Ten Worst 42+ HR Seasons
| Rk | Player | WAR/pos | HR | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mark Trumbo | 1.2 | 42 | 2016 |
| 2 | Jose Canseco | 1.5 | 46 | 1998 |
| 3 | Ryan Howard | 1.8 | 48 | 2008 |
| 4 | Dick Stuart | 1.9 | 42 | 1963 |
| 5 | Gus Zernial | 2.3 | 42 | 1953 |
| 6 | Tony Armas | 2.6 | 43 | 1984 |
| 7 | Juan Gonzalez | 2.7 | 42 | 1997 |
| 8 | Richie Sexson | 2.8 | 45 | 2001 |
| 9 | Harmon Killebrew | 2.8 | 48 | 1962 |
| 10 | Ryan Howard | 2.9 | 47 | 2007 |
With 17 games left, Trumbo is on track to finish below Canseco's mark of 1.5 bWAR. With a little luck, he could maybe edge in front of Dick Stuart's 1.9 mark. Anyway, the two main things that have depressed Trumbo's value has been his horrid play in the outfield and how he hits. If he had performed at league average out there, he would be just behind Gus Zernial and be 225th out of 228. The second thing is that the second half this year has been where he either hits a moon shot, walks, or sits on the bench...and he does not walk much.
6 comments:
By this point, playing him in the outfield is probably the only remaining option, but why wasn't he stuck at DH while someone else, anyone else, played OF?
Do we know?
Signing Alvarez might've been worthwhile in a vacuum, given his offense, but when one considers that having Alvarez forced Trumbo into the outfield, it's a wash.
Maybe the Orioles figured he wouldn't be quite this bad. But yeah, there's no way they should bring back both Trumbo and Alvarez next year.
Quite this bad in the outfield, that is.
Orioles tried to sign Fowler and Austin Jackson to play right field in case Trumbo could not improve. They were left with signing Alvarez, which made Trumbo a full time RF. Keep in mind though that if you ignore his horrible defense, he still has a pretty amazingly bad offensive year among players who have hit as many home runs as he has.
In the first half, Trumbo was hitting much better but has slumped the entire second half. He was satisfied early on with singles the opposite way as well as the HR bombs and had the OPS to show for it. I don't know what changed but there was an article here with an interview where he said he was not changing his approach which was always to swing as hard as possible. that seems to be what we're seeing now minus the opposite field hitting. Between him and Davis, they are striking out way more than even they should be expected too. Apparently, Davis has a hand issue. They left 12 guys on base last night in a one run loss, many with less than two outs. I keep thinking that bunting would be better than striking out with a man on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Trumbo doesn't even have a SF at all this year. Trumbo is wrong when he says that one approach is all he's going to take. I wish both he and Davis would adapt to the situation better.
I do wish the O's had succeeded in signing Fowler rather than Alvarez (note: did you see Fangraohs analysis showing Alvarez was one the game's biggest ISO improvement "fakers"?). I thought Reimold would be able to do better than he has and, maybe, we would have been bettor off with a healthy Joey. Many of the O's hitters have faded with Adam Jones being a notable exception.
Are you making an argument that Trumbo was not worth the $9M he was paid? Do you think the O's pitching would have a better record without him in the outfield? Would we have won more games without him? My gut tells me he has been more valuable than all the statistics suggest, but maybe I can't see the flaws in the boxscore. What if we had signed Pearce instead of Alvarez? I was not impressed by Pearce's recent defensive performance at Fenway but everyone seems to like his defense better than Trumbo's.
OK, I might now argue that Michael Bourn is more valuable than Trumbo right now against RH pitchers. Bourn is playing great right now. I hope they keep him for a fifth OF next year.
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