Wednesday, October 03, 2007

2007 Review: Xavier Nady

2006: .280/.337/.45, 17 HR, 28 2B, 1 3B
2007 PECOTA: .286/.340/471 with 18 HR, 31 2B, 2 3B
2007 actual: .278/.330/.47 with 20 HR, 23 2B, 1 3B

Before this season, Nady was thought of as a semi-injury prone guy that was basically Craig Wilson without the on-base percentage and maybe a little less power. In April, Weapon X spent a brief stint as "Scruffy Looking Savior of Pittsburgh Baseball that Makes All the Ladies Swoon." He then returned to the semi-injury prone guy that is basically Craig Wilson without the on-base percentage and a little less power. On the bright side, he did marginally figure out how to hit righties this year (.274/.322/.479 vs. his career line of .253/.302/.427). Unfortunately, he didn't mash lefties nearly as well (.295/.365/.463 vs. a career line of .320/.390/.477) and things pretty much balanced themselves out, as you can see from the stat line above.

If you read the Stats Geek yesterday, Nady is exactly who he's talking about when he mentions "a lineup of pretty good hitters but no very good ones." There's nothing technically wrong with what Nady does. He's a decent enough hitter that can plug a hole in the outfield and (usually) mash left-handed pitching pretty good. At the age of 28, this is about as good as it's going to get for X. Still, like I said, there's not anything wrong with that. Every good team needs and has guys like Xavier Nady on their roster. The difference here is that on the Pirates, Nady is an every day player and a 4/5 hitter whereas on a better team, he'd start 2 or 3 days a week and bat sixth or seventh when he did start.

Of course the dagger of the whole Nady situation this year is that Oliver Perez went 15-10 for the Mets with a 1.31 WHIP and 8.85 K/9 innings. And he's still only 25. Dave Littlefield is gone, but his legacy will live on for a long time. I don't know exactly where I'd place Nady's current trade value, but it's waaay below "Oliver Perez" right now.