Now, full disclosure before I write this, I really wanted the Mariners to acquire Grady Sizemore around this time last year, on the hope that he would have a healthy year in Left Field and produce not necessarily like his old self but close to it.  Now it's hard to say what would have happened in Safeco, the .706 OPS he posted in Cleveland would have been massively better than what we got, but it's hard to say that it would have been a good idea in retrospect.  Now we have the opportunity again to acquire Grady Sizemore, and perhaps for cheap, and support for that idea is growing with Geoff Baker and Jeff (maybe not growing in Jeff's case, but he's at least open to the idea).  Despite the upside potential, I now find myself with more reservations than a year ago; there's the contact problems that Jeff brings up.  Those may go away as he gets farther from injury (if that's even possible), but the stolen bases that also dissapeared are almost certainly gone for good along with the best years of Sizemore's career.  Still if we could even get the 2009 version of Grady Sizemore for say, 5 million dollars, most of us would be happy.

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Of course I decided to write this after the suprised reaction to Olivo's steal of third base last week, and waited to post it until after he pulled his groin.  Still Olivo is fast, he may be the fastest catcher in the major leagues.  The first indicator you might use would likely be stolen bases, and using fangraphs leaderboards, Miguel Olivo is 4th in stolen bases among catchers over the last 2 years.  Of course being 4th among catchers in stolen bases is like...being 4th among people who aren't very good at something.  But notice that Olivo has the fewest games played, (of course) the fewest plate appearances, the fewest walks, and the fewest singles, leaving him the fewest opportunities to steal bases.  Baseball-Reference.com confirms this, showing Olivo having 242 SBO (stolen base opportunites) since 2009, while the leaders; Jason Kendall, Russell Martin, and Yadier Molina had 395, 413, and 426 SBO respectively.

Here is a quick chart of the catching leaders by Stolen Base Attempt Percentage since 2009

Miguel Olivo:    7.4%
Jason Kendall:    7.1%
Russell Martin:    6.1%
Yadier Molina:    5.6%
AL League Avg:    6.4%

So, Miguel Olivo attempts to steal bases more often than any other catcher over the last 2 years, although his success rate is no better than theirs (Yadier Molina has the best at 71%, but none of them actually garner much value one way or the other via stolen bases). 
Olivo also leads all catchers (and in fact, all current Mariners) in triples over the last 2 years with 11, and to reiterate, he hasn't come to the plate that often, with a mere 784 at bats.
Olivo leads that same group noted above in XBT% (Percentage of times the runner advanced more than one base on a single or more than two bases on a double, when possible) over the last 2 years.

Miguel Olivo:    47%
Russell Martin:    45%
Jason Kendall:    33%
Yadier Molina:    28%
League Avg:    40%

As Jeff noted a few weeks ago, that can be pretty valuable, though Olivo doesn't appear in the top 5, I think it's still reasonable to assume he's a positive number where most catchers would be in the negative 3 to 5 range.

So what's the point of this?  To prove that Olivo might be worth 5 runs more than the average catcher on the basepaths and make up for the chunk that Safeco will take out of his isolated slugging?  Well, yes, but also, I think this offers a bit of insight into Jack Zduriencik's overarching plan.

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Very few people are happy that Casey Kotchman is the Mariners' First Basemen.  The defense is nice, but hardly anyone sees his upside, at 27, as more than a .790ish OPS, and a lot of people not even that.  We all know the argument by rote:  Kotchman's mediocre power is supressed by a ludicrous percentage of groundballs, which is especially bad since he's too slow to beat out a decent percentage of infield hits.  The consistant talk of Wakamatsu leaning toward batting Kotchman third is no doubt blood curdling to most fans.  I, however, think it's a great idea, and there's a lot more potential in Casey Kotchman's bat.

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I was thinking about park factors last night and it occurred to me that players and coaches are undoubtedly aware of them.  StatCorner provides several park factors, including strikeouts, walks, Fly balls, Groundballs, and Infield Fly balls.  Now, unless there is something I'm unaware of in the construction of parks or weather conditions from city to city, those things I just listed should be unaffected.  Obviously, other things come into play, what kind of batters and pitchers the home team and the division contain, specifically.  However, if those were the only factors at work, then the division stadiums would have similar strikeout, walk, fly ball, etc. rates.  David Gassko, who StatCorner links to for its explanation of park factors, believes that strikeouts occur more commonly due to humidity.  I would disagree.

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1998-2000

Beltre joins the Dodgers as an extremely promising player who had demolished the minor leagues.  After a slow start, he begins to live up to his potential as a future star over the 1999 and 2000 seasons.  I just found this out while looking him up, but there was a brief foreshadowing to his future almost before his career in the Majors even began.

(In reference to the 1998-99 offseason) Adrian almost became a Seattle Mariner that off-season, as the key man in a deal that would have sent Randy Johnson to the Dodgers. Seattle ownership nixed the deal before it ever got off the ground, however.  An excerpt from an online biography

2001-2003

An emergency appendectomy is botched, requiring a second surgery to fix, and impairs Beltre’s 2001 season.  His development in 2002 & 2003 is disguised by bad luck: a .273 BABiP in ’02 and a terrible .253 ( that would have been an even worse .243 if not for a .325 mark in September).

2004

The season starts out with a change in ownership and a change in GM (Paul DePodesta, who is rumored to have been hired to cut salary while presenting a successful on-field product).  Adrian Beltre discovers shortly before the season that he has bone spurs in his ankle, and the Dodgers are generally picked to finish last.  Beltre goes crazy.

2005-2006

Beltre signs with the Mariners as an extremely promising player who demolished the NL the previous year.  After a slow start, he begins to demonstrate his value in Seattle.

2007-2008

Adrian starts 2007 off well, batting .280/.324/.492 through May 31st, his best start since 2004 when he batted .314/.338/.555 through May, when he dives for a ball in Texas, unknowingly tearing a ligament in his thumb.  He plays through the season, having, easily, the worst June of his career, but finishes with a respectable, though not awe inspiring, batting line.  An injury that was originally believed to be a strained shoulder muscle in September, turns out to be bone spurs, and Adrian discovers that his thumb will require surgery shortly before the 2008 season.  He plays through the discomfort and bad luck to put up numbers slightly less than his 2007 numbers.  The Mariners hire a new GM and expect to pare down payroll.

To review, Adrian Beltre’s career:

Dodgers;

Promise, moderate success, mistreated injury, bad luck, bone spurs, new sabermetric inclined GM reducing payroll, wild success

Mariners;

Promise, moderate success, mistreated injury, bone spurs, bad luck, new sabermetric inclined GM reducing payroll….

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