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Last night, when Diaz hit the double in the bottom of the 9th, I paused for a second thinking back of his rocky start to the season and how he has endeared himself to fans. I mean, after his first 2 games, he was 0-7 with 3k’s and 2 official errors (Bill pointed out that 4 easily could have been credited to him), causing an initial panic wondering why LOSENOW had not re-signed Marwin. We wrote an article: Aledmys Diaz: Is he really this bad? which has some truly amusing comments to go look back at now.
Get to know one of the newest Astros players, Aledmys Díaz, in this episode of #AstrosAllAcess presented by @StubHub. pic.twitter.com/Ku2lk7uATu
— Houston Astros (@astros) April 12, 2019
After starting the season 0-9 with 4 K’s and some troubles in the field, Diaz has had a remarkable turn around to his season. Since that day, in 99 Plate Appearances?
.307/.343/.557
He has 5 HR, 5 2B, 1 3B with 22 RBI
Aledmys Díaz rips one to left, giving the @Astros a 1-0 lead in Detroit!!!!
— AT&T SportsNet SW (@ATTSportsNetSW) May 13, 2019
Woah! Robinson Chirinos just hit one too!!! You need to be watching the game before you miss another. #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/3DXb9CWSd2
Overall for the season, he’s back up to a more than respectable .278/.315/.505 with a 115 wRC+. His BABIP of .265 for the season is below his career average of .286 and his wOBA (.332) and xwOBA (.331) do not indicate major regression.
Jeff Luhnow on Aledmys Diaz: "He can play short, he can play second, he can play a little bit of left, can play third. This is a guy about as versatile as any of the other guys on our roster."
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) November 17, 2018
“He’s a good hitter and we think he can be better. He’s still coming into his prime.”
Defensively, Diaz has been a good stop-gap while the injury bug has hit the Astros hard. He has played primarily around the infield, not letting up another error since his first 2 games. With 54 innings at 1st, 116 innings at 2nd, 21 innings at SS, 20 innings at 3rd, and 15 innings in left field, he is looking to be the “Swiss army knife” to back fill the huge shoes left by Marwin.
From a base running perspective, Diaz has been a nice surprise currently coming in at the 3rd highest BsR score on the team with 0.5. He currently is sporting the second highest sprint speed on the team at 28.5 fps and a solid 4.26 HP to 1st.
"just enjoy the artistry that is known as Aledmys Díaz..." - @blummer27
— AT&T SportsNet SW (@ATTSportsNetSW) May 25, 2019
A silky-smooth move by Díaz gets the @astros their first run on the board, tune in now to for a match-up of the last two World Series Champions!!! #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/eeJO4FMlB5
Baseball Essential wrote an article about a month ago of the top 15 Utility Players (Aledmys didn’t make the list). Here is the triple slashes and WAR to date of the Top 15 they had listed.
15. Jurickson Profar (Oakland Athletics) - .197/.265/.354 - 66 wRC+ - (-0.4 WAR)
14. Jeff McNeil (New York Mets) - .333/.418/.461 - 143 wRC+ - 1.2 WAR
13. Ias Desmond (Colorado Rockies) - .221/.296/.421 - 73 wRC+ - (-0.2 WAR)
12. Yangervis Solarte (San Francisco Giants) - .205/.247/.315 - 46 wRC+ - (-0.3 WAR)
11. Hernan Perez (Milwaukee Brewers) - .239/.278/.402 - 77 wRC+ - (-0.1 WAR)
10. Adam Frazier (Pittsburg Pirates) - .246/.299/.339 - 73 wRC+ - 0.0 WAR
9. Eduardo Nunez (Boston Red Sox) - .190/.207/.250 - 12 wRC+ - (-0.8 WAR)
8. Ian Happ (Chicago Cubs) - In Minors
7. Charlie Culberson (Atlanta Braves) - .381/.372/.643 - 162 wRC+ - 0.3 WAR
6. Enrique Hernandez (LA Dodgers) - .215/.293/.387 - 83 wRC+ - 0.5 WAR
5. Eduardo Escobar (Arizona Diamondbacks) - .279/.341/.552 - 130 wRC+ - 1.5 WAR
4. Brock Holt (Boston Red Sox) - .063/.211/.063 - (-15 wRC) - 0.0 WAR
3. Ben Zobrist (Chicago Cubs) - .241/.343/.253 - 70 wRC+ - 0.1 WAR
2. Chris Taylor (LA Dodgers) - .224/.300/.376 - 82 wRC+ - 0.3 WAR
- Marwin Gonzalez (Minnesota Twins) - .239/.316/.371 - 85 wRC+ - 0.5 WAR
Diaz is currently tied for 3rd best fWAR on this list.
Diaz, 28, is under control for the Astros until 2023. Having an All-Star playing as our utility man is a luxury not many other teams can claim. Plus he’s already started out well in BTSOOTR:
As fans, we easily get carried away in small sample sizes, but this is a good moment to take a step back and reflect. I’m happy to have Diaz on the team and performing around his career averages. In Luhnow We Trust.