Second Guessing Scioscia – All about Efren

Welcome to Second Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. And, boy, there are some questionable decisions to be reviewed. In the history of this column, we have never once struggled for content. However, we aren’t anti-Scioscia. The official MWAH stance on Scioscia is pro-Scioscia overall. But his in-game tactics need some help and we are here to provide that help by nitpicking incessantly and grading them with our patented SciosciaFace grading system.

In this week’s episode, we take a look at Efren Navarro‘s sudden emergence as a focal point of Scioscia’s strategic maneuvering. Yeah, I know, I can hardly believe it either.

The revolving door at leadoff
Ever since Mike Scioscia made the fateful decision to drop Kole Calhoun in the order, he has unwittingly embarked on a seemingly unending quest to find a new leadoff man. He finally soured soured on Erick Aybar in recent weeks, thank goodness, but settling on a replacement hasn’t come easy. Sosh has essentially reached the “blindly throwing darts” stage of his process.

How do I know this? Because Efren Navarro got to hit leadoff twice last week. Yes, that Efren Navarro. The same Efren Navarro who has a .250/.311/.331 slash line in 260 career plate appearances.

My skirt is definitely not being blown upwards by this move, but I don’t exactly hate it either. Navarro is far from the prototypical leadoff man, but if the Angels had one of those, Scioscia would have used him already. What Efren brings to the table is a patient approach having an established record of drawing an above average walk rate in the minors (9.3% in over 2000 Triple-A PAs) and seeing 3.91 pitches per plate appearance in his MLB career. He also only strikes out in 15.0% of his PAs, so he at least is a good bet to put the ball in play and be the reliable situational hitter that Scioscia is looking for. While he is a first baseman by trade, Navarro runs decently. He is hardly a burner, but he’s not going to clog the bases up either. Also, despite being a first baseman, Efren has never shown much in the way of power with his .081 ISO in the majors, so it isn’t as if his power is going to waste.

Add it all up and you have a not awful leadoff hitter, at least if Navarro can hit just a little bit. He’s hit for high averages all throughout the minors, but that has yet to translate to the big leagues and there isn’t much reason to think it will start translating anytime soon. But, again, what other options does Scioscia have?

The only real alternative outside of moving Calhoun back to the top of the order is Johnny Giavotella, who Scioscia basically platooned Navarro with this last week. Johnny is a better choice because he is faster, hits for a better average, walks just about as much and sees a similar number of pitches. Why Scioscia felt the need to platoon him, however, I’m not sure.

For starters, Johnny G has pretty even platoon splits with a .333 wOBA against LHP and a .294 wOBA against RHP in 2015. For his career, his splits are dead even, though we are still working with a fairly small sample. Either way, there isn’t much evidence to suggest Giavotella can’t handle righties.

Secondly, Navarro isn’t exactly pounding righties himself. In his MLB career, he has a .286 wOBA against RHP compared to .279 against LHP. There was a wider platoon split in the minors, but not one large enough to suggest that Efren is a righty-killer in waiting.

What really seems to have driven Scioscia to abort the experiment after just two games was that it meant having two lefties batting back-to-back. That poses as a problem late in games against teams armed with sufficient southpaw relievers. Getting to run that LOOGY against Navarro (or whichever slap-hitting righty pinch hits for him) and Calhoun is a big advantage for the other team. As such, I suppose we could see Navarro return to leadoff the next time the Angels face a lefty-less team, but I’m not sure such a team exists in modern baseball anymore.

VERDICT:

The pinch-bunter
Pardon my language, but… what the fuck, Scioscia? Seriously. A pinch-bunter? Are you trying to make me have an aneurysm?

It is one thing to be sacrifice bunting. The fact that sac bunts are actually more of a negative than a positive in a vast majority of situations is pretty well-trod territory, so I won’t go down that path again. You should get it by now. We should all get it by now.

As bad as it is to be giving away outs, I can’t imagine the leaps in logic it takes to give away a precious bench asset for the specific purpose of giving away an out. Yet that is where Scioscia led the Halos back on Monday night.

With nobody out and a runner on first in a tie game in the bottom of the eighth, Scioscia called on Efren Navarro to pinch-bunt for Chris Iannetta. According to Scioscia, he doesn’t trust Iannetta to bunt because he’s bad at it. Iannetta has seven sacs in his career, but none have come during his time with the Angels. This is an issue that seems to come up a lot with Chris. Now, one would think that Scioscia would order this highly skilled professional athlete to work on his bunting until he becomes adequate enough to intentionally make an out. Granted that I am saying this as a guy who deliberately bunted poorly during practice in my high school days specifically so my coach would never ask me to bunt.

So, let’s just accept it as fact that Iannetta can’t bunt. But can Navarro? He has just three sac bunts in his MLB career and zero sac bunts in the minors since 2011. Brett Butler he is not.

To be fair, Taylor Featherston, a better bunter and a guy with enough speed to maybe even turn the bunt into a hit, had already entered the game and was thus unavailable. To be unfair, Scioscia could’ve just let Iannetta hit, knowing he is a strong candidate to walk but also to GIDP. Calling on Matt Joyce to come up and hit was less of an option since Joe Thatcher was lying in wait and Scioscia still had Alfredo Marte to pinch-hit for later in the inning. In that respect, I understand why he chose Navarro.

What I don’t understand is why Scioscia didn’t give Efren more of a chance to swing. Houston accommodated by keeping the right-handed Qualls in to face the left-handed Navarro who is a good situational hitter with an up-the-middle approach that is not all that likely to hit into a double play.

What would’ve made much more sense would’ve been to attempt some hit-and-runs with Navarro and Aybar as they are both well-suited for it. Aybar runs well and Navarro makes a lot of contact and can take the ball the other way. Jason Castro throws pretty well behind the plate, so a caught stealing is a risk you take, but that is mitigated somewhat by having a slow-to-the-plate reliever on the mound.

Nope, Scioscia forced Efren to bunt. Only Efren failed. First he whiffed on a bunt attempt, then he took a called strike. Awesome, now he’s in an 0-2 hole, which puts him in a bad position both in terms of making an unproductive out, but also being forced to swing at a GIDP-inducing pitch. Just like Scioscia drew it up!

Fortunately, Qualls bailed the Angels out by crossing up Castro, leading to a wild pitch that moved Aybar to second. That was really just a friendly reminder to Scioscia that there are more ways to advance a runner besides a sacrifice.

Aybar ultimately came around to score, which is great because had the game remained tied, the Angels would’ve been down to one bench bat since Navarro had to come out of the game in favor of back-up catcher Carlos Perez. It is almost like using him up in such a manner totally wasn’t worth it or something.

VERDICT: