Kendrick

[Torridd]

How important to the team is he? HK is my favorite player and I know he gets a lot of flak here for grounding into double plays. I still think he's one of the best players on the team and one of the best second basemen in the majors.

 

Do you think the team will be better with or without him?

 

P. S. I was on my Blackberry watching Gameday when he came up in yesterday's game with men on first and second in the 8th and GIDP. Doesn't change my opinion of him.

[Tyler]

He's a great player if you don't need him to be a huge role in the offense. Great no. 5 hitter. Solid all-around.

[Torridd]

He's a great player if you don't need him to be a huge role in the offense. Great no. 5 hitter. Solid all-around.

Definitely not a go-to guy, but I think an important cog to the team. I'd hate to see him get traded in the "fire sale" talk of late.

[jshep]

Well he's playing pretty well and the current alternatives are Brendan Harris, Chris Nelson, and Andrew Romine.

[Angel Oracle]

This is the hitting that it would be nice to see year after year from him.

But instead it's been up and down, up and down.

[Torridd]

This is the hitting that it would be nice to see year after year from him.

But instead it's been up and down, up and down.

.292 career batting average. I saw his career stats and he seems pretty consistent to me

[Jay]

Do you think the team will be better with or without him?

 

Hard to quantify a few degrees of suck one way or another

[gotbeer]

Part of the problem with him, and probably unfairly, is that he will always be compared to his minor league number potential.  His number by itself for a secondbaseman is probably top 10 throughout this career.  But it's disappointing because his minor league numbers made it look like he should be a top 3 secondbaseman if not top.  

 

Now saying all that, I don't think realistically Kendrick or Aybar get traded.  First their contracts are really reasonable.  But more importantly you go back to the last few years.  If the Angels weren't going with them as their plan for the future, you wouldn't have traded all your middle infielders that you had a glut of.  From Segura, to Rodriguez, to Amarista, and so forth.  

[Angel Oracle]

.292 career batting average. I saw his career stats and he seems pretty consistent to me

BA is mostly consistent, but the OBP and SLG will go up and down from year to year (from low 700s to high .700s, rinse, repeat).

[Brent Maguire]

He's one of the better 2nd baseman in baseball. Pedroia, Cano, Phillips and Carpenter are all better but he's a good player at a weak position. 

[mota_madness]

i like Howard too.... 

[acro2008]

He was one of  favorites until his GIDP bug.   It seems the league sure knows the guy can't keep from pulling that outside or low and outside pitch for a GIDP or K especially with RISP.  BA with RISP in the .290's, but it sure seems like in the key situations he folds like a cheap suit.  I wonder how much the coaches have worked with him.

[tdawg87]

He pisses me off.

[Justabitoutside]

Good player, team friendly contract. Why not keep him?

[Angel Oracle]

Just wish he could keep the OPS consistently at least in the upper .700s from year to year, and cut down on the GIDPs. 

[markb]

Howie's frustrating because it doesn't seem like he has the ability to grow as a player.  His stats have been dead on consistent throughout most of his career, which is good in that he's been a pretty steady .300 hitter all along, but bad in that he's never developed any semblance of plate discipline, nor does it seem like he tries to.  8 years later and we're still waiting for him to lay off outside sliders.  I think this complete inability to improve his pitch recognition is why we've seen his GIDPs start steadily increasing each year, as pitchers just relentlessly attack his weakness while he makes zero adjustments.  

 

Contrast that with Trumbo, a guy who's proven that dedicating yourself to improving your plate approach can pay off (BB % in '11: 4.4% '12: 6.1% '13: 10%).  We've got one guy with a high baseball IQ, and another with the Forrest Gump approach of "AHM JUST SWING-GIN'."   

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Howie is a solid 2B and a valuable part of a team that has a handful of other more talented hitters to fill the top half of the lineup, but he's also a huge dumbass that makes us facepalm his approach 2-3 out of every 10 ABs.  

[Docwaukee]

sometimes stats are fun to help with something like this.

 

looking at WAR, WPA/LI and WPA is a pretty interesting view. 

 

from around 2009 his WAR is 13.6 - good for 7th among qualifiers.  next closest above is 18.1 in Brandon Phillips.  There are several guys just below him between 11 and 13.  So by WAR, he's second tier. 

 

looking at Win Probability added however, it tells us a different story.

cumulative from 2009 he is at -0.44 which ranks him 26th among qualifiers

 

context neutral WPA/LI he is 11th with a 3.49 in with the same group of guys he is for WAR. 

 

interestingly though his high leverage ops is similar to his career ops. 

 

I think his propensity to GIDP gives him a bad rap.  He squares the ball up a lot.  Hits a ton of balls hard at people.  It happens with most good hitters. 

 

the other thing that's frustrating about howie is that damn low and away breaking ball.  his inability to recognize that single pitch has kept him from being an elite hitter and has led to him being less productive in the later innings where most bullpens have a bunch of guys with hard breaking stuff. 

 

Overall though, he's a good hitter, solid defender, and a good base runner.  It all adds up to an above average second baseman

[Halos of Anaheim]

He's 30 years old now so he won't be changing his approach to lower the amount of GIDP. I don't understand why Scioscia doesn't have guys trying to steal or at least put up the hit and run when he's at bat. Too many times has he killed turned 0 out situations with 2 runners on into 2 outs with a runner on 3rd.

[Make Angels Great Again]

I could see him getting traded this year. He's expendable with callaspo's ability to move over to 2nd.

[Guest HenryWinklerAngelFan]

I think now would be a great time to trade him for some minor league talent. His value is high and he is due for an injurt any day now.