Percentage Players

I thought Thurston was playing great…has made a couple of mistakes but other than that…….

Freese is 25 years old, having spent 3 seasons in the minors. In his first season in AAA last year, he put up a .306/.36/.550 line, which was good for a .387 wOBA. His projections for this year, ranged from a .329 wOBA to a .355 wOBA. We split the difference and give him a projection of a .343 wOBA. League average is around .330, so over 600 plate appearance, his bat would produce roughly 7 runs above an average player.

Defensively, he is well above average. Using Total Zone rating, Freese has been worth +12, +13, and +3 runs per 150 games above an average defender at his position, over the past 3 seasons in the minors. Using a 5,4,3 weighting systems and docking off a couple of runs due to the fact that the average defender in the majors is better than one in the minors, Freese projects to be around +5 runs defensively this year.

Add that all together, plus a position and replacement level adjustment, and Freese would be worth roughly 3.5 wins above a replacement level player. A league average player is worth 2 wins and Pujols was worth 9 wins last year, so 3.5 wins is very good.

Obviously, Freese hasn’t done that so far in the majors, however, he also only had 22 plate appearances, so we really shouldn’t make judgments about how good of a player he his based on that uber-small sample size. If Freese was given the starting job, and was allowed to play every day, he would be expected to produce at an above average level.

Joe Thurston on the other hand, isn’t really as good of a player as Freese. He is 30 years old, and is still a rookie. He had a good year in AAA last season, putting up a .356 wOBA, however, it was also his third season at AAA, so the results don’t look as rosy. His projections before this year, ranged from a .298 wOBA to a .322 wOBA. Splitting the difference there give us an average projection of a .311 wOBA. Over 600 plate appearances that would make him roughly 10 runs below an average hitter.

His defense by Total Zone, has been worth -5, -4, and +8 runs over the past 3 seasons. Doing the same thing I did with Freese, Thurston would be worth about -5 runs defensively. However, he has never played 3rd base before, so should we expect him to be better at third than he has been at second? Maybe, but he hasn’t looked great so far. However, lets say that he stays the same at third as he has been at second, so -5 runs.

Adding offense, defense, position and replacement level, gives us a final WAR tally of a little less than 1 win. Now he has hit a lot better than his projection so far, however, given the fact that he only has had 91 plate appearances in the majors, I doubt that continues. You should probably chock tha up to small sample size, maybe raise his projection a little higher, bu you shouldn’t make the mistake of calling him a decent hitter, when a much larger sample size in the minors shows that he probably isn’t.
            

and he’s still got an .890 OPS down there. Unless you think he’s hurt there’s little reason to put stock in 54 at-bats after a fitful MLB stint, certainly when it’s at the expense of a full season the year before.

as he maintains this new approach he’ll be fine.