The theme of the day seems to be "Derrek Lee sucks! Replace him with Hoffpauir!" People need to settle down and remember 3 things
- This is spring training we're talking about.
- Even if you take spring stats seriously, this is a tiny sample size.
- Derrek Lee is a better baseball player than Micah Hoffpauir.
Let's look at Lee's last three seasons, shall we?
| Year | AVG | OBP | SLG | BABIP |
| 2006 | .286 | .368 | .474 | .333 |
| 2007 | .317 | .400 | .513 | .367 |
| 2008 | .291 | .361 | .462 | .333 |
| 2009 (projected) | .290 | .370 | .474 | .330 |
Lee's numbers look remarkably consistent. He had a good year, BABIP wise, in 2007, which led to his higher OBP (+30 in BABIP, +30 in OBP) and his other two years look remarkably similar. He's aging, and thus the power projection might be a little high. Contrast this with Hoffpauir's projection:
| Year | AVG | OBP | SLG | BABIP |
| 2009 (projected) | .282 | .322 | .480 | .310 |
What do we see here? Hoffpauir looks a lot like Derrek Lee, but minus almost 50 points in OBP. Lee is also a slightly above average defender at 1b. We don't have a lot of data on Hoffpauir at 1b (which is why it is zeroed out in his projection), but all the subjective reports suggest that he is not good with the glove. Still though, disregarding defensive value (or lack thereof), 50 points in OBP is a lot to give up.
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