Abrams has shown the Nats his promise this year, but also has given fans a dose of the current reality. Abrams has the talent to be a star, but a lot of players do (see : Green, Elijah) It takes something more than raw talent to make it and Abrams has yet to translate that.
This year Abrams was one of the better SS in baseball for the first half. A BLISTERING June (.374 / .464 / .663) helped secure an All-Star bid but since then he's been flat out bad. And before you say "well he's been hurt" no he hasn't the entire year and how does that explain a May that was worse than any of the recent bad months? No, it just appears that Abrams could be an extreme streak hitter. When he's hot he's as good as anyone. When he's not he's pretty terrible.
Ok but let's just say that's random luck this year. What if we took the year as a whole, what do we see? In general it's good news. He increased his power. Some of this was hitting balls a little bit harder and a few more in the air. Mostly though it was pulling the ball a lot more. His power is mostly to right center. While doing this did bump up his K-Rate a touch, he also increased his walk rate. With a BABIP almost exactly like last year the read is he's simply a slightly better hitter than last year. Most of the fancy stats agree.
For those of you wanting stardom that's a bit of a disappointment. There was no big step forward, just a half-step shuffle from slightly below average to slightly above. He's still sporting a .240 average. He still doesn't hit the ball that well. He still relies on the legs to get a couple more singles to pump the average or leg out a few more doubles to help the power. He's still young so more improvement is possible but the rate is slow enough that you'd imagine topping out at 26/27 hitting like .250 / .320 / .460 with 28 homers. Perfectly good bat but not one that's carrying the team.
Of course again this is "if the year is taken as a whole" if you prefer to look at April and June as the potential then what did he do there? One thing obvious is his LD% is WAY down. He was hitting like 25% in the first half and under 10% in the second half. He's also pumped up his FB% way higher. He's also not pulling the ball as much. If that's a choice he should mostly stop it. Pulling the ball and hitting his fair share of LD is where he found the most success. Of course counter examples are there. He hit line drives in May, pulled the ball in July. And if you look at April and June why aren't you looking at May, July, August and September? If you accept the highs as possible, you have to accept the lows too. That's why I lean more into "take the season as a whole". Less variable. A prediction is possible other than a shoulder shrug
Injuries? That's probably a better thing to hang your hat on than random hot months. If he were healthy he'd likely be hitting better. If he were hitting better the improvement would be more pronounced. If the improvement was more pronounced you could see a way that he improves like this every year to a star level. If he avoids more injuries.
We're spending a lot of time on the hitting because the fielding and running are cut and dried. He's a fast runner and if the Nats can help him be more judicious with his base stealing he'd be an extremely positive player on the basepaths. His fielding is very bad this year and even in the "take 3 years to get a feel" he's still a bad fielder. Three years in and the obvious answer is CJ Abrams should not be your shortstop. Where does he go? There really isn't room in the OF. 3B is probably the answer (he does have a strong arm) though you'd have to re-train Brady House for SS and hope he's good. But it's a question that's not going to go away. You can work on it. You can get better positioned (maybe - they do a pretty good job of it now) but having this as a starting point is really pretty bad.
Abrams is a player who needs to find his place but the effort should be made. At worst he's likely to be a decent bat without an obvious home. Given the DH issues across the major leagues he could probably land there and be fine. What's wrong with a guy with wheels and a little pop OPS+ing 125 from your DH spot? Nothing. At best he's an All-Star here and there who is manning... somewhere.
The good news is 2024 suggests Abrams is playable for the long haul. The bad news it's not at SS and he's probably more a piece you use to build around someone else than build around him himself. But hey! You need all these types. If you can find a spot where Abrams is like your 4th or 5th best bat you are probably in a really good spot. And if he's a boom/bust player that's fine too. A lot of guys bust who don't have boom potential. You need guys to boom. The fact Abrams could is enough reason to include him in your future plans.
6 comments:
CJ Abrams is a turrible fielder when measured by OAA (-17) or Statcast FRV (-13). He's "meh" by UZR (-0.1; +0.7 UZR/150) and a slight positive when measured by DRS (+2). I don't know enough about the various defensive metrics to account for the wild swings in how they judge Abrams's work. But I do know that I hold my breath a little bit when the ball is hit to him, so there's that.
rank wise he'd be below average in UZR and about average in DRS, a little worse on these than last year
The sense from these numbers are Abrams can make some extraordinary plays (he's got a great arm) but he doesn't make the standard play with as much regularity as the average SS. Since we've had some consistency in the years I'd guess the extraordinary plays aren't necessarily great ranging but arm-based play from current location - if that makes sense. Sets up deep in hole, ball hit to right, most SS can't gun that in but he can. However sets up regular ball hit further to right, most SS get to it just fine, he doesn't
Ehh I doubt we move House back to SS and don’t see anyone else up before 2026 (the earliest King could be up) I think we going Abrams at least one more year at SS and if he looks bad and hopeless then reroute
Moving Abrams off short is too cute by half. And I don't have much confidence that someone so prone to streaky performance wouldn't spiral after a move like that. If you have to take that risk, you do it, but you don't fiddle around with it just to try it out.
Folks forget that not only Abrams is still very young, but he was rushed like crazy through the minors - only 534 total PAs. To give you a sense of how extreme that is: Crews, an uncommonly polished college player, had 608.
It's not crazy that he's still developing on both sides of the ball. I give him at least all of 2025.
I'll also say that even the optimistic version: another half step forward with the bat (mostly shortening his slumps), cleaning up his base-running and getting to a bit below average defense at short -- even if all that happens, he's a 3.5 WAR/600 player. A star, sure, but not one who can really carry a contending team. Harper is 100% right. We need to get to a place where Abrams is our 5th best offensive player. Wood and Crews seem likely to surpass him. The newly signed DH/1B is a third. Garcia, Ruiz and Young all seem pretty damn unlikely, in part because I expect Garcia to regress slightly from here if anything. I guess we can dream on House, but that would be at least a standard deviation above expectation. I'd be much happier signing both a 1B and a DH than hoping on someone internal to rise up and become that 4th big bat.
Cosign all of this.
Why would you expect Garcia to regress slightly from here? He's insanely young who was well regarded as having the tools.
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