Since his first season in rookie ball, Tejada has also eschewed the walk. He didn’t hit average walk rates in Single-, Double- or Triple-A. He also had a career ISO of .075 in the minor leagues (and flyball rate that fell as he advanced, which seems to predict little future power), so he kind of looks like a younger Castillo without the walks and a little better defense. The defense is the reason management thinks he is best candidate for this year, but the offense will limit him to a backup most likely. If only he walked more, or even had the exciting speed of Arias, he would have a secondary skill beyond defense and upside for more value.
Eno does a really nice job running down the Mets’ second-base situation, but I’m not sure he gives Tejada an entirely fair shake by saying he “has also eschewed the walk,” lumping him in with Joaquin Arias.
First of all, Arias walked in only about 4.3% of his Minor League plate appearances and Tejada walked in about 7.9%, a pretty big difference. But the major distinction is that Tejada did all his damage while always very young for his level — often the youngest player at his level, and a full year younger than Arias was as he progressed through the Minors.
Clearly Tejada’s not about to go all Alex Rodriguez on the Major Leagues or anything, but I’m just not ready to give up on him and say he won’t be a regular Major League middle infielder someday.
I don’t think that’s what Eno’s doing, but it seems like way too many Mets fans are willing to write Tejada off entirely just because the team has advanced him at a very young age to a level at which he cannot yet succeed. That’s not really his fault.
Plus, and not for nothing, it’s not like he’s completely embarrassing himself. Yes, he’s got a .188 average and no power to speak of. But he’s also suffering from a very low .221 batting average on balls in play, suggesting he has been victimized by a bit of bad luck. Plus, for whatever it’s worth, he’s still getting on base at a higher clip than three guys who were in the Mets’ hilarious Opening Day lineup (and just below two others).
And look: I don’t know that Ruben Tejada will ever turn into a productive Major League hitter or anything like that. I’m just saying that 200 plate appearances at age 20 mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. If he were in Double-A right now, where he’d still be young for the level, we’d probably be salivating over the kid and wondering why he wasn’t considered a bigger prospect.
Tedquarters 
I agree he shows promise but can you really learn to hit at the major league level? He was brought up so fast because of Haven’s injuries and his great D. If they can get him back to AAA where he belongs or maybe some winter ball to he could develop as a hitter.
Or havens can stay healthy and he can be a D replacement.
Either way I think we all love the kid. But he is just a that, a kid. So you never know…
He was embarrassing himself out of the gate when the Mets promoted him and effectively announced they were giving up on the season, while it was bleak but not yet over. Since then he’s starting to look a little better.
I by far don’t think anything is said and done with him, but I think we’ve seen enough to decide that he’s not at the point where we can reliably be a part of the solution in April of 2011. To that effect, play the other guys, play Castillo so he can pad his stats a bit and show he’s not completely done. That could get the Mets to have to eat a teensy bit less of his contract were they to trade him. It might be the difference between a team being willing to try him out, versus not.
A comment on BABIP, this takes into account a player’s contact rate but does it take into account how defenses play these players?
I can assume these defenses are playing Tejada shallow and despite his contact rate, the scouting reports may never allow the “luck” to event out.
Am I wrong in this thinking?
I’ve always found BABIP catch-22ish. When you’re hitting well, you’re BABIP is going to be higher. When you’re not, it’s going to be lower. You also have to look at LD%.. for instance, Castillo’s career BABIP is always well above .300.
I’m not really sure there is enough data on Tejada to effectively measure it.
Also, my eyes suggest Tejada is fairly slow for what you’d expect out of a MI.
I like BABIP, I feel it can be an effective tool and there’s a use for it. Maybe more for players with more historical data but at certain times it seems to be used as a lazy explanation for straight up bad performance.
It doesn’t take into account the defenses, and it’s far from a perfect stat. But it works pretty well as a quick and dirty indicator of luck over small sample sizes, and though — like Ceetar says — Tejada’s not exactly Reyes or Pagan, he’s probably too quick to maintain a BABIP that low.
Can you really say that it’s a “quick indicator of luck over small sample sizes”? A hitter’s BABIP, while somewhat dependent on luck, is in large part due to the hitter’s abilities, no? BABIP is useful when you have a large sample size to compare to. For example, a hitter with several seasons under his belt who has a .280 BABIP suddenly having a .230 BABIP.
But for someone with as little experience as Tejada, isn’t there enough of a possibility that that is simply the kind of hitter he is, rather than being able to say anything about his luck? It’s a small sample size, and there’s just as much uncertainty regarding his luck as with his skill. I don’t think BABIP is an indicator of anything given his small sample size unless you also look at GB/FB/line drive % as well.
It could be, though, that I’m just misunderstanding everything.
No, you’re right and obviously we’d be better with any prior Major League sample of Tejada’s to compare this to. But it’s really hard to find any player who has maintained a BABIP under .280 in the Majors over any reasonable sample size. Powerless guys, slow guys, anyone. Heck, even Yadier Molina — the first slow and powerless guy I could think of — is right around .280. Seems like there’s just enough places where defenders aren’t for a ball in play to be a hit 28% of the time.
Of course, it could be that guys who can’t maintain the .280 mark don’t stay in the big leagues long enough to accumulate a reasonable sample size. But Tejada’s batted-ball profile suggests it should be higher. He has a 21.9% line-drive rate. Plus his Minor League BABIPs were pretty consistently around .320 (though probably crappier defense accounts for some of that).
A big problem is he’s not even fast. If you have no power, and can’t hit for average, you have to be a little fast. He needs a lot more time in the minors. He’s one dimensional. And even the range isn’t that great. His swing is also way too big, which is why he’s always fouling balls off to the right. Competent, above average back up someday? Yes. Starter for a really good team? I don’t see it.
I think there’s hope though. This is his age 20 season, poor kid can’t even legally drink yet.
There is potential for improvement.
Tejada’s current production matches him with a 40 year old Jason Kendall, which is bad but I see a ceiling of a Ryan Theriot, which is useful.
His BABIP doesn’t really indicate he’s the victim of bad luck, he had a lower BABIP than his batted ball profile would suggest in the minors too. The actual problem is that he’s actually not strong enough to get much behind even his line drives, so they die before barely making it out of the infield turning into easy outs. And while he’s above average fast he’s not enough of a burner to turn a lot of grounders into hits/infield singles like Reyes or a guy like Arias. His spray charts kind of bear this out, if you look at them there’s very few balls hit, even the ones in the air, that make it very far out of the infield. He’s not over matched at the plate and clearly has an very good eye, but at this point his problem isn’t luck and there’s not a lot of reason to expect his BABIP to regress to league average until he adds ALOT more strength. BABIP for hitters doesn’t really generally return to a standard range like it does for pitchers. There skill sets
Also, until this season he really hadn’t been rushed that badly. He’s just not a particularly toolsy guy, there’s really not many other skills to expect him to develop with age, other than hopefully strength, so the AA assignment wouldn’t really be rushing him even at 19/20. There’s just not a lot of growth skills wise to expect from him between 20 and whatever the average AA age is, beyond what he’s shown with plate patience and strike zone awareness.