The Awkward Outfield(er)

Last offseason, Arizona’s former general manager talked about how the team needed a slugger. The team subsequently traded for Mark Trumbo. Well, year one of the Mark Trumbo era was a failure from both an individual and team perspective. We all know about the D-backs’ struggles by now, and Trumbo, playing in only 87 games due to injury, produced a -1.2 WAR. His offense, defense, and baserunning were all below average. Trumbo’s defense and baserunning have always been pretty terrible, but the offense took a bit of a dive this year. But here’s the issue: even if we assume that Mark Trumbo will match his career-best output in 2015, he’s probably Arizona’s fourth best outfielder.

In order to build my case, I’ll illustrate how A.J. Pollock, Ender Inciarte, and David Peralta are all more valuable than Trumbo. Pollock is clearly the Diamondbacks’ best outfielder. He has consistently played great defense in center field, and his offense improved dramatically this year. Pollock was on pace to be more than a six win player this year. To put that in perspective, consider that Andrew McCutchen produced 6.9 WAR in 145 games. Pollock produced 3.2 WAR in 75 games. Even if the offense does not stay at 2014 levels, A.J. Pollock is a 3-4 win player. Not only is Pollock better than Trumbo – he’s cheaper too, which is always a consideration for the cost-conscious D-backs.

Ender Inciarte provided superb defense and almost average offense as a rookie. There’s reason for optimism too; Ender will be entering his age-24 season in 2015. It would be great to see Inciarte develop as a hitter, but even if he doesn’t, he provided 2.9 WAR in 118 games. Again, just to reiterate, in Mark Trumbo’s best season thus far, he produced 2.5 WAR in 159 games. That’s Trumbo’s ceiling, while this initial showing is quite possibly Ender’s floor. And again, cost considerations make Ender the easy choice.

Along with Pollock and Inciarte, David Peralta should start over Mark Trumbo in 2015. If you just take a cursory glance at the peripherals, this seems like a close call. Peralta only produced 1.2 WAR in his 87-game rookie season, which translates to an annual rate of about 2.3 WAR. And Peralta turned 27 last month. Yet, Peralta might have the most untapped potential out of all of these players. Including his stint in the majors, Peralta has only played 141 games above single-A ball. A full offseason of major league coaching could help him move further in his development. To make things even better, Peralta’s journey makes a great story. Peralta has not been great against left-handed pitching, but Cody Ross is seemingly stuck on the roster, and he can mash lefties, so worst-case scenario they could offer a productive platoon.

So what to do with Mark Trumbo? Trade him, don’t tender him, anything. In many ways, Trumbo represents what the old management loved — veteran players with a particular set of strong peripheral statistics, but an incomplete overall set of tools. Trumbo was even worse than many expected in the outfield. It’s likely that he could add value on an American League team as a designated hitter/first baseman a la Adam Dunn, but as a National League outfielder, I just don’t see it.