Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Roberto Petagine: The Man That Moneyball Forgot

Señor Gammons absolutely loved reading Moneyball. It opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at the game. It shone new light on how valuable it was to walk, giving us a new metric with which to judge baseball players: OBP.

Ever since I read that book, I've felt like someone who knows this secret about what makes a player valuable. It's a secret that has still not gained full traction in the big leagues. You hear stupid crap like Dusty Baker saying walks "clog up the bases" and that's when you realize Major League Baseball is a stubborn beast that doesn't take to new ideas very well.

One of my favorite things about Moneyball was that it gave fans like me an easy way to find undervalued players and make the case that they should be given a shot.

I'm not talking about AAAA players like Julio Zuleta (who went to Japan and became a star) that couldn't draw a walk. I'm talking about players Billy Beane himself would look at and say, "Hmmm, this guy is worth a second look."

Two players always come to mind: Esteban German and Roberto Petagine. I'll save the Esteban German story for another day (it's a good one and it isn't over yet), but today is Roberto Petagine's day.

In honor of his 38th birthday, I give you the story behind a player I think could've been a star in the Major Leagues but was ahead of his time.

I give you The Ballad of Roberto Petagine.



The Minors

You know Roberto Petagine hasn't been given the respect he deserves when you realize that most websites list his place of birth as Nueva Esparta, Venezuela. Some have it listed as Nueva Esparita, Venezuela, and one even has him born in the Dominican.

All mistakes. A little digging around on some Spanish websites shows he was born in the good ol' US of A before moving to Venezuela, where his parents are from and where he played ball.

They can't even get his birthplace right.

Anyway, he got his start in the Houston Astros' system, where he made it to triple-A as a 23-year old.

His numbers:


Just looking at those numbers (see Why OBP is So Important for the scoop on OBP), I'd be thrilled to have a 23-year-old first baseman making that kind of progress through my minor-league system. His walk rate was down at AAA, but that's understandable. Look at his walk rate and homerun count: he's a good prospect. The true test is how he would do repeating AAA or during his first taste of the Bigs.

Over the next four years, he bounced around from team to team and from the Majors to triple-A:



Most of his big league at bats were in pinch-hitting situations that didn't really give him a chance to prove what he could do. Out of his 185 games over those four years, only 60 came as a starter. That means he started an average of 15 games per season—that's not much of a chance.

He is now 27 years old and has nothing left to prove in the minors. He's already made three things clear:
  1. He has tons of power
  2. He draws tons of walks
  3. He's not getting a shot
Sound familiar? We've seen this before, and very recently too. Jack Cust was Roberto Petagine until he was plucked from relative obscurity (minor-league stat freaks like myself knew about him the whole time) and thrust into the big leagues, where he eventually became an everyday major leaguer. But for the longest time, it looked like Jack Cust would never get a shot either.

Who picked him up? Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland A's. Señor Moneyball himself.

Even the New York Times had to write a little something on his story, it was just too good to pass up. For a while there, Jack Cust was on the tip of everybody's tongue.

Take a look at how the two players' career minor-league numbers stack up:



Cust draws a ridiculous amount of walks, but Petagine has a better average and doesn't strike out nearly as often, and Cust played in way more games, so keep that in mind. So what was it that scouts were looking at when they saw him play and decided not to give him a full shot?

The Scouting Reports



From here:

Strengths: Petagine handles himself like the veteran he is and is a smart hitter that has the physical skills to be effective versus ML pitching. Has a natural left-hander's swing and can spray the ball enough to take away a pitcher's gameplan.

Had trouble with the hard stuff as a younger player but has improved his pitch recognition over the years and learned how to attack his pitch while playing in Japan.

Can field at first, is better than Sexson, and is a good bet to outperform Carl Everett at the plate while having some value defensively.

Weaknesses: At 34, Petagine knows what he is and what he can and can't do on the field. He can fall in love with deep counts and let good, hittable pitches go by and can be quite streaky.

He doesn't run that well, but isn't a slug, either. At a slightly advanced age he possesses slightly below average speed.

And from here:
Much-traveled bat. ... Straight-up, open stance. ... Works counts, takes walks. ... Likes to extend his arms. ... Causes damage to right-center and left-center. ... Has some holes on the inner part of the plate. ... Steady defensively. ... Lacks range, but displays good hands and footwork around the bag.
And from John Sickels' sweet writeup on Petagine:
Although many scouts consider him a Quadruple-A player, the fact is that he proved he could dominate the Triple-A level at the age of 25, with power, walks, and a low strikeout rate for a guy who hits home runs. 307 big-league at-bats over 5 different seasons, spread out mostly in pinch-hitting duty, was hardly a fair test of his skills.
The only real reason I can see that kept him from getting a shot was that he had some holes in his swing and scouts figured major-league pitchers would exploit it (sounds like former Cub Hee Seop Choi to me). And that makes sense, but wouldn't you give him more than 307 irregular at bats over five scattered seasons to try to make an adjustment?

Give credit where credit is due, Petagine didn't hang around to find out. Or to complain. He took his game to Japan, where he was promised a starting role and some serious money. Like Julio Zuleta and so many other players before him, Petagine decided it was time to stop messing around and start making real money and playing every day.

At least someone could see the man could play.

In 1999, he said sayonara to the US and Ohio-gozaimasu to the Japanese big leagues.

The Gaijin Years

All you need to know about what Roberto Petagine did in Japan is this:




*From here.

During those six years in Japan, Petagine won three gold gloves, two homerun titles, one Central League MVP award, and over $24 million. The decision to go to Japan, in retrospect, was fantastic. He pretty much morphed into a David Ortiz type player over there, proving what he could do at a high level provided he was given the at-bats.

At the end of 2004, Petagine was 33 years old and drama ensued. His team demanded he take a 70% pay cut and his wife had a war of words with the team. That drama drove him back to the big leagues for one last shot.

This is where I got really excited: the latest Moneyball team, the Red Sox, signed him to a minor-league deal and it looked like he would finally get a shot. But of course he didn't. Instead, he was sent to AAA and put up some ridiculous numbers in Pawtucket:



And that, my friends, would be the last time we'd see Petagine put up his customary monster numbers on our shores.

Where in the World is Roberto Petagine Today?

As of today, 38-year-old Roberto Petagine is in Korea (the video earlier is from his play with the LG Twins), where he's hitting .421 with a .547 OBP. He's got 11 HRs and 34 RBIs, and that's only a quarter of the way through the season. He ranks second in HRs, RBIs, and batting average. Not bad for an old man that never got a shot. You know who's leading the league in HRs? Former Cub Hee Seop Choi. And by the way, he's making $375,000 in Korea. If you want to read more about his play in Korea, go here and here.

In Closing

Why should we care about Roberto Petagine's story? Because something so simple as OBP can show us the difference between a AAAA player like Julio Zuleta (who also became a stud in Japan, mind you) and a real talented player like Mr. Petagine.

If you can control the strike zone, get on base, and be selective, you bring value to every at bat. And the fact that he had so much power makes it ever weirded that he didn't get a shot. Nowadays you'll see all kinds of terrible hitters get starting jobs because they can hit homeruns when they don't strike out (Jeff Francoeur, anyone?).

The sad part is that with all the money put into scouting and all the complaining fans without a good farm system (I'm looking at you, Cubbies), players like Petagine still slip through the system without getting a real opportunity.

Moneyball has done a lot for the game, but the game still hasn't absorbed all the knowledge Michael Lewis dropped on it.

Happy Birthday, Roberto Petagine. Happy freakin' birthday.

1 comment:

  1. great story about petagine.while with the boston red sox in 2005 he had 7 rbis in his first 7 games to replace an injured john olerud and a slumping kevin millar.but it ended when millar went to red sox manager terry francona and demanded to be in the line up.francona relented andpetagine went 2 weeks without an at bat. he even volunteered to pitch one night in a blow out!sadly it was revealed that steroid users manny ramirez and david ortiz did not like petagine and the rest is history.francona does what the highly paid players tell him to do.petagine designated for assignment.even at the ripe old age of 38 petagine would be a huge upgrade of MR STEROIDS DAVID ORTIZ!

    ReplyDelete