So I guess it depends on if you view 2016 as their true normal, or an abberation for both. 2016 was Fowlers best year, and Heywards worst. Heyward is the better defender no matter how you slice it, but Fowler is decent enough that he won’t kill you.
Fowler is also 3 years older.
Reversion to their previous career averages would say that Heyward is the superior player. But I love Dex, and he did exactly what he wanted to do in 2016, play his best season ever for a World Series champ to cash in. I wish him well. But I would expect that he will pull back a little from his, admittedly high, performance this year.
Fowler’s a great fit for what the Cardinals need. Heyward’s a great fit for what the Cubs need.
Dex does give the Cardinals a potential lineup that looks like this:
Fowler
Diaz
Carpenter
Piscotty
Peralta
Molina
Grichuk
Wong
The first four in that lineup are going to absolutely grind on some pitchers. Marp and Fowler are two of the highest in pitches per at bat in baseball, and Biscuits and Diaz both work counts heavily as well.
Probably not. But people keep thinking he might be the hitter he was in 2012 (27 HR, 814 OPS). He hasn’t approached that since then. He’s likely to be better – 2016 was uncharacteristically awful – but he’s not likely to become a great hitter.
His defense is superb. But he’s a great defensive presence at a non-premium position. I liked him when he was a Cardinal, and I wanted the Cards to resign him. In retrospect, though, I am glad he and that contract moved to Wrigley.
I don’t need to look at just 2012 though, 2014 and 2015 were almost every bit as good. Sure HR totals were down, 11 and 13, but the Cubs don’t need massive HR numbers, they’ve got Bryant, Rizzo, and Schwarber for those. It is that reliable on base action that we want. Offensively in 2015 he was, arguably, more offensively valuable in 2012. Even if he never hits 3.5 oWAR again, but can be reliably 2-3, well, that’d be great.
Do I know that will happen? No. But everything suggests that his performance in 2016 is due for reversion. 5 years from now we probably laugh about how bad it was compared to the years since.
Incredible athlete, obviously. Will have a long career in the Majors just on his glove, if nothing else. But there is absolutely reason to believe he is closer to the hitter he was in 2012 than his offensively mediocre 2014 and 2015 campaigns.
I haven’t watched that much of him to have a useful opinion on what the hell was wrong with him, but his numbers are all over the place. In 2014, he basically stopped hitting home runs. This is super-weird; his HR/FB rate in his career goes thusly:
16.8
12.9
16.9
13.0 6.5 - (2014)
12.0 4.8
This is bizarro. Something mechanical was off or he was batting injury or listening to terrible coaching advice or something - those are crazy-low numbers.
In the middle of that, 2015, he basically stopped hitting fly balls. 57% GB, 23% FB. That’s absurd; his FB% has been otherwise stable between 33-36 every other year of his career. That was of course the year he switched orgs for the first time, being sent to St Louis as Atlanta (probably wisely) blew up their squad.
And of course 2017 will be right in the middle of what is generally the best part of a player’s age curve - he’ll be 27y8m old when the season starts. And he’s always been a massively touted player, ever since he was drafted in the first round in 2007. There’s a decent chance the Cubbies won’t even regret his $20M+ salary through 2023.
Also, damn, that is one bigass contract. Fuck it, though, they have the money.
I would imagine that it is something mechanical that hopefully can be worked on in the off season. I would be more alarmed if he was striking out more or walking less.
August of 2013, and his HR totals were already way down that year compared to the 27 he’d hit in 2012. Specifically, on June 1st of 2013 he had all of 2 HR for the season.
Encarnacion was the piece that had to come off the board before everyone else started to sign so we should see a few more deals before the end of the year. Really happy with this front office for knowing the window to win is now, spending, and getting the best player available who just so happens to perfectly fill a need.
Yeah, that’s a good deal for Cleveland, considering EE turned down 4 years, $80m to stay in Toronto. Really seems like the market his agent hoped would develop for him (possibly with an NL team or two considering him at 1b) just never happened.
If he really is pitching in 2017 for someone, it’ll be fascinating to see what other pitchers who have a similar injury type opt for this and the shorter recovery time as opposed to a full TJS.
For this “primary repair” surgery, the ligament itself has to be in good shape and the tear has to be at either end of the ligament, because the surgery constructs a new brace for where the ligament attaches to the bone. If the tear is in the middle of the ligament or the ligament itself is in bad shape, full Tommy John is required.
