bartron_44 wrote:Skin Blues wrote:bartron_44 wrote:
!#$!@#$ I wanted Mallex Smith......That is a brutal trade for the Rays.
We already have 2 CF's that are better than him, why would we want Mallex? He's a slap hitter that strikes out too much for his profile. He's basically Guillermo Heredia (the other guy Tampa traded him for) but coming off a season with 100 extra points of BABIP, which won't sustain. Mallex is better than Heredia, sure, but it's not as big a gap as last season makes it seem. Tampa isn't stupid. They know his stolen bases will cost them a lot in arbitration, even though they bring almost no value in real life since he's barely above the break-even point. So they're going with Heredia instead, who had a higher BB-rate and lower K-rate last season, in addition to more power and similar defensive value.
I didn't want him to play CF, I wanted him to play LF and lead off. He stole 40 bases, hit 27 doubles,10 triples and posted an OBP of .367.You may think his BABIP isn't sustainable, but with his speed and game he is going to hit for a high average. He also had about a 10% BB rate and to top it all off with a nice cherry..... he hits left handed.
He doesn't just steal bases. He stole the 2nd most in the AL. He doesn't just get on base. He got on base more than any player on our roster (...by a significant amount) and was 22nd in all of baseball (among qualifiers). You say his offense sucks......I say he was EXACTLY what this offense needs to go with all our power bats, and played a position we are still trying to fill long term.
Tampa may care in 2020 that he hits arb, but the Jays wouldn't. What's he gonna make year 1 of arb...3M? He is under control until 2023, and could have given us the lead off hitter we have been missing since Revere left after 2015.
Then you trade Pillar (if he didn't go in that deal), slide Grichuk over to CF and find a real power bat with an arm to play RF. (..maybe even eventually Vladdy if he doesn't stick at 3B since he's only 6ft tall.)
In LF you don't get as much value from his speed as you would in CF. The positional adjustment hurts a big part of his value. And as I mentioned, his SBs are elite, but SB's don't really matter at all in a vacuum. Base running matters, and he is indeed good at base running too since speed is a huge component of that. But as an example, Aaron Hicks and his 11 SBs, and Eddie Rosario and his 8 SBs, provided more value on the bases than Mallex and his 40 SBs. Since he is barely above the break-even point in stolen bases, he'd be nearly as valuable in terms of overall base running if he had 2 SB and 0 CS as opposed to 40 SB and 12 CS, assuming everything else stayed the same (taking extra bases, scoring from 1st/2nd at a high rate, etc).
His on-base skills are good, yes. I didn't say he was garbage. He walks more than most slap hitters. Just that his value heavily relies on his BABIP which was unsustainably high last year, even for a guy with his speed. He was 11 points of xwOBA behind Heredia last year, although xwOBA has it's flaws since MLB keeps tinkering with the ball (which has hurt the value of fly balls). And his superior speed will boost the BABIP and xwOBA a bit. But it's not at all clear that he's a better hitter than Heredia (Steamer projects them within 4 points of wRC+). And since the salary for 3 of his remaining 4 years of team control will be inflated due to his SB totals, his present value is diminished. This is the Rays being the Rays. Finding cheap, usable players and not waiting until the last minute to cash in on assets with limited room for surplus value. Heredia won't make them a contender, but the extra few millions of dollars they can re-allocate might.
