Michael Bradley wrote:He's hit like that three out of the last five years, and in 2013 he missed much of the 2nd half due to injury so he may have avoided his usual swoon (career .648 OPS in the 2nd half). Also in 2013, his walk rate was not very good, he struck out a ton, and was lucky with balls in play. Even if his true offensive value is somewhere between his good years and his bad ones, that's still replaceable, especially if his defense starts to slip.
Just because Colby had bad years, it doesn't mean you can just ignore the years that he hit well and summarize them as "lucky." It would be just as easy in response to call the bad years "unlucky" due to the irregularly low BABIPs he had in those seasons. A good defensive CF with a career 102 wRC+ is not really all that replaceable (especially for this organization at the moment).
I meant his walk rate regressed since 2010, which is a huge indicator for his future. In 2010, his BB% was 11.8. Since then, it has been 9.5%, 7.5%, 8.1%, and 5.8% (2014). All that while his K% is around 30%. That's not good. He is not the same level of player he was in St. Louis. He has regressed, but had a good enough first half last season to look good in 2013.
He didn't just look good in 2013. While his walk rate may not quite be what it used to be, had the best season of his career by both wRC+ and WAR. His 2nd half (149 wRC+), albeit in less games, was also much better offensively than his first half (123 wRC+). That season was less than 30 games of baseball ago.
If Rasmus and Gose came with the same cost and control, then I'd definitely agree with you. In this case, one is an expensive impending FA and the other is not. Unless Pompey is rushed like crazy, Gose is the only CF option on this team for the next two years, at least. At some point they are going to have to go with him, barring actually acquiring someone from outside the organization (who knows if that is even allowed right now).
Gose isn't a CF option on any team that has any aspirations of winning. The guy can't hit. And I'm not even sure Pompey has even reached prospect status yet (let's wait and see if he hits in AA). If they don't bring Colby back in 2015 (or don't have the money to bring him back), you'd have to question whether the organization should even try to win at all (and that may be exactly the plan).