Jose Lobaton looks everything likes a backup catcher. 27 years old, Lobaton has never played 100 games in a single year in 9 minor league seasons. Offensively, Lobaton has a pedestrian .259/.348/.410 line, and defensively he has an average arm (29% CS%) and is good but not great overall. Lobaton made his big league debut in 2011, he was overmatched, going just 4 for 34 (.118) after going 3 for 17 (.176) with the Padres in 2009. He also missed a couple of months with a knee injury. Is there any reason to expect- or at least have hope- for anything more from Lobaton?

In 2011, Jose Lobaton had easily his best offensive season in the minor leagues. He posted a .307/.417/.505 line with 14 doubles, 8 homers, and 33 RBI in just 60 games because of his knee injury and big league time. He struck out 55 times, but walked 39 times, a great 16.2% of his plate appearances. It was a relatively small sample, but he was great. There were a few problems though. First off,  just 54 of Lobaton’s games came at Triple-A Durham. 6 were at High-A Charlotte, where Lobaton absolutely raked, posting a .444/.500/.667 line with 4 doubles. At Durham his line was a little more pedestrian at .293/.410/.489. But his plate discipline was incredible. Lobaton’s 16.7% walk rate at Durham was the second highest in the International League minimum 200 plate appearances,and per Minor League Central, Lobaton swung at just 7.5% of pitches outside the zone, well below the 11.8% league average. But plate discipline can be deceiving in the minor leagues- if you’re not a great hitter, when you get to the minor leagues, pitchers will consistently throw you strikes. What about Lobaton’s power?

It’s noticeable that even counting purely his Triple-A stats, Jose Lobaton still had a nice .193 ISO. The things that stood out for Lobaton was that 21.6% of his batted balls were line drives (according to MLC) compared to the league average of 19.5%, and also just 14.5% of his flyballs were popups compared to the 19.8% league average. In addition, 19.5% of Lobaton’s flyballs to the outfield went for home runs compared to the 11.3%, a mark likely too high to be a fluke (if you do a 1 proportion z-test, the p-value is .048). What’s very crazy though is how these tendencies manifested themselves during Lobaton’s time in the big leagues. In his 39 major league plate appearances, Lobaton actually had a 23.1% line drive rate and just 8% of flyballs were infield flies. Lobaton was not nearly as bad as he looked during his brief MLB stint. He was just unlucky (although anything can happen in 39 plate appearances). Lobaton is not a big-time power hitter by any stretch. Even though he hit a nice proportion of his flyballs to the outfield, his overall flyball rate at Triple-A was actually below the league average. Lobaton is a player who has hit 10 homers and 20 doubles just one time each during his pro career, 2007 and 2008 respectively. He is not a power hitter. But he has realized what he is: a gap-to-gap hitter who works counts and hits for a good average.  But what about the high HR/OFB mark we saw above? Changing HR/OFB to XBH/OFB, Lobaton’s mark was 43.9% compared to the 37.6% league average. The p-value for that is a much more reasonable at .202.

Lobaton may have figured out how to hit for a bit more power, but he clearly changed his approach at the plate in 2011. From 2007-2010, Lobaton struck out in 21.2% of his plate appearances while walking 10.9% of the time. In 2011, he may have struck out a bit more, 22.8% of his PA’s, but his walk rate skyrocketed to 16.2%. But wait a second- he also hit more extra-base hits, with 9.1% of his BA’s ended with an XBH compared to 7.7% in the previous stretch! However, his percentage of hits for extra-bases was just about the same, coming in at 35.4% compared to 34.5% from 2007-2010. Lobaton’s increased power in 2011 was a result of the fact that he was making better contact. Even though he was putting the ball into play less (56.8% of his PA’s compared to his 62.7% career mark), Lobaton was more selective and hit the ball harder. Instead of forcing contact, he was more patient at the plate and waited for his pitch, which led to more line drives, more power, and more walks.

When Lobaton arrived in the big leagues in 2011, he instantaneously reverted to his approach at the plate prior to 2011. He ended 67% of his plate appearances with a ball in play, striking out 20.5% of the time and walking 10.3% of the time (not far off at all from his 21.2% and 10.9% marks from 2007-2010 in the minors). Lobaton had to do that because major league pitchers were throwing him so many more strikes and pitches right around the zone. And add in the fact that he was nervous being in the big leagues for the first time in two years and for the first time as a Tampa Bay Ray.

So what can Lobaton do? I would project a .250/.320/.400 line from Lobaton in 2012 with 11 doubles, 1 triple, and 5 home runs in 250 plate appearances. He’ll play solid if not great defense behind the plate and he’ll hit a little bit, and we can’t underestimate what he’ll give us. Jose Lobaton definitely made strides offensively in 2011, and he’ll prove himself to be a solid offensive catcher in 2012.

Jose Molina has never been a starting catcher in the big leagues before. That’s no fault of his defense. Molina has always been a great defensive catcher. Baseball Prospectus had a crazy in-depth article on his defense here, but to provide some perspective based on stats we can actually understand, for his career Molina has a .993 Fld% compared to the .991 league average, a 40% caught stealing percentage compared to the 29% league average, and .009 passed balls allowed per inning compared to the league average of .007 (that’s one of Molina’s defensive stats that has trended in the wrong direction in recent years). He’s not perfect, but he calls a good game, frames pitches well (see the link above) and he will give the Rays a dependable defensive catcher.

But what about’s Molina’s offensive ability? For his entire 12-year MLB career, Molina has posted a -0.3 offensive wins above replacement, meaning his offensive production has cost his teams slightly. Just one year of his career has Molina been worth even 0.5 WAR from his offense in a season: 2011. In 2011 for the Blue Jays, Molina posted a .281/.342/.415 line with 12 doubles, 1 triple (which was a go-ahead triple against the Rays), 3 homers, 15 RBI, and even 2 stolen bases in 3 attempts. Molina actually posted a 103 OPS+ meaning he was 3% better than the league average adjusted to ballpark. For his career, Molina’s offensive numbers are much more meager. He has a .241/.286/.344 career line, worth just a 66 OPS+. But did Molina somehow make any type of significant improvement offensively in 2011?

A stat I always like to quote is line drive percentage among bate balls. Molina’s actually came in at 21%, well above the 18% league average. One problem: Molina’s career mark is actually 21%. In addition, just 7% of Molina’s flyballs were pop-ups on the infield compared to the 14% league average- but his career average is 8%. The problem for Molina in his career is that he strikes out too much without plate discipline. For his career, Molina has struck out in 20.3% of his plate appearances while walking 5.0% compared to the league averages of 17.2% and 8.7% respectively. In 2011, Molina actually struck out more, 23.0% of his PA’s, although the increased strikeout rate did come with an uptick in walk rate up to 7.9%. So why did Molina suddenly play better in 2011 if he didn’t improve both in terms of batted balls and strikeout and walk rates?

Not all line drives are created equal. There are line drive singles, line drive doubles and triples, and line drive home runs. Could Molina’s 21% line drive percentage just like his career average be hiding additional power that Molina did not possess before? Molina’s .415 SLG in 2011 and .135 ISO were his highest since 42 plate appearances in 2001. Could that have been simply a coincidence? The table below contains the BAbip (batting average on balls in play) along with percentage of plate appearances that ended in an extra-base hit for groundballs, flyballs, and line drives.

(Note: I’ve been putting down .713 for the MLB BAbip on line drives for quite a while now, but a recent correction by Baseball-Reference just moved it up to .714.)

A bunch of things stand out from this table. First off, how did Molina manage such a high BAbip (.363) compared to his career average and the league average? In order to answer that question, I singled out several of  the lurking variables for BAbip: BAbip by batted balls type, batted ball ratios, and percentage of plate appearances that ended in an extra-base hit, overall and by batted ball type. My knee-jerk reaction  to the question above would be that Molina was hitting the ball really hard, hitting 21.4% of his batted balls for line drives and 8.37% of his plate appearances ended in an extra-base hit. Let’s see if we can support that theory. Moving from left to right now, we see that Molina’s BAbip on groundballs was an incredibly high .286. But we also can justify that because he hit extra-base hits on groundballs at a ratio about double the league average and not far off from five times his career average. Let’s take that as an answer at least for right now. Moving over to flyballs, we see the same story: a higher BAbip for Molina in 2011 (.225) and also a ton more extra-base hits. But this one as a clear asterisk: when more of your flyballs go for hits, since most flyball hits are extra-base hits, your XBH% will certainly go up. And then there’s line drives where we see a clear problem. Molina’s XBH% on line drive was significantly below the league average, but nevertheless his BAbip on line drives was average (unlike his career BAbip on line drives, which was way behind at .678). That looks like a clear fluke.

Let’s investigate Molina’s BAbip on groundballs and flyballs a little more. We saw the insane spike in Molina’s XBH% on groundballs. What’s the probability that the increase was by chance alone? To remove some amount of bias (in this case luck), we’ll do a test on a similar stat to XBH%, percentage of hits for extra-bases (X/H%). Doing a one proportion z-test compared Molina’s X/H% on groundballs in 2011 (.125) to his career marks excluding 2011 (.0283), we get a p-value of .01, indicating that while not unfathomable by any stretch, it’s very unlikely that it occurred by chance alone, even in such a small sample. Doing the same test for flyballs, comparing Molina’s X/H% on flyballs in 2011 (.75) to his career mark (.63), we get a p-value of .202, indicating that while Molina’s X/H% on flyballs was a somewhat extreme value, it was still within the range of normal. So it appears that Molina hit his groundballs harder while getting lucky on flyballs. But what about his line drives?

Going by X/H%, we see that Molina’s X/H% on line drives in 2011, .25, was actually less than his career mark of .262 and the league mark of .278 in 2011. A one proportion z-test doesn’t give us anything here because the values are so close and Molina doesn’t have enough 2011 data to offset that. But intuitively, his higher BAbip on line drives despite less extra-base hits raises a red flag.

It’s relatively safe to conclude that Molina’s batted ball tendencies and therefore his ability as a hitter are the same as they have been his entire career, only luck interfered in 2011. But it could be that there at least a little something going on here. Molina’s strikekout rate of 23.0% of his plate appearances was the second-highest of his career and highest since 2004. Maybe he was swinging a little harder. We do have a fourth sample of data, Molina’s spring training stats. In spring training 3 of Molina’s 10 hits (.3) went for extra-bases, actually tied for fourth among all the Rays miniumum 20 at-bats behind Elliot Johnson, and a tie between Ben Zobrist and Oscar Salazar, and Molina was actually tied with Stephen Vogt. Molina did hit just .233, however. I think that will be the case for Molina’s 2012 season as well.

I expect Molina’s batting average and OBP to return to about his career norms in 2012, coming in at .241 and .300, while his SLG stays a little bit higher and comes in at .376. Molina is swinging harder and although that didn’t cost him points on his batting average at all in 2011, it should in 2012, especially as he plays more often. Jose Molina is not an incompetent hitter. He’ll definitely frustrate us a little more than the most of the Rays when he comes up in big spots, but he’ll also deliver some key extra-base hits that could help the Rays win a game or two. At the end of the day, Molina’s offense is gravy considering his stout defense. We’ll be happy with whatever contributions he’ll give us with the bat. But we certainly wouldn’t mind a few more extra-base hits.

Hak Ju Lee was originally signed by the Chicago Cubs as an international free agent from South Korea in 2008. He played two seasons with the Cubs in the minor leagues, with Boise in 2009 and Peoria in 2010. Despite showing a great glove and speed along with a solid ability to put the ball in play, he was blocked by ultra-prospect Starlin Castro.

This changed on January 8, 2011, when he, along with four other players, was traded for Matt Garza. Suddenly, Lee had a clear path to the majors. With the inconsistency of former #1 overall pick Tim Beckham, Lee may actually be the top shortstop prospect for the Rays.

At the time of the trade, Lee went from being almost an afterthought to a suddenly intriguing prospect. Baseball America had him ranked as the 92^nd best prospect in baseball prior to the 2011 season. After a season where he hit a combined .292/.365/.416 with 15 triples and 33 stolen bases, his stock skyrocketed. Keith Law of ESPN ranked him the 12^th best prospect in baseball. Baseball America moved him up to 44^th on their list. His emergence has also led to a potential position shift for Beckham, who is being looked at as a second baseman.

As it stands right now, Lee has a major league caliber glove and a rifle for an arm. In fact, he could legitimately be a top five defensive shortstop in the majors now, which is impressive for a 21 year old. He also has very good speed, although his stolen base success rate in 2011 (67.3% overall) would lead one to think that he does not quite know how to capitalize upon that asset yet. However, he should easily be a player that gets 30 to 40 stolen bases per year, especially playing for an aggressive baserunning team like the Rays.

There are, however, questions about his ability to hit major league pitching. According to Minor League Central, just 14.0% of Lee’s batted balls were line drives compared to the 16.5% average of the leagues he played in, and after Lee was promoted to Double-A Montgomery, his line drive percentage shot down to just 11.3%. Lee has some gap power, but he will always be a player who is extremely reliant and groundballs, and that will keep his batting average down. Nevertheless, with his speed and ability to hit the ball into the gaps, Lee projects as a .270 to .280 hitter in the majors, with 30 to 40 doubles and a fair amount of triples. Lee will never be confused for a home run threat, but he should be able to hit at least the high single-digits in homers eventually. He would fit perfectly at the bottom of the lineup, putting another fast runner in front of the leadoff hitter when the order swings back around.

So, what can Hak Ju Lee become? If his offense never catches up with his defense, then he could be Rey Ordonez. While that would be disappointing, Ordonez was a starting major league shortstop for seven years, and a three time Gold Glove winner. Given Lee’s ability to put the bat on the ball, he is much more likely to become a player like Omar Vizquel, only with a bit more speed. It took three years for Vizquel to begin to hit the ball in the majors, but he eventually became a .270 hitter over his career. Given time, Lee should become a player similar to Vizquel in his prime. For 2012, Lee may take a step back offensively as he faces better competition. However, given the type of player that he is, the Rays would be satisfied as long as he continues to display the speed and defense that has made him a top prospect.

Hak Ju Lee is the future at shortstop for the Rays. Expect to see him towards September of 2012, with an eye towards him being the starting shortstop as soon as Opening Day 2013.