Slam Some Clam, X Man
Last night, the surging Yankees acquired Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte from the Pirates in exchange for four prospects (headlined by enigmatic Jose Tabata). Nady is the big name, thanks to a stellar first half performance that made him one of the better right-handed bats available this summer.
Looking at Nady from afar, we see a 29-year-old having a career year, thanks in large part to a .367 batting average on balls in play, and we see a guy who looks to be a classic fluke. However, there are some real underlying reasons why Nady’s numbers are up significantly so far this year, and they can’t be attributed to bloopers falling in.
Nady is making significantly more contact (16.8% K%, 19.7% career) and better contact (26.5% LD%, 20.9% career) so far this year. When you hit the ball hard and more often, a significant increase in batting average naturally follows. Whether Nady can sustain a 26.5% LD% is questionable, but let’s not confuse his early season performance with luck. He really has hit the tar out of the baseball this year.
Will it continue? Marcel doesn’t think so. Going back to Sal Baxamusa’s Quick-N-Dirty Marcel tool to get an updated projection for Nady for the rest of the year, we see that it thinks he’ll hit .285/.344/.469 to finish out the season. Compare that to the .273/.332/.451 mark it expected from him before the year started, and you see that Marcel has factored in a slight improvement, but overall, thinks Nady’s basically the same hitter he was before the year started.
That isn’t to say a guy who can hit .285/.344/.469 doesn’t have value, especially to a team like the Yankees where worrying about how much he’ll get in arbitration this winter isn’t a big concern. But despite the fact that Nady’s earned his .330 batting average so far this year, he’s simply not a true talent .300 hitter. I’m sure the Yankees know this, though, and they’re not expecting Nady to keep hitting like he is now.
The question is, though, will they be happy if he starts hitting like ’07 Nady again? Because Marcel thinks that’s pretty likely.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Nady is basically an average major league corner outfielder who is significantly underpaid. I doubt the Yankees FO is conflicted about that.
I think Nady’s on a roll, and not just for this year. Before 2007, he had been improving steadily, at about .015 points of batting average per year. He hit .280 in 2006, which would have implied about .295 for 2007 (instead of .278 that he actually hit). But this year, he is hitting well above the extrapolated .310 for 2008. I don’t think he will always be the fifth best hitter in the National League, but I do think that something around .300 is realistic.
I think Nady fills one need the Yankees really have – someone who can hit lefties. The Yanks are 17th in the majors in BA vs. lefties and 18th in OPS. Nady has hit a solid .320/.396/.483 (.879 OPS) vs. lefties in his career, compared to .268/.314/.447 (.760 OPS) vs. righties.
This also solves their outfield problem for next season. They have Damon, Matsui (although at DH), Nady, and obviously Melky under contract for next season. But Abreu’s contract is up and he’s going to want at least two years. I don’t think the Yankees would feel comfortable going more than year-to-year on Abreu– IOW, I think he’s gone.
After 2009, it’s strange in that all of Nady, Damon, and Matsui are all free agents. Austin Jackson should be ready in 2010 after a full season in AAA, but that’s still a lot of potential turnover from one position.
I see the Yanks trading either gardner or jackson this year for pitching. As for Nady, I read an article pre-season about how he was battling nagging injuries the past few yrs and finally was fully healthy–could explain his nice #s so far.
What about the prospects given away by the yanks here? who wins this deal long-term?