The lynchpin of your argument is Izturis' relatively high obp (.394). If he keeps up the current rate, I think everyone would agree with you that he's "quietly contributing"--good enough to keep on the team, but not good enough to keep indefinitely. At some point, though, he will need to contribute by swinging the bat, and not just by keeping it on his shoulder.

However, if his obp returns to career levels,i.e. > .300, that .230 average will be more exposed.

It's been 10 games. You don't judge anything in baseball on ten games. This could be the sign of an actual change in approach (seeing more pitches, working the count, etc.), or it could be a random blip caused by simply pitchers with less than stellar control on given days.

Yes, he's been good defensively. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thought he couldn't make some contribution on that side. However, if the dude puts up a .250/.300/.380 line or something then he's part of the Cardinals problem (too little offense at the bottom of the order) and not part of any solution. Oh, and did I mention that Brendan Ryan is much cheaper and much faster?

and if you didn't notice, Izturis ran the bases like a middle schooler yesterday. You will be wrong, and hopefully our SS will be anyone other than Izturis by the end of the year.

the point about cesar's plate discipline is well taken, but the available stats don't back up the claim about line drives. according to baseball-reference's splits page, izturis has hit 4 line drives so far this year, 3 for base hits (that includes last night's double). baseball-ref's batted-ball data come from Retrosheet. link at http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=izturce01&year=2008#hitty-traj

fangraphs also provides batted-ball-type data, using a different source, Baseball Info Solutions. they credit cesar with 5 line drives so far. they don't track hits / outs per batted-ball type. link at http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=656&position=SS

Based not just on this season's first 10 games but on how Izturis performed in almost 900 AB's the last time he was healthy and playing full time, we can reasonably expect him to have an OBP and SLG close to what Eckstein had while he was with the Cards, but with much better defense. Eckstein's OPS+ in his last two years with StL was 81 (World Series MVP) and 93. Izturis' OPS+ in his last full season when he was healthy (2004) was 88. At this very early point in the season Eckstein's OPS+ in Toronto is 48. Izturis' OPS so far is 92.

Cesar is an upgrade in SS value added, over last year and the year before.

There are some striking signs (e.g., the PD article by Joe Strauss declaring that another power hitter is needed to back up Pujols) that Mozeliak might make a trade when Mulder returns to clear space on the roster (Pineiro will probably bump Jiminez, but then Springer, Johnson, Kinney, Politte, etc., are all working their way toward the roster). Speculation has already begun that the only place for another power bat would be the middle infield. Given the lack of power hitting SS's available, Kennedy seems the likeliest to be displaced. But by whom?

Meanwhile, might the Angels be enticed to give up a good SS prospect, to give the Cards a strong option for next year?

The Angels are hurting for starting pitching. I wonder if they would make a trade of their SS prospect Sean Rodriguez for Anthony Reyes, if he keeps pitching well in his new bullpen role, (perhaps in a multiple player package from both sides).

Rodriguez last year at AA was an All-Star, with OBP .345, SLG .423, 17 HR in 508 AB.

He was selected by the Anaheim Angels in the third round (90th overall) of the 2003 First-Year Player Draft out of G. Holmes Braddock (Miami, Fla.) High School.

... if his OBP is somewhere close to .350 (roughly Eck's career #s, and what he did in StL), and his defense remains strong, then he would be a amazingly great pick up. in 2004, Tony Womack's OBP was .349. it would be tremendous if Iz2 could get on base at that rate.

but his career average OBP is .297, and his best offensive year (2004) it was only .330. there is no reason to think that he's going to end up with a .350 OBP, much less a .400 OBP. i hope his new-found plate discipline holds up for awhile, but it can't forever. eventually, he's going to regress to his mean.

so far this year, Iz2 is BBing in nearly 20% of his ABs. that won't continue. it's possible -- maybe even probably -- that his BA picks up, but it's not going to pick up that much.

he can still have some value for the Cards if he could post a .325-.330 OBP with plus defense, and that's what we should be hoping for. that's a reasonable, if optimistic, goal for him. Iz2 putting up a .400 OBP isn't.

Izturis's career high OBP is .330. His career average is under .300.

Yes, it might be .394 now, but at the end of the year we'll be lucky if it's over .300

but his bat is just far too weak. Give the job to Ryan and shell out the necessary cash for Rafeal Furcal this offseason.

11 games for Izturis. I was thinking of addressing this in tomorrow's post. Now that would be superfluous. His increased walk rate, should it remain, is something for which he should be commended. However, we've played less than 7% of the season. To anoint him an All-Star at this stage is premature.

do not indicate he will be an All-Star (given the competition in the NL), nor that he will end up with an OBP of .390.

Projections are one thing. Assessment of performance in a specific time period, for what it is, is another thing. If we say a player had a good game, or made a good play, or had a good at-bat, we don't have to worry about sample size, because we are not making any projection from the sample peformance. We're just assessing it for what it is. But if we do make predictions about a player's performance, then, of course, we do need to have a sufficient sample size of previous performance in order to make reliable predictions.

If we assess Izturis' performance so far this season, it seems evident that so far he has made a respectable contribution on balance. It is what it is, whether for 20 AB's or 30 or whatever. What it will be over the entire season is a different question.

A bias against Izturis is to be found in many comments on VEB and elsewhere. The fact that I call into question that bias does not mean that I have a bias in favor of Izturis. In fact, in projecting Izturis' peformance over all of 2008, I have no bias for or against Izturis. Rather, I am in favor of a rational analysis and reasonable predictions based on relevant, objective data.

In the case of Izturis, we have a sample size of almost 900 consecutive AB's for predicting his hitting performance when he is healthy and playing full time. The most reasonable prediction is that Cesar will perform at the same level again under the same conditions, in 2008.

But that prediction is accepted only by a few and rejected by many, evidently because there is a widespread anti-Izturis bias, apparently based on a simplistic projection of his average performance over his career so far, with seeming disregard for the significant variations in his performance under different circumstances. To discount the dramatic impact that certain factors can have on a player's performance diminishes the predictive power of any projection or prediction. To predict a player's performance from how he performed under very different , important circumstances than he does now is very likely to lead to gross mistakes in the predictions. I believe those who repeatedly predict that Izturis will have an OBP well under .300 are making such a mistake. I think it would be equally mistaken to predict that he will have an OBP of .390 by season's end. The most likely outcome, based on past peformance when he is healthy and playing full time, is that he will have an OBP around .340 or so. That would be quite respectable for a fine fielding shortstop, even in this era.

Yet the conventional wisdom is that Izturis is one of the worst hitters in baseball. If we look more closely than just his simple career averages, we find that in actuality he has shown in actual performance on the field that when he is healthy and playing full time he is capable of making a solid offensive contribution - not great, by any measure, but very solid, as solid as the offensive contribution of David Eckstein in his last two years with the Cardinals. Given that Izturis is a significantly better fielder than Eskstein, the most reasonable prediction is that Cesar's overall contribution this year will very likely to be an upgrade over Eckstein's overall contribution the last two years.

As Casey Stengel would say, "You could look it up."

That's my story and I'm sticking with it! : )

Thank you for your comments, ICBF. It seems that an increasing number of fans are beginning to appreciate the steady contributions Izturis makes that can add up to a valuable, if not flashy, contribution to the team. I imagine the Cardinal pitchers already appreciation him a lot. I hope Cesar will feel the support of the fans. I understand that his reserved demeanor conceals a strong passion for the game and for doing everything he can to put his team in the best position to win. Maybe over time the majority of fans will appreciate that Cesar really is an asset to the team.