2011 Player Profile: Willie Bloomquist
April 11th, 2011 | by Ray Flowers |
Photo by Keith Allison
People are still, and I mean vigorously in some cases, defending Willie Bloomquist. Is he going to be this year’s Jose Bautista, an out of nowhere performer who ends up leading his club to a fantasy championship? Could I be completely wrong in my scathing review of Bloomquist from last week in Around the Horn: April 8, 2011? After all Willie is leading baseball in steals with six (tied with Matt Kemp). In case you didn’t watch my video on Bloomquist because you can’t stand my ugly mug, let me lay out the plain facts for you yet again.
(1) In his career he has hit .266. The league average since he began his career in 2002 is .269.
(2) Willie has a .318 career OBP. The league average in that time is .335.
(3) Will has a career SLG of .339. The league average during that time has been .427.
So to review he is not a league average performer in batting average, OBP or SLG. Not a one of them.
(4) Bloomquist has 1,909 at-bats at the big league level, the equivalent of about four full big league seasons. However, he’s only had one season with more than 255 at-bats in nine years. Why do you think that is? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he isn’t a league average performer in AVG/OBP/SLG? If he was really that good a player, would he really never have caught the eye of his current manager?
(5) He has no power. Bloomquist has 14 homers – in his career. Even if he was give 500 at-bats this year at his career pace he would hit four homers. Four.
(6) In a 9-year career he has never once platted more than 29 runners, and that was in 2009 when he had 434 at-bats. Clearly he isn’t a run producer.
(7) Per 500 at-bats in his career he’s scored an average of 74 runs. That’s a decent total, but it hardly makes up for his average of four homers, 39 RBI an a .266 batting average.
(8) What about the steals – the thing everyone is so jazzed about right now? Willie has always been a solid single league pickup for his ability to swipe a bag, there is no disputing that. At the same time we are talking about a guy who has only once season of more than 16 steals, and a major reason for that is that he’s never been able to convince anyone to make him a daily add to the lineup card.
Over at BaseballHQ they developed a way to measure stolen base effectiveness called Stolen Base Opportunity (SBO) which record “a rough approximation of how often a base-runner attempts a stolen base.” The big league average is usually about 10 percent, and in his career prior to this season Bloomquist had a mark of 23.7 percent, obviously a much better mark than the average big league base runner. What’s that mark this season? How about 58.3 percent. You don’t need me to say anything other than there is no way he’ll be able to keep up that pace, right?
2011 OUTLOOK
First off, stop the insanity people. Bloomquist will never ever play over a healthy Stephen Drew. So put that thought right out of your mind. And that brings up a key factor here – where will Willie play? He’s spent the past two games in the outfield, but really, how many teams can run a guy out there everyday if he can’t hit for average, can’t get on base, and can’t drive the ball? Moreover, what positions does Willie qualify for this year in your league? He’ll be outfield eligible in all leagues, but last year he only appeared in six games at second, 11 at third and one at shortstop. This year he’s played five games at short, so he’ll likely qualify there in many leagues, but if he’s only outfield eligible for you right now his value is diminished substantially.
You already know how I’m going to finish this report. Willie Bloomquist will not become this years Jose Bautista. He has no power, isn’t very good at producing runs, and as I’ve stated a couple of time, he isn’t even a league average hitter in AVG/OBP/SLG. Sure he’ll steal a base, but even then there is no way that he’ll likely even hold on to 60 percent of the SBO rate he is currently sporting the rest of the way. Even with his amazing start, which I give him full props for, there is no way that I’m counting on a difference making season from Bloomquist. Maybe six months from now I will look foolish for what I’ve written today, but my confidence level is high that I’ll end up in the right on this one.
By Ray Flowers
Tags: Diamondbacks, Early Season Surprises, Jose Bautista, Stephen Drew, Willie Bloomquist
By Mike on Apr 11, 2011
Couldn’t agree with you more about Bloomquist. He’s Chris Shelton all over again.
I have a question for you about who to start this week in a 16-team, mixed, H2H-Points league:
I have four arms to fill three spots. Who sits this week?
Hammel @NYM (Pelfry), vsCHC (Coleman)
Chacin vsCHC (Garza)
Hudson vsSF (Cain)
Anderson @CHW (Danks)
Hammel is who I would normally sit, but he has two starts against weak opposing starters, and as you know, multiple starts in H2H is quite advantageous.
What say you? Thanks.
By Ray Flowers on Apr 11, 2011
Mike – 2-time starters are valuable for sure.
I’d bench Anderson. He’s a better pitcher than Chacin, but that’s a tough matchup on the hill and that Sox batting order is tough.
By Eric on Apr 11, 2011
If no one else will defend Willie Boom-Boom Bloomquist then i shall.
First below is a short list of other lead off hitter that are now playing that Boom-Boom is compatible too all of who are league average or below hitters:
C. Getz
A. Jackson
I. Desmond
D. Fowler
C Coghlan
S. Fuld
P. Bourjos
R. Theriot
W. Venable
B. Gardner
Ok second point is in most leagues Yahoo and Espn being two of the more popular leagues he is multi pos eligible with ss being one of them.
#3 How many ex Royals have gone on to shine with other clubs.
#4 Boom-Boom main asset is his speed. In the NL West the catchers are below average in CS
only Buster Posey is any good Chris Iannetta is only has a 30% cs Nick Hundley 34% cs and Rod Barajas who has a good career rate but has only caught 7 out of 41 NL steal att. this means that 48 of Boom-Booms games will be vs these catchers
#5 And my conclusion if Boom-Boom keeps leading off he will have lots of plate appearances thus even though he is a league avg hitter it will still give him plenty of chances to steal bases also being the lead off hitter and taking the above aforementioned bases this will increase his run scored. The D-backs have no left fielder and are very weak at 3rd base so their will be plenty of playing time.
boom-boom is Waver Wire Gold for most fantasy baseball teams
By Bob on Apr 11, 2011
hELLO Ray,
I am in a 10 team 5×5 leaugue we start 3 of. My of are Rios,Werth, Stubbs, Swisher,Pagan. And 1 UTIL
I was thinking of trading Werth for Shin Soo Choo. i think i may need the bat average and dont trust werth thoughts?
Thank you
By Ray Flowers on Apr 11, 2011
Eric – You make some valid points (I too mentioned the positional elig. angel as it’s certainly a viable point in Willie’s back pocket). However…
Just because other teams are stupid enough to bat guys with .320 OBPs in the leadoff spot doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea for the DBacks to do it.
Second, on the list you gave, if you asked a general manager to rank the players I find it impossible to believe that Gardner, Jackson, Folwers, Coghlan, Bourjos and Desmond wouldn’t be ahead of Willie. In fact, given Wille’s age of 33, I’d be hard pressed to honestly say any of the players on the list would be taken ahead of Bloomquist.
The issue really is this – are the Dbacks such a bad team that they would really give such a poor player 500 plate appearances? Maybe they would, but wouldn’t they be better served to give them to a guy like Brandon Allen who might actually have a big league future?
By Ray Flowers on Apr 11, 2011
Bob- I’d prefer Choo to Werth without a doubt. By a substantial margin actually. See – http://baseballguys.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Top-300-2011-BBGuys5.pdf
By dw on Apr 13, 2011
Hi Ray, Hamilton & Adam Jones for Rasmus? 12 team H2H non keeper. thanks!
By Ray Flowers on Apr 13, 2011
DW- Hamilton is likely to miss about two months, but that would still leave him over three months of the season on the backend to play. Straight up Jones for Rasmus is fine, but adding Hamilton to the mix is a pure panic move. Don’t bite unless you are getting Jones/Hamilton.