After getting two hits in Game 1 of a double header today, Mayer hit a HR in the first inning of Game 2. His OPS is now at 833. Dude is on an absolute tear the past week or so.
He's a pitch to contact guy (71% GB rate last night) that is better when limiting walks than striking guys out. I can see how it would come across as pedestrian at times. The first inning was rough. He put two on in the 5th. He ultimately was able to stay away from the big inning, which he was unable to do last year many times.
But what's the $ value of bWAR vs fWAR? And why is his bWAR from last year almost 2 wins higher than over on FanGraphs?
I don't want to go down this crooked path today. 🤧
Why the discrepancy?
Catchers don't get OAA, so Narvaez's 6 DRS isn't counted (leads the league). Abreu has 5 DRS and 0 OAA (arm isn't factored into OAA calculation for OFers). Bregman has 2 DRS and -2 OAA.
I don't think any of the defensive measurements are perfect, but they are all we have right now.
He was 0.9 last season in 152 games. He won't play 160 this year either and projecting him off a small sample size seems silly at this point. The fWAR calc doesn't project out like that. In his career, 202 G, 1.4 fWAR. That's all we can go by. If you want to extrapolate those career numbers out to per 160, it gets you to 1.1 fWAR.
Regardless of injury, I think Mayer should stay down through June. I think 3 months of AAA is enough. I'd consider calling him up and just not have him start every day. Do they need Hamilton AND Mayer? Mayer can play 2B/SS/3B. The only difference is that he's not a great pinch runner. I'm not sure that really matters for most of the season TBH.
No players are untouchable, but there isn't a real world return that would be worth it to trade Anthony. I don't believe PITT is going to send Skenes to BOS. There's theoretically a package that could make sense for Skenes to not be untouchable to PITT. I feel similar for Mayer at this moment. If Story goes down (likelihood is still high), they don't have any other SS's anywhere close to MLB ready. Arias is in Low A still. If the Sox are realistically trying to compete this season, they can't just get rid of their depth at a very important defensive position like that when there's been a lot of volatility at that spot in recent years.