It’s safe to say Matt LaPorta’s career isn’t panning out as well as the Cleveland Indians had planned.
When LaPorta came to the Indians from the Milwaukee Brewers as the centerpiece of the 2008 CC Sabathia deal, Tribe fans were tantalized by whisperings of prodigious power and future 40-plus-homer seasons. He was ranked 23rd on Baseball America‘s 2008 Top Prospects list, and came in at 27th before the 2009 campaign.
He got off a decent start to his MLB career by hitting 7 homers with a .750 OPS in 52 games in 2009, but he flamed out in a big way in 2010 when his OPS fell to .668 and he was nearly a full win below replacement level (-0.9 WAR).
This year, he’s been something of a paradox: LaPorta is simultaneously being underrated and overrated.
For the first month-and-a-half of the 2011 season, it looked like LaPorta was finally starting to come into his own. In his first 37 games, he hit .275/.360/.500 with 5 homers and 22 RBI. His walk rate was up to 11% and his Power Factor was a robust .818.
Since then, though, things have been tumbling downhill. LaPorta’s hitting just .202/.244/.319 over his last 26 games. He has only two walks and five extra-base hits in 98 plate appearances.
All told, he’s hitting .243/.304/.421 with 8 homers and 32 RBI. And no one seems to realize either his skills or his deficiencies.
As a low-batting average guy, LaPorta is woefully unappreciated by most baseball fans. Most casual spectators see that he’s hitting .243 and immediately dismiss him as a poor hitter. Even his impressive .178 Isolated Power understates his abilities because of ISO’s bias towards contact hitters.
With a 101 wRC+ and a 103 OPS+, LaPorta is in fact a league-average hitter, or perhaps slightly better, and his .717 Power Factor shows that he is at least a somewhat intimidating slugger. Yet Manny Acta has hit him eighth in the batting order in the majority of his starts. In 80% of his games started this year, he’s hit in the bottom third of the lineup.
But while LaPorta ought to be hitting higher in the lineup when he plays, there is a legitimate question about whether or not he should be starting at all. Most people seem to be alright with Acta putting him in the lineup every day—which is why LaPorta is also overrated.
LaPorta may be one of the best hitters the Indians have, but there’s more to baseball than that. A league-average hitter is well below the norm for a first baseman, and he’s been bad in the field (-4.9 UZR) and on the basepaths (-1.4 UBR). All told, LaPorta has -0.2 WAR to his name this year.
It’s not unprecedented for a contending team to have a below-replacement-level everyday player (in fact, he’s not the only one the Indians have), but it’s definitely not a good thing for Cleveland to keep playing LaPorta if he can’t pick his game up. Short-term, starting Lou Marson and moving Carlos Santana to first on a regular basis is probably a good idea, and the Indians might want to try to acquire a rent-a-player first baseman before the trade deadline.
Every young player suffers growing pains, and while it’s safe to call LaPorta a bust he may still have a future as a useful player. But for now, the Indians can’t afford to keep sending a below-replacement-level guy at a premium offensive position.
But as long as he’s playing, he might as well be hitting higher up than Orlando Cabrera.
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Original Story:
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