Atlanta Braves have I don’t know on third

Matt Kemp’s trade changed many things for the Atlanta Braves but the question of opening day third baseman is still unresolved.

Kemp’s departure opened the door for changes in the Atlanta Braves lineup, adding a starter and opening an outfield spot. While there are multiple options for that outfield job, the question of who plays third base is as yet unresolved

Adonis Garcia is off to Korea, leaving Johan Camargo as the most likely candidate and Rio Ruiz with another chance to grab it. Unlike Alan, I have no doubt Camargo can handle defensive duties at the hot corner. Whether his bat is up to the job is another subject entirely.

Break out season or simply lucky

It’s easy to see why the fans enjoy seeing Camargo play.  He leaves it all on the field every game, makes playing infield defense look easy and has a cannon for an arm. Camargo also produced the best offense of his professional career, something that convinced many he should be this year’s starter at third. Closer scrutiny of his offense however, shows that what we saw last year probably isn’t what we should expect this year.

Camargo managed only 256 PA – 241 AB – amounting to a little more than one-third of a full season’s PA. That makes sample size a critical factor when evaluating his season.  His traditional {BA/OBP/SLG/OPS) line of .299/.331/.452/.783, .330 wOBA and 102 wRC+ came as a result of a .364 BAbip. Diving a bit deeper into his year we can see his year really has three separate pieces.

Numbers please

He began the year as the utility man and from 4/11 through 6/14 managed only 32 PA in 16 games. He became an everyday player on June 16 and in the 31 game stretch end July 22 picked up 115 PA.  From that point forward he came to the plate 109 times in another 31 games.

In part one he had few consistent PA so I’ll ignore that. Parts 2 and 3 cover the same number of games and virtually the same number of PA. His BA dropped 63 points, OBP  dropped 36 and while his slugging remained above 400, it dropped too, 73 points . All of that’s directly attributable to the 93 point drop in BAbip.

In his minor league career above rookie ball,  Camargo’s highest OBP, wOBA and wRC+ stats in full season play were .320, .315 and 96. His highest ever minor league full season (491 PA) OPS – .683 – and BAbip – .317 – came in 2016 at Gwinnett.

StatCast’s view of Camargo

The advent of StatCast provides more data for use in evaluating a player’s hitting. Using Launch angle and exit velocity compared to historical results, it’s possible to predict with a high degree of accuracy whether a ball in play will be a single, double, triple or home run. Add in real world strikeout and walk data to those projections and it’s possible to calculate a player’s expected wOBA or xwOBA  with a high degree of accuracy.

Based on his launch angle and exit velocity, Statcast projects Camargo should have finished with a .261 batting average, 38 points below the .299 recorded. His .337 wOBA also exceeded his projected (xwOBA) of .297 by 40 points. That makes him an extremely luck batter.

Atlanta Braves

Last November Dominikk85 writing for Fangraphs provided a list of the top 10 luckiest and unluckiest hitters last season.  Camargo doesn’t fall into the top ten luckiest players, but of the 329 players who saw 900 pitches he does rank 36th.

Speedy players like Ender Inciarte, Dee Gordon and Jose Altuve almost always land on the lucky list because they beat out hits that would be outs for most players.

Camargo was 15 for 79 on balls hit to the infield,  good for a .199 BA.  His remaining 57 hits in 162 at bats were of the outfield variety and good for a .352 BA.

Conclusions

Hitters improve with experience and certainly this evaluation is based on a small sample size. On the other hand the numbers projected by Statcast were almost exactly the numbers he posted in the minors.  Could he suddenly become Martin Prado? Probably not.

Good hitters will always hit; Prado hit well throughout his short minor league career. When he reached the majors it was more of the same with gradual improvements each year.  Camargo’s minor league numbers lead to projection of him becoming something like a .265/.315/.335 hitter, at least in the short-term.  Those numbers make him a utility man rather than an everyday player.

This afternoon on MLB Network radio, Alex Anthopoulos covered a lot of ground including third base options. His comments indicate that it looks like a battle between Camargo and Ruiz in spring training, but he didn’t rule out adding a veteran either.

That’s A Wrap

I’ve been a fan of Camargo’s glove since he made his debut. His defense makes him a valuable asset for short-term work anywhere on the infield and he always plays the game hard. He’s at his best in short bursts where pitchers can’t zero in on his weaknesses. Conversely, those short bursts also make it hard for him to get his rhythm at the plate.  Perhaps one day he’ll flip the switch and change that.

That’s why the Braves keep probing for an answer at third base. Kemp’s departure leaves the lineup with less pop than last season and the real possibility that both Tyler Flowers and Kurt Suzuki won’t repeat last season’s success; Suzuki came in at number 35 on the luckiest hitter list I mentioned above.

We’ve discussed options here before and this close to spring training it looks like AA is waiting to see who doesn’t have a chair when the music stops. Currently Todd Frazier looks like landing back with the Yankees to back up third and first.

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There’s been surprisingly little interest in Mike Moustakas though the Cardinals, Mets, Phillies and even the Indians (if they could move Jason Kipnis) would be interested for the right price. I doubt that price comes to a level the Braves would consider.

Josh Harrison could be a short-term trade fix as could Eugenio Suarez, Jedd Gyorko (if Moose ends up in St Louis) and of course Martin Prado’s name keeps popping up. At this point all those guys are like us, just waiting for the hammer to fall.