Lookout Landing

Matthew has a Willingham post below this one.

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Jose Lopez has been the subject of trade rumors all offseason long. And those rumors, unlike a Jose Lopez fly ball, have gotten some air under them. He knows it, too. There have been whispers of inquiries and possibilities since the winter began, and even yesterday, on the radio with Brock and Salk, Dave said that, even though it's January, he wouldn't be surprised to wake up next week and find out that Lopez has been dealt away.

People are aware of these rumors and some segment of the population probably even takes them for granted. Every time they come up, though, they always seem to be met with the same majority response: trade Jose Lopez and you cripple the offense.

It's easy to see where these people are coming from. Lopez was second on the team in home runs a year ago, and first in RBI by a significant margin. Whenever the Mariners had a big inning, it seemed like Lopez was involved with most of them, and indeed, he was a big part of what made this lineup...not click. Plod? He was a big part of what made this lineup plod. People realize that, and so they see trading Lopez as trading away one of the team's only solid bats.

These fears are reasonable. The Mariners are pretty light on offense. Jose Lopez can hit. Ergo, trading Lopez hurts the lineup. When you already have a weakness, fans are generally loath to make it worse, which dealing Lopez would do. However, while reasonable, those fears overstate the hypothetical's impact. Trading Jose Lopez doesn't cripple anything, and, as part of a larger series of moves, may not hurt the offense at all.

.272 - 25 - 96. Superficially, Lopez is productive, especially given the ballpark. But as should come as a surprise to exactly no one around these parts, those three numbers don't tell the whole story, and here's the biggest reason why:

2.9%

Jose Lopez drew an unintentional walk in just 2.9% of his plate appearances, tied for fifth-worst in baseball out of 284 guys to collect at least 300 PAs. Hitters don't necessarily need to walk a lot to be great, but they do need to compensate by hitting for plus average or plus power, which Lopez doesn't do. As such, he's not nearly as good as his surface numbers would have you believe.

Lopez's wOBA last season was .325, putting him between Andy LaRoche and AJ Pierzynski. Now, in fairness, that's neither adjusted for park nor adjusted for the low .274 BABIP, so it sells him a little short. But then, the year before last he came in at .328 with a .311 BABIP, and the year before that he was completely terrible. So it's not like he has a track record on his side. All the positive talk about Lopez is based on one single season in which he swung the bat like an above-average hitter.

Projections, as you know, consider more than single seasons. Jose Lopez's projected 2010 wOBA by the four systems available on Fangraphs: .324, .331, .321, .326. In word form: average. Even taking into consideration his age and recent improvement, Lopez projects as a roughly league-average hitter, which...well, our offense isn't so bad that we should bemoan that sort of loss.

But let's say you don't believe the projections. Let's say you believe in Lopez's 2009. Let's say you believe in his power and you believe in his ability to maintain his gains going forward. If you adjust his numbers for luck and environment, then you end up with a wOBA way up around....345, putting him in the company of names like Adam Jones and Marlon Byrd.

Fine hitters, to be sure. .345 is a good level of production. But .345 sends a message entirely different from that of 25-96. .345 means you're about eight runs better than average, and that's a level that - while meaningful - isn't extraordinary.

Consider what happens if the Mariners trade Jose Lopez for, say, a pitcher. Let's leave out the possibility that they trade him for someone with a stick. If the Mariners trade Lopez for an arm, then the immediate consequence is that either Jack Hannahan or, I suppose, Matt Tuiasosopo step in as the second base replacement. What's the difference over a full season between Lopez and either in-house alternative?

If you believe that Lopez is set to repeat his 2009 performance, then the difference comes out to about 20 runs. That's if you think Lopez sustains his gains and neither Hannahan nor Tui (nor, I guess, Dustin Ackley) step up. If you believe that Lopez gives a little back, then the gap drops to 10-15.

But let's err towards 20, just to be safe. How significant are 20 runs, really, when you're expected to score somewhere around 675 or 725 or so? The easy answer is "two wins". Everybody's familiar with the 10 runs = 1 win rule of thumb, so that's the immediate response. What people who're against trading Lopez will tell you, however, is that those 20 runs have a bigger impact on a weaker lineup than they do on a stronger one. They'll tell you that you have to consider context, and that losing a Lopez-level bat would hurt us more than it would hurt, say, the Yankees.

Technically, that's a valid argument. But observe the difference in Pythagorean record for the following three offenses when you subtract 20 runs, assuming 700 runs allowed:

650 runs: -2.3 wins
750 runs: -2.0 wins
850 runs: -1.7 wins

Context matters, but the effect is so small as to be borderline negligible. For all intents and purposes, 20 runs mean approximately the same thing to any lineup in baseball.

So if you believe in Jose Lopez's 2009, and the Mariners trade him away for a pitcher, then the immediate consequence is that the offense - just the offense - will be projected to contribute about two fewer wins' worth of value. Those are two important wins, but by no means is it a crippling loss, especially when you consider that we're presumably only trading Lopez if it means we're improving somewhere else. And if you think that Lopez's power regresses a little, or you like Hannahan, or whatever, then the impact is even smaller.

Crippling? Not at all. Trading Jose Lopez hurts the offense, but it doesn't hurt it very much, as Lopez's inability to consistently reach base prevents him from achieving a higher level of productivity. And then you haven't even thought about what comes next. Trade Lopez for an arm and the team may go ahead and choose to add a second baseman rather than play what's in-house. And considering the league-average second baseman has posted a .331 wOBA over the last few years, there's reason to believe that, in the end, the offense wouldn't even take a hit. That the Mariners could trade Lopez away and end up with just as strong a lineup as before.

Of course, I've just spent an hour challenging an argument that misses the point with an argument that misses the point. It's never - never ever ever - just about the offense, or the defense, or the pitching. It's about everything. What matters isn't what effect trading Jose Lopez would have on the offense. What matters is what effect trading Jose Lopez would have on the team. At the end of the day, that's what we need to be measuring.

But there are enough people who're focusing on the lineup that I feel like this is a post that had to be written. In an ideal world, people would only worry about how various transactions affect a given team's overall value. However, we don't live there yet, so in this circumstance, it's worth taking the time to ease some smaller-picture concerns. If the Mariners elect to trade Jose Lopez, they will do in an effort to improve the team. Even if you look at the offense and the offense only, though, it's still not a big loss. The difference between Jose Lopez and his immediate replacements at the plate simply isn't that huge, and there's reason to believe that, should the front office then choose to bring in another second baseman, the lineup wouldn't be worse off at all.