Daylen Lile is hot right now. He's been up almost half a year and is closing in on 300 PA. in that he's hit a solid .282 / .327 / .450 line and it's only been better in the second half .318 / .360 / .523. How excited should you be from a guy that probably entered 2024 the 6th Nationals outfielder to watch on some lists*
He's a legit prospect (2nd round pick) and while is isn't super young he's right in there with Wood and House which is frankly young enough for anyone that isn't a phenom. He seems to ID pitches well and makes great contact hitting a good deal of line drives. He's fast and can get that extra base from the balls he hits. He's good.
He's a mediocre fielder with a weak arm. He doesn't generate a lot of bat speed or barrel up the ball, and doesn't hit a lot of fly balls, so he doesn't generate a lot of "true" power, instead relying on legs for those XB. Despite IDing pitches well he seems impatient late in counts and is not working his way on base like he should. He's not amazing.
I'd be pretty excited for Lile in that it's always good to have as many good players as you can and Lile, seems good. The general track - HS star - legit prospect - solid minor league stats - is what you hope to see from your best prospects. He has all the skills, he seems to be using them. That he isn't a great fielder shouldn't be an issue but with Young not hitting at all and Crews taking a slow path to being a starter, it matters a little. If you ever have to pull Crews from CF you can't just shift him or Wood over.
It's seemingly clear that the power for 30 homers seasons isn't there. It's not his major league level nor really how he hits in general. That was always true but you project out some for kids. He just isn't getting to that projection. But 15-20 seems reasonable and if he's hitting .280+ that's almost good enough.
Really it comes down the the walks. By all accounts his eye is good and in the minors he did take his share of free bases. I'm not exactly sure why he isn't in the majors right now - could be a bunch of things - but the answer is NOT his eye isn't good with major league stuff. It is. So it's a question of choice it seems and if he chooses to be a little more patient and you have a guy getting on base .350+ well then - that's a player.
Half a season is half a season but Lile has the skill set available to him to be a solid major leaguer. The contact bat looks to be there now (but we'll have to see over a full year next year), the speed is there, the eye needs to follow because the glove and power likely won't**. That'll likely be the difference between Lile being a nice 3rd/4th OF type and a solid starter. Of course maybe he'll just hit .320 instead of .280, or and then we don't care about the eye anymore
*lists that didn't read my takes on Elijah Green
**Yeah the power looks ok but legged out triples are a LOT more like doubles imo. I feel a lot of run production stats over count for triples.
19 comments:
Good timing Harper: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-rookie-on-the-rise-daylen-lile-is-raking-in-washington/
Re triples - are you saying that they're inherently fluky and therefore we should be regressing 3B / (2B+3B) pretty heavily when we project true talent going forward?
Or are you arguing that linear weights simply generates an incorrect value for triples, because of some skew in how they're sequenced or something? (For reference, FG's 2025 estimates have a 2B worth ~1.42 singles and a 3B worth 1.79. HRs are worth ~2.30 and walks ~0.82.)
Well one of Lile's triples WAS fluky, it was a flyout to the track in Wrigley that got lost in the sun
The latter but those linear weights are pretty on target for what I think. It's kind of the first level fancy stats that take into account bases - starting with SLG based ones.
A fast runner can leg a single into a double, but nobody can leg a single into a triple. His triples show that he has at least some doubles power.
We love triples
Daylen Lile has triples of the Barracuda and the Roadrunner
I'm glad I checked the comments hahaha
Basically, I've seen enough from Lile that I would like to see the Nats start 2026 with an OF of Wood-Crews-Lile, with Young as OF4 and Hassell in the minors unless they keep him as OF5 (or trade Young).
Lile's been absolutely fantastic at the plate in the second half, but I'm not sure I'm ready to say he's definitely a starter. His BABIP is unsustainable, with all his expected metrics (xAVG, xwOBA, etc) having pretty large differences. Plus, despite his lofty numbers, he's still only accumulated 0.9 WAR on the year due to his really poor defense.
If the hitting continues, he profiles as a 1B/DH candidate...but the Nats already have a guy destined for that with a much higher ceiling (Wood). I like the kid, he plays hard, I just don't know where he fits in the Nats rebuild
Lile is too short for a first baseman. He doesn't really have enough power for a DH, but then, if he can maintain an OPS over .800 who cares. Let's hope that he can improve his defense in the outfield. He's fast, and he's only 22 years old. The metrics that I'm looking at indicate that Wood has improved defensively (I'm not sure I believe that), so maybe Lile can as well.
So what you're telling me then is "he's hitting great and putting up spectacular numbers, and nobody though the was a prospect. So here's why he sucks."
This team has PLENTY of suck on it. My god, can't we even admit one or two guys might be decent?
I think Daylen Lile is a great example of how defense is way overvalued. The fact that Crews and Young have a higher WAR than Lile shows how skewed that stat is to take into account a metric like defense. Where I would call everything beyond the basic box score stuff as “fancy stats”, they are important in player evaluation and performance metrics at the plate. However any fancy stat having having to do with something as fuzzy as “defense” I would call funny stats.
No disrespect but it's amazing to read this the day after Jacob Young single-handedly won the Nats a game with his defense
Well, yes and no. Catching the ball over the fence in the 9th inning -- that's a game winner. Catching the ball with a well-timed leg kick -- not so much, because he kind of misplayed the ball. But, yes: Jacob Young is a gold-glove caliber center fielder. Daylen Lile hits line drives and runs hard and fast -- it's better when he does this around the bases rather than into the wall. If one were to combine their skills, you'd have a perennial all-star.
I love Lile, but "perennial all star" might be pushing it. if you look at his batted ball profile and find comparable players, he profiles the same as Dom Smith, Tommy Edman, and Luis Rengifo, among others. Solid major leaguers, but not exactly all stars. All that points to him being extremely lucky with the BABIP right now, which happens so yeah you take what you can get
I know right?! I’ll take my medicine. Couldn’t help but laugh when I read this. Those catches were insane. Love JY!
Who is Nasim Nuñez?
To be fair to PotomacFan, his comment about "perennial all-star" was if you could combine the skills of JY and Lile. A solid major league hitter who is an elite CF? Yeah, that's a perennial all-star. Lile or JY on their own? Not so much.
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