The outfield market has looked terrible the entire winter, and Melvin must have agreed. Because instead of signing or trading for a free agent this offseason, Doug brought 32-year old Gabe Kapler out of retirement and signed him to a contract this afternoon.
Gabe has been very solid throughout his career, even though he retired because he was ineffective enough to find a job. He does have, however, a career .270 BA with a .331 on-base percentage and .418 slugging percentage. He was a member of the 2004 Red Sox World Series Champions.
“Gabe brings versatility and athleticism to the outfield position,” said Melvin. “He has always been a great teammate and possesses the determination to bounce back and become a valuable player to our club.”
This is obviously a tremendous shock, and nobody saw this signing coming. It makes a certain amount of sense, as he will bring a scrappy, high-ish OBP player who has a winning personality to the team. Melvin must have felt the team needed some more veteran leadership. I cannot imagine Kapler being anything other than a platoon player, but you never know. There is one thing this signing means, at least to me, however: Braun will be staying at 3B next season.
Thoughts?
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4 comments:
I'd hesitate to call .331 a "high-ish OBP," if only because that's been about the MLB average for his entire career. To put it in a sort of perspective, Kapler got on base as much as Damian Miller or Scott Spiezio over his career (1999-2006). The team OBP last season was .329, for what it's worth.
I agree that it would signal that Braun stays at third base next year. I can't imagine Kapler as anything but a complement to Gabe Gross or Tony Gwynn in the outfield. Perhaps the loser in camp between Gross and Gwynn becomes the de facto fifth outfielder/center field backup? The bench would look like:
Counsell (L)
Kapler (R)/Gross (L) (depending on the handedness of the other team's starter)
Gwynn (L)
Dillon (R)
Munson (R) /Rivera (R)
That's a lot of veteran scrappiness in one place. :)
D'oh! Munson bats lefthanded. Whoops.
Siging of Kapler is definitelly a shocker as you said....right out of left field which makes it sort of interesting. Melvin seems to subscribe to the theory that a team needs veteran playoff experience mixed with young, homegrown talent. Counsell, Suppan, Kendall, and now Kapler. I hope you are right and this means Braun will stay at third and Hall will stay in center. Everyone knew Hall needed time to adjust to a new position and everyone knew there would be rough days with Braun at third.....I don't think it does the team any good to switch them again and begin the learning a new position all over again. I don't have the numbers available, but it looked like Hall figured out how to play CF more and more as the year went on.....and this can only improve. Braun made some damn good plays last year ranging both right and left. He is athletic. He makes bad throws. I hope it is only a mechanical issue in his footwork.
I agree the Kapler's OBP isn't very high, but I was referring more to the OBP potential that Melvin said he sees in Kapler.
Trust me, Melvin is not done swapping players yet. There is no way. We'll have to see how the outfield shapes up after Melvin's done moving people.
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