Felipe Lopez – How Good of a Fit Would He Be?

My guess is that by now, pretty much all of you have read Dave Cameron’s 2010 off season plan over at USS Mariner. He did a fantastic job on it overall, and clearly put a lot of work into it. One signing he advocated was Orlando Hudson, to play second base(assuming Jose Lopez gets traded). Now, Hudson would definitely be a good fit in Seattle. He’s a switch hitter, which is something we most certainly could use, he’s an adequate defensive second baseman, and he’s a well above average hitter. Dave figures it would take about $8m per year to sign him, which sounds about right.

So we know Hudson would be a solid fit – but there’s one other player, a guy by the name of Felipe Lopez, who potentially could make even more sense. Lopez has played a fair amount of both second base and shortstop, but UZR likes him much more at second base. Defensively, he’d probably just be a slight improvement over Jose Lopez – he’s got decent range, but makes his fair share of errors. Not much different than Orlando Hudson.

Offensively is where Felipe has shined over his career, though. Some point to his outstanding 2009 season being somewhat of a fluke, but when you track back over the last few years, it seems far from it. His wOBA’s since 2005, in which he’s had at least 480 at bats every season, are as follows:

2009: .356 (.329 league average)

2008: .320 (.328 league average)

2007: .295 (.331 league average)

2006: .336 (.332 league average)

2005: .360 (.326 league average)

With 2007 as a bit of an outlier, he’s been pretty consistent. His power is nothing special – he hit 23 home runs in 2005, but it looks like that was a factor of his extremely high 18.3% HR/FB, as he hasn’t hit more than 11 in a season since.

Despite the lack of power, he’d fit nicely into this Mariners lineup in the same way Orlando Hudson would – he’s a switch hitting middle infielder, with above average speed and a good, consistent bat. The biggest difference between the two? Money. Lopez would probably demand something in the range of $5-7 million per year, compared to the $8-9 it would most likely take to land Hudson.

Not a huge difference, but that extra $1-4 million could be used for a lot of different things – whether it’s re-signing Russell Branyan, bringing in a FA pitcher, or even attempting to bring back Adrian Beltre.

If we for whatever reason don’t go after Lopez, and we end up with Orlando Hudson instead, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I for one, would love to see Felipe Lopez in a Mariners uniform.

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