Logan Morrison: is he ready?

by 3.3seconds on Oct 7, 2009 8:07 PM EDT Comment 22 comments

I'd like to start this post by talking about Nick Johnson, who the Marlins picked up at the trade deadline this season. In Johnson, the team received perhaps the least athletic-looking major leaguer since the heyday of David Wells. And sadly, that impression was accurate in many ways -- Johnson was slow on the basepaths, practically immobile in the field, and missed numerous games due to injury. But he was still a major part of the Marlins' late-season surge, due to his remarkable ability to get on base. Johnson posted a .477 on-base percentage in his 104 at-bats (plus 36 walks) with the team, and alongside Chris Coghlan, energized the top of the Marlins' lineup.

Sadly, Johnson is a free agent, and is almost certainly gone. This leaves us with a hole at first base -- one which might be filled by Jorge Cantu, if he returns, but if so, who plays third? Will Gaby Hernandez finally get his shot? (Judging by the Marlins' track record, unlikely.) Or is it Logan Morrison's time to make the majors.

Now, here's why I mention Johnson: Morrison looks, at least at this point, to have much the same knack for getting on base. Like Johnson, he's not a huge power hitter, especially for a first baseman -- though then again, he is only 22. But this year, with the AA Jacksonville Suns, he posted a .411 OBP, and walked 63 times while completing only 278 at-bats. (Keep in mind that he did this after missing almost half the season with injuries.) And unlike Johnson, he's reasonably mobile -- he stole 9 bases with the Suns. There's no question he looks like the Marlins' 1B of the future.

But is that future now? That's not so clear. While his on-base percentage in AA was great, he batted only .277, and posted a respectable but not amazing .854 OPS. The Marlins definitely have a history of promoting top prospects directly from AA, but Morrison still hasn't quite dominated at the Southern League level. (Though then again, he was coming off an injury.)

Then again, the team doesn't have a lot of options. They ended the season with only two starting-quality corner infielders, and both Johnson and Cantu might be out the door. I'd expect Hernandez to have a shot to earn the job in camp, but ultimately, the Marlins may end up just turning first base over to the new kid a bit early.

One more note, though: Nick Johnson played AA ball at the age of 20. His on-base percentage for that 1999 season: .525. So let's not get too far ahead of ourselves with Morrison and his .411...

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who is gaby hernandez? i think you mean gaby sanchez.

by marlinlover on Oct 8, 2009 12:56 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No, I mean Gaby Hernandez! The minor-league pitcher!

Either that, or I’m an idiot. Sorry about that!

He's currently two-thirds man, one-third amazing. Which, let's face it, is still a pretty good ratio.

by 3.3seconds on Oct 9, 2009 12:45 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well we traded Gaby Hernandez last year for Arthur Rhodes, so idk lol

by marlinlover on Oct 19, 2009 10:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

just for your information I think you mean Gaby Sanchez ,he was MVP of the league 2008 and hit for .314 with 17HR ~~OBS .404 SLG. 513 OPS. 917 .this year in 88 games in AAA hit .290 with 16HR~~ OBS .375 SLG .478 and with the Marlins in Sep. was 5 for 11 with 2HR .Yes I think he should be our 1B next year.

by Marlin1 on Oct 8, 2009 6:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Sorry for tthe strike it was a mistake I’ll repeat the comment.
just for your information I think you mean Gaby Sanchez ,he was MVP of the league 2008 and hit for .314 with 17HR OBS .404 SLG. 513 OPS. 917 .this year in 88 games in AAA hit .290 with 16HR OBS .375 SLG .478 and with the Marlins in Sep. was 5 for 11 with 2HR .Yes I think Gaby Sanchez should be our 1B next year and tru 2012.

by Marlin1 on Oct 9, 2009 12:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Just looking at his MLE's

from Minor League Splits, it doesn’t appear as if he’ll be ready yet for the bigs. He could use a full season in the minors before the team pushes him for first base, and luckily the Marlins have Sanchez, who should be ready to play in the bigs.

The third base issue is an interesting one. Ideally, the Marlins would sign a stopgap in that position and fill the other with Sanchez, but you’d figure 1B is easily replaceable, so you’d want to sign the 1B stopgap instead. We’ll have to see what’s available. With Uggla likely gone, it looks as if Coghlan will have to move back into the infield to second, not third. If Uggla returns, Coghlan can take third base and we won’t have to worry about finding a scrub or pushing Morrison too quickly.

Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.

by SFiercex4 on Oct 9, 2009 2:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

He's likely ready to face ML RHP

Looks like he’ll never figure out how to hit ML LHP though.

I mean, just look at his BB/K split this year

v.s. RHP: 1.92 (which is just epic )
v.s. LHP: 0.65 (Which is good but far from epic)

The main difference? How often he k’s

v.s. RHP: 13% of the time (very, very, very good)
v.s. LHP?: 25%, quite a bit below average.

We’re talking of striking out at nearly twice the rate against LHP than he does RHP.

Also, we should likely keep him down for a couple months at the start of the season to keep him from being Super 2 eligibility and, at the very least, have another year of club control over him.

by nny on Oct 9, 2009 9:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Keep in mind the PA's

He had 107 PA against lefties this season, mostly in AA Jacksonville. That’s not enough to be definitive.

That being said, he’s not hit lefties well throughout his career, but he’s still young and he’s facing increasingly difficult competition. I agree with you that he should stay down, though I’d say in general let him stay another year and get him a cup of coffee in September. If he lights up AA (.900+ OPS or.400+ wOBA or something), then we’ve got think about getting him some playing time. But so far, he’s not lit up any level, at least not impressively yet.

Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.

by SFiercex4 on Oct 9, 2009 9:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think you're underselling what he's done

Last season he’d finish with a .401 non-park adjusted wOBA, which was 4th. He was second in all of the FSL in park-adjusted OPS, behind teammate Kevin Randel. The difference being that Morrison was just 20 years of age, Randel being 27. This season his wOBA was .397, which was 5th in the league.

I mean, yeah, he’s not putting on Mike Stanton shows here be he is certainly dominating the levels he has played at so far.

And re: lefties I think the fact he’s facing increasingly difficult competition is the reason for his slip in lefty numbers. He’s getting better against RHP, but has regressed against LHP. And, I mean, his numbers this year (13%/25% k rate) aren’t a farcry from his career numbers (15%/24%).

Maybe he does figure it out, but more than likely he’s going to be like most every other left handed power bat.

by nny on Oct 11, 2009 12:53 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You are right, I apologize, but my point is more rooted in MLE's

Minor League Splits has his MLE’s for the season, and I’ve got a major league, park-adjusted wOBA of .314 (without using this year’s custom weights, just going from The Book). Not bad, especially for a 21 year old, but given that he’s so young, he could use another year in the minors, kind of like what Maybin got this year. No reason, when the team has options at the major league level, to bring up a guy who’s likely going to post a .320 wOBA with average to below average defense at first base. I think the team could probably do better than that, if anything to see if there’s any extra benefit in letting him develop a year more in AA-AAA.

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by SFiercex4 on Oct 11, 2009 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'd be surprised if projection systems have him around his MLE

Lot of things about his MLE I think he easily out performs, i.e. his .255 BABIP.

by nny on Oct 11, 2009 7:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, based on MLE, that's what you have to expect.

My supposition is a .255 BABIP is pretty low, particularly for the grounder rate. But still, those are the numbers we have to work with given league/park adjustments.

I don’t have an aging curve yet (I should ask around with the “projection” people), but what would you expect at the major league level? If you leverage him only against righties, you might see .335 wOBA perhaps? I’m not convinced he’s any more than average, and from first base that sort of production is bordering on less than 1 WAR.

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by SFiercex4 on Oct 11, 2009 11:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think 3.3 seconds addressed my thought proccess below

“And while Morrison’s play is of course relevant, my first question would not be "what’s Morrison’s batting average/OPS/etc.?" as "where is Morrison going to learn the fastest?"”

He should be down in NOLA if only for service time reasons. If he’s again doing what he’s done and probably should be expected to do (top 5ish in wOBA of the league), he obviously has nothing there to learn. If he’s struggling, keep him down, let him learn.

I expect him to be a below average 1b when he’s first called up, yeah. I’d say around a .800 OPS, and average 1b OPS is normally mid .800. He’s not going to be helped at all by the fact that his power is what’s holding him back atm, and Dolphin Stadium kills lefties.

But it’s about getting him adjusted to the league. He has to learn to hit MLB pitching eventually. If he can hit PCL pitching, keeping him down there will probably just delay his progression.

I will say I can somewhat understand the logic of keeping him down until his power is ready. We have 7 years of club control. Would you rather it be age 22-29, with him hitting arbitration right in his prime of 26, or ages 25-32? However, this eats up options, and if he doesn’t take to the league right away, it puts us in a horrible position of having a high-upside out of option player that’s not producing.

There’s a lot of things to be considered and a lot of that we just don’t have the information at the moment.

And there’s also the fact that if you look at our 1b options (Gaby, Cantu), both of them are basically upper .700 to low .800 OPS bats so it’s not like we’d be losing production by having Logan at 1b.

by nny on Oct 13, 2009 1:32 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Actually, it's 5 years of club control.

He's currently two-thirds man, one-third amazing. Which, let's face it, is still a pretty good ratio.

by 3.3seconds on Oct 13, 2009 4:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No, 7

Players because free agents after 6 years of ML service time.

Keeping him in the minors for two months would mean we would have 6 and 2/3rds years of Logan (easier to just round to 7).

However I did mess up his ages lol, since I just added 7 to what his age would be, but doing that would be 8 years of control. So ages 22-28, or ages 25-31.

by nny on Oct 13, 2009 7:44 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I see your point

I’m for keeping him in the minors again, splitting time between AA and AAA. If he tears up NO, he’s set to come up to the big leagues. Bringing up our ML options only reassures me that we should at least keep Logan down to see if he tears it up. I’d like to see an MLE of .800 OPS, if only because 1B (I don’t buy the concept of putting him in left field, he already looks “meh” at 1B based on TotalZone) need that to be even remotely worth playing.

FWIW, I think it’ll be Sanchez primarily. I’m actually interested in seeing how he does. He’s not had good MLE’s the last two years, but they probably wouldn’t be that much worse than what Cantu puts up. I’m not a huge Cantu fan.

Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
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by SFiercex4 on Oct 13, 2009 2:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think everybody rush on 1 good year

first he was 21 not 20 last season in Jupiter .second he played on a left handed heaven field Jacksonville, were are the power # your talking about he hit 8 HR. I think he dominated last year but he did not any league before or after. he reminds me of Mc Cann player of the year 2006 and could not put together another year after that .I think he needs to prove he can hit at the better levels AA and AAA before anything else is said.

by Marlin1 on Oct 11, 2009 12:29 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

He was 20 in Jupiter

Born: August 25th, 1987

That’s past the cut off date of counting birthday for the season, essentially making him “born” in 1988 from a baseball age standpoint. 2008-1988 = 20.

by nny on Oct 11, 2009 7:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

thanks good to know

didn’t know of a cut off date thanks.

by Marlin1 on Oct 11, 2009 10:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

He was just about as good in AA this year as he was in Jupiter last year.

His batting average wasn’t as high — this is likely to hold true in the future; his .377 BABIP in ’08 is clearly not sustainable — but he also walked WAY more this year. .896 OPS in ’08, .854 in Jacksonville in ’09.

In fact, if you consider that he DIDN’T have the benefit of that flukey BABIP this year, and that he was coming off a major injury, you might even argue he had a BETTER season this year in terms of actual play.

He's currently two-thirds man, one-third amazing. Which, let's face it, is still a pretty good ratio.

by 3.3seconds on Oct 12, 2009 7:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

my bad

I just check Mc Cann was 2005 minor league player of the year for the Marlins, 2006 was Gaby Sanchez.

by Marlin1 on Oct 11, 2009 12:45 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

To me, the question it comes down to is...

…what helps Morrison more in the long run? At this point, I don’t care about Sanchez. And while Morrison’s play is of course relevant, my first question would not be “what’s Morrison’s batting average/OPS/etc.?” as “where is Morrison going to learn the fastest?”

Someone mentioned Maybin. Maybin’s issue in April/May was simple — he couldn’t identify breaking balls. He went down to AAA, worked on it, and late-season signs were promising. But we had to see Maybin in the majors to know what to work on — he wasn’t having trouble finding breaking balls in the minors.

Now, sample size or no, I think we can say that Morrison is most likely not ready to hit lefties at a big-league level. Why is that? Is it an issue that can be more easily solved in the minors? Does he have other issues which will need to be worked on before he can contend with major-league pitching? I don’t know the answer to either of those questions; the Marlins organization probably knows both answers better than I do, and even they’re guessing.

He's currently two-thirds man, one-third amazing. Which, let's face it, is still a pretty good ratio.

by 3.3seconds on Oct 12, 2009 7:06 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs