Under the Radar Performers: Marco Scutaro

by Trenchtown on Jul 20, 2009 2:04 AM EDT

So if you had to guess who was leading the American League in base on balls who would you pick? If you said Marco Scutaro it means you were cheating and guessing him because his name is in the headline. You would also be wrong (Carlos Pena is,) but Mr. Scutaro is in second place in the category. Now Marco's great year in part to a strong start might not be news to you depending on how much you follow baseball, but 9th best position player in baseball is just not something you expect to hear about Marco Scutaro because afterall, this is the same 33 year, whose been waived by two seperate teams, and traded for the immortals Graham Godfrey and Krisitan (Whose parents must have really hated to name him with a K) Bell.

So how is Marco Scutaro pulling this off? Well part of it can be attributed to the fact that its really only the 2rd year in his career that Marco Scutaro has been the number one guy. Last year Scuataro was shuffled around the diamond a lot because of injuries to Aaron Hill, John McDonald, and Scott Rolen. The only time prior to this year that Scutaro go was the man was way back in 2004 manning 2nd base for the Oakland A's. I personally suscribe to the idea that a player performs at his best when he is the everday guy and I think for the most part the numbers back that up.

Scutaro has been getting the job done with the glove and is 4th among qualified shortstops in UZR. His BABIP is up this year while his LD% is down; his infield fly ball % is WAY DOWN from his career average (Interesting side story, Mauer, Jeter, and Hawpe have yet to hit an infield fly this year, Mike Jacobs has hit 19.)

So can Scutaro keep this season up? When I started writing this I had the conclusion no before going through the numbers, now I am not so sure. After a home run happy start (5 homers in April, 1 since,) Scutaro is now 19% below his career HR/FB% while his FB% is up so he should actually being displaying more power than he has. He has already surpassed his single season walks record but he has already had pretty good discipline and I have a hard time believing in fluky walk rates for powerless middle infielders. His swinging% is down while his contact% is up across the board. His doubles might be a little flukey, his defense might regress a tick or two, but I would no longer be suprised if Marco ends up as a top 20 positional player when the year is said and done.

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Scutaro made splashes among those who look at UZR last year with his sick rating.

But his bat wasn’t all that hot, while it’s out of control this year. Should teams start throwing him more strikes?

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 20, 2009 9:07 AM EDT reply actions

Did a post on Scutaro for bluebird banter back in May

and I convinced myself that he could keep it up, too. http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2009/5/12/873267/now-is-that-man-love-thats-making

"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"

by jessef on Jul 20, 2009 10:11 AM EDT reply actions

Scutaro has always been one of my favroites

but with his name, he should always be one of the top players

by The_Fan on Jul 20, 2009 11:34 AM EDT reply actions

If his BABIP is up while his LD% is down, shouldn't that be an indication that he's going to regress?

Also, the first paragraph made me laugh.

@bs_uf15bosox9be:OverTheMonster-ALLERGEN WARNING:May contain PB.

by bdalebs on Jul 20, 2009 6:29 PM EDT reply actions

In a vaccum yes his BABIP should go down

But that assumes that the lower LD% is indicative of his talent level which I don’t think is the case. He has a career 20.2% Line Drive rate versus only a 17% this year. He also hasn’t been below 20% for a season since 2003. This makes me believe the Line Drives are what are off rather then the BABIP regressing to the LD rate.

There are also things that also indicate his batting average should be better, like a lower K rate then usual, and much lower outside the zone swinging%, and like I said a much lower infield flyball percentage (basically automatic outs, Scutaro is hitting a little over half as many as his career average)

Now obviously you can’t regress everything back to player’s career average or you’d expect the player to hit the exact same every year. At some point you need to make a judgment call on what you think is real and what you don’t think is real. Basically everything accept LD% that positively effects batting average is up for Scutaro is up this year. It might be that these things are at the expense of LD% but that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. The difference in line drives is only 9 or so off to get back to 20%. I just expect LD% to catch up to what all his other numbers indicate rather then for all his other numbers to move down to the LD%. But go ahead and look at the numbers and draw your own conclusions, I am far from infallible

Don't believe the lies Bill!!!! look at the sparkly ERA!!! Sparkly, Sparkly!!! - McCovey Chronicles

by Trenchtown on Jul 20, 2009 8:23 PM EDT up reply actions

Got it.

That one line just stuck out to me.

@bs_uf15bosox9be:OverTheMonster-ALLERGEN WARNING:May contain PB.

by bdalebs on Jul 20, 2009 11:35 PM EDT up reply actions

Scutaro always had a great eye

Every time I run anything on plate discipline, he comes up near, or at, the top. He may be overly conservative, so Sky’s idea of throwing him more strikes could work. But he could adjust etc etc

by Harry Pavlidis on Jul 22, 2009 10:50 AM EDT reply actions

The conservative part is definitely right

All I’ve seen in his numbers (I don’t actually watch Toronto games) is that this year he has decided not to swing at pitches. Data from FanGraphs!

Marco Scutaro
Year: OSwing%, ZSwing%, Zone%

2007: 15.5%, 63.9%, 53.2%
2008: 15.4%, 63.4%, 54.6%
2009: 11.9%, 56.2%, 51.3%

Not sure if this year’s approach is as good as year’s past, especially given his high contact rates. It isn’t as if he gets avoided either, since he isn’t going to hurt you too bad in the zone. He should probably swing more. But you’re right Harry, he’s had a very good approach for a while until this season. Think it could be the dreaded “getting older and thus not swinging” routine?

Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog

by SFiercex4 on Jul 24, 2009 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions