Quote:
Originally Posted by x McLovin x
Bingo. In a small enough sample, good players can look bad and bad players can look good.
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That's why I picked the Adam Frazier example. (Also, I'm a Pirates fan so the Cruz reference easily primed me.) Frazier is an example of a player who by any measure has had a respectable career. His defensive versatility and aptitude are mostly what's keeping him in MLB now since he's a 2B who'll play a serviceable CF or corner OF in a pinch.
By any meaningful standard, Frazier was never a bad player. Even now on the wrong side of the aging curve, he's a serviceable defensive utility man. But you can look at his career and see a million times that he overachieved. He literally didn't hit a HR in college (
https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/163500/) but he hit 10 HRs twice in MLB. Thanks to his defense, he still posts positive fWAR.
But you can definitely see the split in his trade year between his Pirates performance and his Padres performance.
I'd also note that PNC is a good park for leftie batters who can pull the ball over the Clemente wall. IRL, this will be a notable advantage for Cruz. It already is an advantage for Jack Suwinski.
Point being? There are a lot of distorting factors in MLB slash lines. That's why you have to play 162 games to get at something like a player's and team's true value.