I believe in Johnny Giavotella

I believe in Johnny Giavotella. I don’t mean that in the “I believe in the Easter Bunny” sense of believing. I’m like 95% sure that the magical Cajun elf called Giavotella actually exists. What’s far less certain is whether or not he’s actually as good as his early season performance indicates. There is definitely plenty of reasons to doubt that his strong start is for real, but despite my innate cynicism, I’m buying in. I believe in Johnny Giavotella.

So, before I get too far into my reasoning for why I believe what I believe, I first need to serve myself up some crow. Before the season began, Giavotella emerging as the starter or even the back-up at second base seemed like a joke. By all accounts, he was yet another in a long line of Kansas City Royals position player busts. Dipoto was just taking a flyer on him because what could it hurt, right? There was no realistic expectation that Johnny would actually be any good.

Oops!

It turns out that mocking the idea of Johnny G as the starter was something of an oversight. Maybe we should have held off on exploring trades for new second basemen until Giavotella actually got to show what he could do.

As it turns out, he can actually do stuff. Like, lots of stuff, actually.

The real big problem that the Royals had with Giavotella when he first came up was with his defense. By all accounts, they thought it was garbage and who am I to question him. I can’t verify or refute their claims because I didn’t watch Giavotella back in 2011 and 2012 because why would I watch the Royals in 2011 and 2012?

The metrics sure seem to back up what Kansas City thought. The sample sizes were too small to be real meaningful, but small or not, the metrics were pretty bad. If the eye test and the metrics both indicate that your glove is terrible, it is probably terrible.

Fast forward to 2015 and the glove doesn’t seem so terrible anymore, even the metrics (in an even smaller sample size) agree. Giavotella has made all the routine plays and even the occasional impressive play. He’s shown genuine athleticism, solid hands and decent movements. He’s not going to win a Gold Glove, but he looks as if he’ll grade out as no worse than average on defense. That’s actually kind of huge for the Angels because going into the season it looked as if they were picking from a group of miserable defenders and just hoping that one of the might hit a little bit before being lifted for Featherston late in games. Not only has Johnny hit, but the thought of replacing him for defense in close games isn’t even a thought that crosses one’s mind at this point.

Speaking of Johnny hitting, that’s what the enthusiasm around him is really about. He currently is sitting on a nice little .286/.344/.369 slash line which makes for a tidy 107 wRC+. He’s not exactly making anyone forget Howie Kendrick, but he is doing a heck of a lot more than what anyone expected of any of the Angels second base candidates coming into the season. The fact that Giavotella isn’t an offensive black hole, which he was in Kansas City, is a godsend for the Halos.

They just have to hope it is for real because, as I keep mentioning, he was a dumpster fire with the Royals. He had been a vaunted prospect who had been tagged with the “future batting champ” label. Sound familiar? Only in his first auditions with KC, he didn’t hit a lick and never really got a fair shake. He had four different chances over the last four years and failed them all, but he kept hitting in the minors all the while. It was assumed that he just couldn’t do it in the Majors, so they cut him loose.

Well, as it turns out, the Royals might just have some issues in getting all the potential out of their hitting prospects. We should have known this as guys like Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez and Mike Moustakas all have fallen short of the offensive ceilings they were thought to have and really never gotten all that close. Even Alex Gordon took a long time to finally reach his current level of production. So maybe it wasn’t Johnny who failed the Royals. Maybe it was the Royals that failed Johnny.

What the Angels have gotten in Giavotella is pretty much what the Royals originally thought they were getting. He hasn’t shown much power, but he has made a ton of contact. Johnny barely strikes out at just 13.7% and he’s making contact 84.4% of the time, including 92.2% in the zone. The thing is that was what he did during his failed days in KC too.

What he’s doing this year is hitting more line drives, 25.4%, and a lot fewer flyballs, also 25.4% down from 30%+ his first two years. For a guy with not much power, keeping the ball on the ground or on a line is a much better route to success. It is also big reason why Johnny Giavotella has .324 BABIP.

That mark might seem a little high on the surface, but it is right in line with the BABIPs he posted throughout the minors. It isn’t out of bounds either for a groundball-heavy hitter with decent speed. In other words, it could be sustainable, or not far off from his sustainable norm.

The only thing that gives me pause about Giavotella is his abundance of soft-hit balls, which is over 25% right now. That data is kind of new and we don’t know how much noise there is in the metric or what a reasonable sample size is. As such, I choose to simply stick my head in the sand and pretend that it isn’t worth worrying about.

Why? Because I want to believe in Johnny Giavotella. Sometimes you just have not worry about the stats and take things on faith or hope or whatever. I want Johnny to be good because the Angels need him to be good. If I’m wrong, and I might well be, so be it.