J.P.’s Used Car Lot: Kevin Millar
I’ve seen a few articles and notes from Jays bloggers, beat writers and in various message boards about the final few spots on the Jays 25 man roster. One point of contention continues to be whether or not the Jays should keep Jose Bautista.
My quesiton is why in the world should the Jays keep Kevin Millar?
Millar is IMO right off of J.P’s used car lot.
Via the Great Bastian on Valentine’s Day. Leading up to this quote are a few paragraphs about Snider and Millar. At this time Snider wasn’t a lock to make the club.
“It’s conceivable that you could face Sabathia, Kazmir and Lester 15 times,” Ricciardi said. “So we’re trying to figure out the best way [to fill out our bench]. Are we better off having more right-handers with us that could help us get through that left-handed dominance?”
We need more right handers, right J.P? This makes sense. Except…
Kevin Millar can’t hit left handed pitching! And he’s a right handed batter.
Some screen cap (feeling lazy) splits from Millar’s recent past. (vs left handed is the first set of numbers, vs right handed is the second).
Millar 2007
Millar 2008
So far J.P’s looking ok. Millar did produce better numbers vs lefthanded pitching in the past two seasons, although his stats are nothing to write home about. How about Kevin’s splits before he started to suck?
Millar 2005
Millar 2006
Wow, in these two season’s Millar was almost .100 point higher in OPS vs right handers! The opposite of Riccardi’s claim.
Millar Career Split
The days of Millar’s .800+ OPS production are over. But this split still proves that for his career Millar hit righthanders better than lefties. From these splits he’s almost like having another lefthanded batter, except, of course he’s batting from the right side.
Another option is Jose Bautista. Here are some splits, vs left first and vs right second.
2008
2007
2006
Hey J.P. Bautista is a stud vs left handed pitching. Millar not so much. Also Jose has played every position except SS and C in the past two seasons. Millar? Only 1B, 3 games in left and a number at DH.
Riccardi stop selling us a used Lemon with a few hundred thousand miles on it and let’s pay the little bit extra for Jose Bautista in 2009.
I would hate to have to see Millar try to play 3B. I think those days are behind him…
Maybe J.P. is confident that his pet-project Millar will be the full time DH? I don’t think his “zany clubhouse presence” should factor in to whether he makes the team or not. We don’t need a cheerleader on the bench, we need a player who can hit and play multiple positions (Inglett/Bautista).