2006 in Review- Xavier Nady

Now that 2006 is over, I'll be looking at one or two Pirates and their 2006 season each day. I'll look at what we expected, what we got, and what that might mean for the future. I may or may not assign a meaningless grade to their performance. Today: Xavier Nady.

2005 key stats (SD)- .261/.321/.439 with 13 homers and 43 RBI in 355 PA
2006 PECOTA (for NYM)- .274/.332/.447 with 11 homers and 56 RBI in 335 PA
2006 key stats- .280/.337/.453 with 17 homers and 63 RBI in 498 PA

The projections for Weapon X were just about dead on. In his 2 months in Pittsburgh (55 games, 214 PAs) X's numbers were .300/.352/.409. The average and OBP are higher than you would expect, but the slugging was much, much lower. Where that power goes isn't really an X-File. It's mostly a function of PNC Park, in around 120 PAs at PNC Nady is only slugging .314, which is x-ceptionally low. If he's going to be any kind of player for the Pirates, that simply has to come up.

Nady's time in Pittsburgh was a tale of 2 months. In August (his first month here), he tore the cover off the ball, hitting .359/.411/.466. In September he cooled way down to .240/.290/.350, enduring something like an 0-for-22 slump at one point (I think). The bottom line on Nady's 2006 is that he was mostly powerless once he got to Pittsburgh (only 3 homers), which does not bode well for his future at PNC. If he's our starting first baseman next year, we're going to be in trouble. He would make a very good platoon partner in right (.969 OPS against lefties) and wouldn't be terrible there as an every day player (he was mostly a starter for the Mets but they have Beltran, Delgado, Wright, Reyes, etc.), but with the lineup that we have, we need more power than X can provide us with.

Stats from the Baseball Musings Day by Day Database, Yahoo! Sports, and my trusty copy of Baseball Prospectus 2006.