USS Mariner: Cameron: The Media and Jose Guillen

or Hickey’s Royal Bluebird over the Mountain?

Guillen’s hitting .263/.297/.446 - he’s hit a few longballs, but they just serve to somewhat offset his abysmal rate of reaching base, making him a slightly below average hitter instead of a horrible one. I don’t care how much you think all our statistical analysis stuff is crap - you can’t sit there and honestly believe that a right fielder with a .297 on base percentage is having a decent offensive season. You have to intentionally ignore the facts to write that sentence.

The reality is that Guillen’s been worth a couple runs less than an average major league hitter this year, thanks to his out making prowess. Corner outfielders hit better than the average hitter, so we can knock off another five runs or so to compare him to his positional peers. And, to boot, he’s also played absolutely abysmal defense. The Fielding Bible’s +/- system has him at 19 plays below average on the season, which works out to about -15 runs or so.

Overall, Jose Guillen has been about 20 to 25 runs worse than a league average right fielder this season. If you think that’s a decent season, you don’t know baseball.