Small Sample Sizes

Player A (over 2 years):

330 Plate Appearances
.176 Batting Average
.218 OBP
.333 Slugging Percentage
.552 OPS
7.43 K/BB ratio
11 HR

Player B:

242 Plate Appearances
.197 Batting Average
.232 OBP
.294 Slugging Percentage
.526 OPS
8.75 K/BB
5 HR

Player A and Player B are very close to the same.  Yes, Player B hit for a higher average but I would argue that Player A is a better offensive player since his OPS is a little higher and he doesn’t strike out quite as much.

Player A is Miguel Olivo and Player B is Adam Moore.  While in Seattle, Miguel Olivo was probably the worst hitter in baseball.  But, the stats show that Adam Moore was just as bad.  Olivo has gotten much better since then.  Seattle was by far his worst stop in the big leagues.  It’s yet to be proven if Adam Moore will develop into anything.

The truth is that all of Seattle has a terrible perception of Miguel Olivo because of a small sample size that is similar to what Moore did last year.  I’m not saying that all of the people who are upset about this move are wrong, but I don’t think this move is worth freaking out about.

I know most of us would like to see if Moore could develop into the top prospect he was.  But, the truth is the Mariners upgraded their catcher position by quite a bit today.  If Olivo is anywhere close to his career norms he will be twice as good as any catcher the Mariners had last year.

People are forgetting about how terrible Mariners’ catchers were last season.  People also forget that, to people in the front office, next year is not a throwaway season.  If the Mariners don’t show drastic improvement Jack Z will be fired sooner rather than later.  The way they have to do this is with small contracts, like the ones they just gave Olivo and Cust.  Yes, you can find a lot of things wrong with signing Miguel Olivo and that is proven by the M’s blogosphere going absolutely crazy (aside from Jeff Sullivan, thanks for your rationale thinking), but the Mariners improved today.

By the way, in the last 2 days, the Mariners signed 2 players that hit a combined 26 home runs last year.  That’s 25% of what the Mariners hit last year.  In 2009, they combined for 48 home runs.  That’s 47.5% of what the Mariners hit last year.  Enough said.

Andrew