well is hit the ball for extra bases. His .506 slugging percentage has him tied for 4th with Derrek Lee. So we have a slugger that can barely hit his weight, and will not take a walk for his life. His 11 walks have him at 36th in the entire major leagues for first basemen. Daryle Ward (42 at bats), Wes Helms (144 at bats), and John Bowker (201 at bats) are the only ones to be worse. His .768 OPS (on base + slugging) ranks him 12th out of 14th with only Carlos Delgado and Adam LaRoche being worse. So even with his tremendous slugging, he’s still one of the worst first basemen in the National League.

Then we look at his defense. Now I don’t really like many of the defensive fielding formulas but even range factor ((PO + A) divided by innings) and zone rating (The percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive “zone,” as measured by STATS, Inc.) would back me up in how bad he really is defensively. You can watch with your eyes all you want and you may not see a worse fielder. Looking at first basemen in both league, Jacobs’ 8.38 range factor has only Rich Aurilia keeping him from being the worst. His zone rating of .744 his dead last and well of Prince Fielder’s .804 for 25th place. Jacobs is that bad over at first base.

So what’s a team to do. Well they could move Josh Willingham from left to first base and put Luis Gonzalez out in left. Now we have no clue how Hammer’s back is and if being at first would do more damage to it, so for now, let’s leave him in left field. So Jacobs escapes the bench that way. Unfortunately for Mike, there’s a guy in Albuquerque leading the entire world in homeruns. That guy is Dallas McPherson. The 27 year old former uber prospect is hitting .310/.424/.705 with 29 homeruns, 55 walks and 99 strikeouts. He can play both corner infield spots (think Jorge Cantu-like D at 3rd or better, and Cantu-like D at 1st or better). His OPS vs lefties is 1.040 and vs righties is 1.154. Now many players in Albuquerque have ridiculous home/road splits (John Gall for instance), but McPherson’s don’t change that much wherever he plays. In the friendly confines of Isotopes Park, he is hitting .324/.422/.791 and away he is hitting .294/.426/.605. A big drop off in slugging, but his OBP being virtually identical are definitely encouraging.

I can already hear you yelling, “but Mike Jacobs has 18 homeruns!!!!!!!!!”. There really isn’t much the guy can do besides hit random homeruns right now. Since May 1, he is hitting .220/.249/.470. With runners in scoring position he is hitting .208/.268/.542. Close and late he is hitting .156/.206/.313. You can tell me “he’s going to carry the team at one point” and “he’s a gamer” and “my god, he has 18 homeruns man!” but the fact of the matter is that he is one of the worst first basemen in baseball. If the Marlins brought up Dallas McPherson, they could improve both offensively and defensively. Imagine that. Killing two birds with one stone. If the Fish did call up McDallas (his nickname with the Angels), Jake would either be relegated to the bench or more likely he would be traded. Perhaps there’s an AL team that wants someone who can play first base a little bit and slam a few homeruns for them. It’s definitely worth making the call for.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.