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Aledmys Diaz - our SUPER utility player

Taking a look at our new Super Utility Player’s turn around to the season and comparing him to his peers.

By Brian Cohn
Boston Red Sox v Houston Astros Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images

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.

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

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.

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.

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

  1. 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.

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