He's got an absolutely stellar track record, including a Vlad Guerrero-esque half season in '13, and his underlying peripherals look rock solid going forward. He'll cost something on the order of what Choo got last year, I'd wager, but he's a better bet than Choo since his offensive game is so simple (not extreme K's or BB's, above average-to-plus power, and has spent a decade manning the second most difficult position on the field).
However, there are some warts that pop out to my (untrained and wholly amateur) eye. Mostly I'm concerned about his diminished power in the second half last year. He hit 11 HR in the first half (83 games played) and only 2 in the last half (45 games played). His doubles for the same periods were 23 & 12, which suggests it might have just been a HR/FB issue (13.8% in 1H, 4.5% 2H) but I don't really know what that could mean. (For reference, his HR/FB% was over 20% in 2013, which seems absurdly high to me but I haven't studied these newfangled numbers all that much).
All that said, a six year deal for ~$100-110mil is probably what it takes to get him. Fangraphs readers are notoriously conservative and they pegged him for 5/90, but he does have some recent health red flags so it's not inconceivable that he could end up with a shorter guaranteed contract that has creative PA vesting options tacked on. I mean, there's always a chance he goes Miguel Cabrera on the league -- he actually HAS performed ~at Miggy's level for the same age period in their early/mid twenties, after all -- .but I don't think he's got Cabrera's raw power, so there's that.
Still, there are so many interesting bat-first options available out there right now. The Braves seem to be making noises about trading one (or both!) of Heyward/Upton and are said to be looking for SP. A rent-a-player situation with Upton is extremely interesting to me (and his brother still plays a rock-solid CF, even if his bat seems to have left the solar system for some reason).
Doc already mentioned Kemp, who is definitely a top-tier RH bat if ever there was one. I saw rumors about Jose Bautista maybe being available early on, but have seen nothing since.
Nelson Cruz is out there, and while he's far from perfect he would address a glaring hole (RH power) in the lineup. (Newsflash: his home/away OPS splits last year were backwards from what I expected, coming in at .783 home and .930 away. Oh yeah, and he DH'd for 350 of those 613 AB's; I heard we needed a DH...)
Troy Tulowitzki is being shopped, apparently, with the Mets showing the most interest. Even if he keeps getting hurt and loses 1.5 WAR/year after leaving the rare air of Colorado, his contract still looks fine and he'd be a MOTO bat in the mold of Han-Ram, but playing a plus (plus-plus?!) SS whenever he can hobble out onto the field. I'm certain we've got the pieces to pick him up, and keeping one of Miller/Taylor as his backup seems to make too much sense to me. Why is nobody talking about him, again?
The point is that if JackZ is serious, he's going to get his RH masher. He might have to pay more than we'd like to do it, but there's no good reason for this team not to open with a RH crusher sandwiched between Cano and Seager next year.
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