Casey Kotchman: Least Valuable Player?

Now that we’re roughly two and a half months into the season and the halfway mark is fast approaching, it’s almost safe to discuss the performances of various players and teams without the small sample size caveats. Certainly a lot can still change before the 2012 season is forever in the books, but the big picture is starting to come into sharper focus now, and clear conclusions are becoming a little easier to reach. One of these conclusions is that Casey Kotchman is not very good at baseball.

We don’t need whatever sample size the 2012 season has given us to make such a claim, either. Kotchman has a career wOBA of .318 despite spending all of his time at the least demanding position on the field — first base. Since he was first called up to the majors in 2004 to now, the rest of baseball’s first basemen have a combined .346 wOBA. If the average major league first baseman has nearly 30 wOBA points on Kotchman, that makes him a decidedly bad hitter over a time period of more than eight seasons to work with. So no, sample size isn’t relevant in this discussion; kindly dismiss that idea from your mind as I now proceed to use 2012 statistics to prove Kotchman is the least valuable player in baseball this season.

Where to begin? With the fact that The Mighty Casey can’t hit (68 wRC+), field (-3.4 runs), or run the bases (-1.9 runs)? With the fact that even with a sharp decline offensively, this year’s average hitting first basemen are still notably better than Kotchman is for his entire career (it’s not close: 105 wRC+ vs. 95 wRC+)? With the fact that he “leads” all qualifying position players by contributing a whole two losses to his team on the season? Never mind all of that; let’s begin at the actual beginning and go from there.

Casey John Kotchman was born on February 22, 1983 in St. Petersburg, Florida. Just a little over 18 years and four months later he was drafted in the first round (13th overall pick) by the then Anaheim Angels, who for years viewed him as a major prospect. Kotchman made Baseball America’s annual Top 100 Prospects lists every year from 2002-2005, in fact, ranking at 22, 13, 15, and 6 respectively — and with good reason. The 6-foot-3, 220 pound left-handed swinging first baseman showed a sweet swing in the minors that produced a cumulative triple slash line of .323/.406/.491 over five different levels of competition. Even if he never displayed a great deal of home run pop, Kotchman seemed a lock to hit for a high average and work plenty of walks at the very least. The power, with his size, could have easily developed later.

Only it didn’t, and his other abilities at the plate didn’t translate, either. Now in his ninth season at the major league level, Kotchman is a career .264/.332/.392 hitter in just over 3,000 plate appearances. He just turned 29 before the start of the 2012 season. If a surprising breakout season is in his future, it had better happen very soon, as his prime years are already passing by as we speak. Most likely, however, there will be no surprise emergence for Kotchman, no feel-good late blooming success story to talk about. He’s passed through six major league franchises over the course of his career, and at this point it’s more than fair to call him a disappointment; a first round pick projected for stardom that wound up a journeyman instead.

True, Kotchman has actually built a very solid reputation as a glove man at first base, and much of his 4.4 career WAR comes from fielding prowess, but his UZR stats seem to indicate his best seasons with the glove ended after 2009. It’s difficult to gleam much from UZR data over the few months of this season, but even other defensive metrics that aren’t as harsh on Kotchman in 2012 show (at the very least) that he’s not the fielder he used to be, and that the decline started setting in after 2009. Besides, we’re talking about first base here, a position where a good glove can’t possibly hide a weak bat. What happens when a defensive-minded player who has never played any position other than first base in his entire professional career stops flashing the leather? Apparently he gets picked up by the Cleveland Indians and costs his team two full wins before the first half of the season even concludes.

Cleveland must wise up quickly and cut ties with their first baseman. He’s gotten over 200 plate appearances for them this season, the sixth highest amount of any player on the team. It doesn’t matter who they choose to take his place; a pitcher or random fan will probably do. If he continues to find himself in the lineup every day, he just might force baseball to create a new award in his honor: The Least Valuable Player.

Can’t get enough of Spencer? Check out his work at StanGraphs and follow him on Twitter at @shendricks221.