Peaking as a rookie
The Cardinals made what I thought at the time was a questionable trade to bring in 2nd baseman Ronnie Belliard in exchange for young utilityman Hector Luna.
My original post was on July 31st. Here's the direct link.
My arguments were pretty simple and mostly based on Luna's youth and much cheaper salary, coupled with the fact that Luna is nowhere NEAR free agency.
Now I have a whole new set of reasons why I think this was a bad trade though.
Looking at Ronnie Belliard's stats over his career, I find it pretty evident that in his career, he had a very good rookie season in 1999, for which I'm shocked he wasn't in the Rookie of the Year vote anywhere. Continuing down the line though, in many important statistics, he has never lived up to his rookie season.
For the most part, Belliard is a one-hit wonder living off of the mediocrity of the 2nd base position in baseball today.
Here's his rookie stats:
124 G, 8 HR, 58 RBI, 4 SB, .295 BA, .379 OBP, .429 Slugging for a .808 OPS
That year represents his career highs in batting average(.273 career), OBP(.340 career) and OPS(.752 Career) and 2nd best in slugging(.450 in 2005, when it seems like he thought he was a home run hitter, with a very lacking .325 OBP)
This season with the Indians, he was having a relatively good year for him, batting .291 and slugging .420, although his on-base still sucked at .337, but now with the Cardinals, his season stats through 19 games are very Aaron Miles-ish, (who incidently is the guy the Cardinals had BEFORE Belliard that they felt they needed to replace so badly).
Here are their stats(BA/OBP/Slugging/OPS)
Miles - .262/.334/.348/.682
Belliard - .264/.312/.361/.673
So thusfar this season as a Cardinal, Belliard has been an offensive DOWNGRADE from Aaron Miles.
In addition, another reason to be frustrated with this trade is Belliard's plate discipline. Where most players seem to become better at judging the strike zone and taking pitches as they mature as a player, the exact OPPOSITE has happened with Belliard. If you use the #P/PA stat on ESPN(Number of Pitches per Plate Appearance), you see that with Belliard, the number has declined almost every year he has played.
His rookie year in 1999, his #P/PA was 3.94 and it dropped for 3 straight years after that down to 3.56, before in one fluke year in Colorado it jumped to 4.07, but then has quickly declined since then. This season with the Indians, he saw 3.36 pitches every time he went up, and with the Cardinals, it's only been marginally better at 3.49.
What do these stats mean? Is Ronnie Belliard the worst player in major league history?
Of course not.
But it does mean that we traded a young, cheap player for an expensive veteran in his walk year who has really declined every season since his rookie season. Belliard is now 31 and I see no reason to think he's going to get any better, but he certainly can continue to get worse.
Here's to hoping the Cardinals don't compound an error by resigning the 2nd baseman for next season.
My original post was on July 31st. Here's the direct link.
My arguments were pretty simple and mostly based on Luna's youth and much cheaper salary, coupled with the fact that Luna is nowhere NEAR free agency.
Now I have a whole new set of reasons why I think this was a bad trade though.
Looking at Ronnie Belliard's stats over his career, I find it pretty evident that in his career, he had a very good rookie season in 1999, for which I'm shocked he wasn't in the Rookie of the Year vote anywhere. Continuing down the line though, in many important statistics, he has never lived up to his rookie season.
For the most part, Belliard is a one-hit wonder living off of the mediocrity of the 2nd base position in baseball today.
Here's his rookie stats:
124 G, 8 HR, 58 RBI, 4 SB, .295 BA, .379 OBP, .429 Slugging for a .808 OPS
That year represents his career highs in batting average(.273 career), OBP(.340 career) and OPS(.752 Career) and 2nd best in slugging(.450 in 2005, when it seems like he thought he was a home run hitter, with a very lacking .325 OBP)
This season with the Indians, he was having a relatively good year for him, batting .291 and slugging .420, although his on-base still sucked at .337, but now with the Cardinals, his season stats through 19 games are very Aaron Miles-ish, (who incidently is the guy the Cardinals had BEFORE Belliard that they felt they needed to replace so badly).
Here are their stats(BA/OBP/Slugging/OPS)
Miles - .262/.334/.348/.682
Belliard - .264/.312/.361/.673
So thusfar this season as a Cardinal, Belliard has been an offensive DOWNGRADE from Aaron Miles.
In addition, another reason to be frustrated with this trade is Belliard's plate discipline. Where most players seem to become better at judging the strike zone and taking pitches as they mature as a player, the exact OPPOSITE has happened with Belliard. If you use the #P/PA stat on ESPN(Number of Pitches per Plate Appearance), you see that with Belliard, the number has declined almost every year he has played.
His rookie year in 1999, his #P/PA was 3.94 and it dropped for 3 straight years after that down to 3.56, before in one fluke year in Colorado it jumped to 4.07, but then has quickly declined since then. This season with the Indians, he saw 3.36 pitches every time he went up, and with the Cardinals, it's only been marginally better at 3.49.
What do these stats mean? Is Ronnie Belliard the worst player in major league history?
Of course not.
But it does mean that we traded a young, cheap player for an expensive veteran in his walk year who has really declined every season since his rookie season. Belliard is now 31 and I see no reason to think he's going to get any better, but he certainly can continue to get worse.
Here's to hoping the Cardinals don't compound an error by resigning the 2nd baseman for next season.
posted by Matt at 4:29 PM
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