Life In The Cell

There’s Nothing Quite Like a Foreign Born Second Baseman: Part 1

Note this post turned into quite the ambitious project, so I have broken it into 3 parts.
Part 1 is the back story, almost a narrative about Tadahito Iguchi and then Alexei Ramirez. There are some basic stats used to examine their performances.
Part 2 takes a much more statistically in depth look at Alexei and tries to make predictions about his production in the second half of this season and then again for the future.
Part 3 is a sumnation, wrapping up the comparison between Tadahito and Alexei.
Enjoy!

During the off-seaons of 2005 and 2008, the White Sox organization signed infielders from abroad for small amounts with little to no fanfare. In the first case, the White Sox signed Tadahtio Iguchi out of Japan on a 2-year $4.95 million contract with a team option for $3.25 million; in the latter case, they signed Alexei Ramirez out of Cuba on a 4-year $4.75 million contract. Both players earned the starting job at second base during their first season with the Sox, and both players more than earned their contracts. Here’s a small look at Tadahito followed by an in-depth look at Alexei.

Tadahito Iguchi

Tadahito, also affectionately known as Tadahero and the Emperor came to the Sox following the success of Shingo Takatsu in 2004. I don’t quite recall the proceeding of the deal, whether it was out of the blue like Alexei’s or if there was some visible dialog between the Sox and Iguchi, but upon hearing the news I thought to myself, “Awesome, I hope he can help the Sox like Shingo did.” Shingo, surprisingly struggled and then fell off the map performance-wise, but Tadahito excelled from the get go. By the end of May, he had a line of .302/.355/.450/.805, while hitting exclusively out of the 2-hole. Not only was he providing visible results, as seen by his stats, but he was able to do the little things that the country equated with “Ozzie-Ball.” This was the season that Scott Podsednik was tearing up the basepaths, rather than his groin, so Tadahito was asked often times to take pitches to allow Podsednik to steal or to sacrifice himself, whether via bunt or directional hitting, to drive him home. As a result of the way Ozzie wanted him to “handle the bat” in the 2-hole, I’m sure his line took a slight, not dramatic, hit.

With the help of The Emperor, the Sox won the 2005 World Series and posted 90 wins in 2006. He had a memorable run with the team and posted OPS+ of 104, 97, and in his partial season with the Sox when he battled injury had an 88 before getting traded. Tadahito by all accounts was a great teammate and did all the things asked of him by Ozzie. He exhibited great pop and the ability to hit for a fairly high average. He didn’t have the greatest range, but anything that was hit within range could be counted on to be an out.

Part of the reason he was so beloved on the Southside was things like this but also because he produced and at such a low price. In both ‘05 and ‘06, Tadahito ranked as the 9th best 2nd baseman based on OPS. The player ranked in 8th in ‘05 was Ray Durham who made $6.5 million, which is just about 3 times the $2.3 million salary of Tadahito. That’s not to say there aren’t cheap options available. In ‘06 there were a number of players on the rookie wage scale that had similar OPSes to Tadahito, but it still is rare to find someone at such a bargain price to produce as much as he did.

Alexei Ramirez

That leads me to Alexei. I’ll have to be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for him, at least not this season. I was hoping, maybe, he would turn out to be a Tadahito Iguchi redux, but at this point the Sox may very well have a better player and for cheaper. First some background before the analysis:

Alexei’s signing sorta came out of the blue. There were reports that there were 5 or so teams interested in him, and people definitely threw the idea out there on SSS about acquiring him, but then out of no where, he was inked to a 4-year deal with the Sox. I think the general consensus at that time was that it was a lot of years for an unknown quantity, and his best bet would be to catch up on the American game in AAA.

It seemed like a good plan going into the season, but Alexei had other ideas as he had a strong Spring Training (.358/.375/.582) which prompted the Sox taking him up north with them for the season. There was still some skepticism amongst fans since those numbers, after all, came in Spring Training. Fortuantely for the Sox and their fans everywhere, Juan Uribe strained his hammy on May 17. This pushed Alexei into a starting role. At that point his season line looked horrific due to his sporadic play; he had a line of .160/.192/.260/.452 but once given that starting spot, Alexei did not look back. Here are his splits by month for the season:

As you can undoubtedly see he has continued to get better as the season has worn on. From the point that Uribe went on the DL until today, Alexei has a .891 OPS which is good for 6th in the bigs. amongst second basemen His .352 average over that time span is good for second amongst that same group. Not only has Alexei been performing on the stat sheet, but he seems to just be baseball smart. He makes plays happen on the field; it’s like he stole Pablo’s pixie dust and is using it. The first game against the Royals was a great example, especially scoring from second on a sac fly. He also is a gold glove caliber in the field with a cannon of an arm. He easily could slide over and play SS if needed.

His spectacular play has Sox fans everywhere asking two questions: What can we expect from him in the second half? and What can we expect from him in the future?

See Part 2