Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
This is what would really worry me.
I've seen plenty of "The time to strike on Merrifield is here for the Royals..." sorts of articles when in reality the time to strike with Merrifield was almost certainly at the trade deadline in 2018 or the winter meetings that offseason.
I think you're on the downhill side of his value either way and it's only gonna get worse going forward. Worse still, I feel like some teams that would've been good fits (the Cardinals and Brewers spring to mind) have become much more satisfied with their in-house options (Wong/Hueira). So the pool of suitors has probably diminished somewhat as well. I guess the Yankees and Sox may be interested, especially if the Yankees let Didi walk and move Torres over to SS. He'd be a fantastic fit in that lineup full of sluggers.
That said, he does have some skills that age pretty well. His batting eye and bat control are strong and those tend to stick around longer than a lot of other skills. And if he can keep his HR pop in the 15+ range, he'll be a credible enough threat that pitchers can't just groove him strikes so his OBP will remain an asset.
Brett Gardner's the kind of offensive profile you'd hope that Whit could develop as he ages. Gardner's speed fell off pretty hard in his early 30s but he never lost his eye so his OBP stayed strong. Then he started swinging a bit harder and traded some strikeouts for some ISO to stay a valuable offensive contributor into his mid-30s.
Merrifield's a smart, heady player so that possibility is there. But there are more people who kinda faded away when they lost their wheels than there are guys who became 20+ HR hitters to make up for lost speed.
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That might be true regarding his value - though setting the costs of his salary added some back due to the predictability and likely discount on arbitration years - but I still don’t think it affects my decision to pull the trigger or not.
If what I’m looking at back is 2-3 guys whose 80 percent outcome is bench player or worse, just don’t see the incentive.
Yeah, it means I have fewer lotto tickets in my system and yes it means Merrifield’s production ends up wasted. But It is too close to “making the best bad deal you can because you want to make a deal no matter what” for me.