2012 Dodgers Player Profile: Jim Or James Loney?

Once again James Loney tricked us. For most of 2011 James Loney was a terrible hitter following a trend he started in 2008. For most of his career since 2008 he has been less then adequate as an offensive 1st baseman but when Aug 5th rolled around he was literally the worst hitting first baseman in America. His triple stat line of .251/ .295 / .319 was so bad even bad hitting shortstops wanted no part of it.

He was clearly on his way out and about to join the Casey Kotchman career path of having to fight for a job until an unlikely event changed everything.

On August 12th Justin Sellers joined the team giving James a close look at what a bad hitting shortstop really looks like, so he decided to do something about his inability to hit a baseball hard.

James didn't just change a little, he went bat shit crazy.

From Aug 12th until the end of the year he put up the infamous triple stat line of .389 / .443 / .640 in 169 plate appearances. It was a beautiful run of line drive after line drive. He pulled balls, he pounded balls, he crushed balls. For the first time in a long long time he was a hitter.

Char Moriyama took a look at James Loney and felt he had made real strides. It is not the first time James Loney has had hot streaks. Going into the 2008 season James Loney had posted back to back OPS seasons of over .900 in 486 plate appearances. That is about a full season of work. Problem is, that was four years ago.

MSTI looked at James over a month ago when he took a long look at the sad options at 1st base in the NL.

Taking all that into consideration, it’s not all that hard to think that the OPS production by NL first basemen in 2011 (and I shouldn’t have to note that I know OPS isn’t the best metric, but for a high-level look like this, it’s fine) is going to sink south of .800, a number that it barely topped last year with Pujols and Fielder.

Now, it seems, the bar might not be quite so high to be a decent first baseman in the National League, without even considering that Loney owns one of the better gloves in the circuit. If he repeats his 2011 exactly, his total package could make him average or just-below as far as NL first basemen go. If he’s anything like he was over the last two months of 2011, he’s one of the three best in the league. (And of course, if he’s anything like he was in April and May, he’s on the street by June.)