Which means he'll probably be either a 2B, OF, or DH in the big leagues... but still plenty of time to figure out what he is and whether he's worth supplanting Correa/Altuve or simply being worked in with them... or used as trade bait to get something that can help more now (as the Dbacks did with Swanson).
There have only been 4 10-year deals as far as I know in recent times. A-Rod and Jeter both lived up to their expected production. Pujols and Cano are unlikely to be great, but they were both signed after they were 30+.
Apparently his value is in being basically the best defensive player in baseball. His WAR (a stat that I don't have a great grasp on) suggests he's a superstar. He's a bit of a strange case because his offensive stats appear nothing special at all. http://markbradley.blog.myajc.com/2015/12/11/a-windfall-for-jason-heyward-a-victory-for-war-lovers/ If you go by traditional stats, Jason Heyward is a pretty good ballplayer. Only once in six seasons has he hit above .277. Only once has he driven in more than 72 runs. Only once has he hit more than 18 homers. If we cherry-pick the best of his seasons, we get only .293 with 82 RBI’s and 27 homers. We get the sort of season Miguel Cabrera throws back. If we go by advanced analytics, we find that Heyward has been — as ESPN Stats & Information notes — the fifth-most valuable position player in baseball over the past two seasons. The four above him: Mike Trout, Josh Donaldson, Paul Goldschmidt and Adrian Beltre. ... Going by Baseball Reference’s version of WAR, Heyward has been nearly a six-win-or-better player in four of his six big-league seasons. A year ago, the aforementioned Cabrera hit .313 with 25 homers and 109 RBI’s. His WAR value was 5.0. Heyward hit — this in his final season as a Brave — .271 with 11 homers and 58 RBI’s. His WAR value was 6.2. That’s because WAR includes defensive and baserunning components; Heyward excels at both. ... Even the front offices who aren’t big on all of the advanced analytics take a gander at WAR. If you make your living in baseball, you must. That hard-to-explain metric has become not just some funny little acronym but an industry standard. It tells us more about a player than watching every move a player makes over a 162-game season can. It tells us not what he does but what he’s worth. If you watched Jason Heyward closely — and we around here watched him closely for five years — you might have thought, “Good player but not a great one.” And in many ways you’d be right. But in the grand scheme, you’d be wrong. Most close observers of the St. Louis Cardinals considered him the team MVP this season, and those Redbirds won 100 games.
Yeah the WAR argument looks pretty solid, but my problem with it is that I think it is greatly inflated by the fact that he's a corner outfielder, a position usually reserved for lesser defenders. How much value does a superior defensive right fielder bring as compared to a superior defensive center fielder or shortstop? If he's so awesome defensively, which the numbers clearly support, why doesn't he play center? I would imagine the replacement level center fielder would be superior to the replacement level right fielder, I wonder what his WAR numbers would look like there. Either way, I just feel like I'd want more from the bat of a guy I was locking down for 10 years.
WAR adjusts for position. An average CF, SS, or C will have a positive dWAR, while an average 1B will have a negative dWAR. He doesn't play CF because he is a stellar RF, and I think teams are reluctant to move him. The same is true of Alex Gordon, who plays LF (he came up as a 3B, so you'd have to think he'd be able to play at least RF full-time).
That's not exactly true. Since WAR is adjusted by position the top 20 or so in the league at any given position will have a positive WAR and the rest will have a negative WAR. The bar is set higher for positions like short stop or center field so for example you can be an average center fielder with a low WAR, but if you moved to right or left field, your WAR would likely go up considerably. The opposite is also true. Even if you are the 2nd best right fielder by WAR (as Heyward is) a move to center would likely drop him significantly using that metric. I get that he's great in right field so they probably wouldn't move him, I'm just asking how valuable is a great right fielder with a questionable bat in the large scheme of things? Also, who do the Cubs have in center field? If they have a nobody playing the more important center field, they'd probably be better off moving Heyward.
Can we put all the Cubs talk in the proper forum please F the Cubs This is an Astros forum. I get the mention of the signing but enough already
Luhnow said unlikely... but was noncommittal as usual. So far, the only player they for-sure made a strong bid on was Tanaka.
Of course he wouldn't be as good of a CF as he is a RF. As of right now, he is our CF btw. Read this article also. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jason-heyward-as-a-center-fielder/ Sad how salty some of you guys still are. The Astros are in the AL, no longer in the Central and there was never really a rivalry to begin with.
Astros have an All-American pitching staff at the moment. Maybe Feliz makes the squad as the only Latin pitcher. Maybe we sign Cueto or Gallardo. Or maybe we go Kazmir or Fister. I doubt Luhnow would have included Appel if he is not about to sign a capable FA starter.
Not that I'm salty against the Cubs (although I never will like them) Just shouldn't have to sort through pages of Cubs junk on Astros offseason thread It's worthy conversation, just not here
Appel and Velazquez* good point though. People need to not look at this trade in a vacuum and wait for the bigger picture. We have a ton $$$ to spend. Hell, we don't even have to spend it this offseason...I like his patient approach. We are just getting started
