Emmanuel Burriss Snubbed In A Bad Way

A few quick notes before I start on a column tonight.

Earlier this week, I produced my You’re Killing Me, Smalls, Teams for the American and National League. Each of the pieces were also put up over at Dugout Central, prompting some discussion in the comments section.

Frequent
site commenter James Kunz called me out on my pick for the N.L. at
second base, Skip Schumaker, who posted a 101 OPS+ in the first half
but has graded out well below average on defense in his first season
playing second base.

In his comment, Kunz wrote:

Emmanuel
Burriss has below-average fielding stats and a *49* OPS+ and you pick
Schumaker? Really? It feels a bit Tyler like you based this on players
you wanted to knock down a bit, but you did title it “All-worst” rather
than “all-overrated.”

Well, I have to say, Kunz is pretty
much dead on. At least in regards to Burriss; I had no say over the
title over at DC or any axes to grind.

The 24-year-old Burriss
hit .409 in his first 44 May at-bats, but other than that surge was practically a guaranteed out for the San Francisco Giants before being demoted to the minors. He
posted an embarrassingly awful line of .238/.292/.267 with only six
extra-base hits (all doubles) and a .030 Isolated
Power and .258 Weighted On-Base Average in 230 plate appearances overall. For those scoring at home, that level of production translates to 13.0 batting runs
below what a team could expect from an average second baseman.

With
a 17.4 line drive and 55.9% ground ball rate, it would be easy to say
that Burriss was just extremely unlucky during his time with the Giants this spring, falling victim to a .286
batting average on balls in play (BABIP). However, as many baseball fans in the Bay area
can attest, most of his at-bats with the big club ended with him rolling over his
hands and hitting a weak ground ball to the infield. Plus, his .300
career average BABIP isn’t all that much higher, anyway. As well, considering
that most pitchers were hardly afraid of challenging him due to his lack of
power, his plate discipline skills were also a cause for concern; he put up rates of 6.5 BB% and 16.8 K%.

Defensively, Burriss is
much better suited at the keystone than at shortstop, where he posted a
-4.2 UZR and -19.3 UZR/150 in 47 games for San Francisco in 2008. He
has graded out below average at second base in 2009 as well, though,
putting up a -3.9 UZR and -7.6 UZR/150 in 61 starts at the position.

When
accounting for batting, fielding and positional factors, Burriss produced -0.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR). While he doesn’t have
enough at-bats to qualify, that would rank as the lowest WAR total if
he did.

Thus, James Kunz deserves credit for pointing that out,
and Schumaker should be replaced with Burriss on the You’re Killing Me,
Smalls, Team. And it’s easy to see why the Giants sent him to
Triple-A, where he has since injured his toe and is out indefinitely.

One one final note, I broke down First Inning’s Staff Mid-Season Top 100 prospect list by division over at the site.