Yesterday's Abraham Nunez signing would not be a bad one if it were a spring training minor league invite or even a cheap one year deal. However, for the next two years the Phillies are going to pay over $3M to Nunez in reaction to three months of his 9 year career. Check out this comparison:
| BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | AB | K | BB | |
| pre 2005 | 0.238 | 0.306 | 0.316 | 0.622 | 1489 | 278 | 142 |
| 2005 - Part 1 | 0.240 | 0.289 | 0.275 | 0.564 | 225 | 41 | 15 |
| 2005 - Part 2 | 0.337 | 0.404 | 0.459 | 0.863 | 196 | 22 | 22 |
Obviously, the pre-2005 row includes Nunez's stats before this past year. The 2005 Part 1 row, very similar to the pre-2005 row, shows his combined stats for April through May 1 of this year and August 1 through the end of the year. The 2005 Part 2 row shows his stats from May 2 through July 31.
So, basically, for about 200 at-bats over three months in the middle of 2005 he produced at an .863 OPS clip and had a great batting eye. However, for the 1700 at-bats and 8.5 years that constitute the rest of his career, including the rest of 2005, he has been a terrible hitter, batting around .240, getting on base only about 30% of the time (with an awful batting eye), and slugging a terrible .300.
Clearly, this is not production you reward with more than three million guaranteed dollars over two years.
[editor's note, by Alex Falzone]So much for the platoon split. Here's a table for Nunez's 2005 splits, both post All-Star Break and vs. righties and lefties. (n.b. I had to add this here because the comment field wouldn't take my table.)
| Split | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | AB | BB | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 - whole season | .285 | .343 | .361 | .704 | 421 | 37 | 63 |
| 2005 - vs. RHP | .277 | .331 | .354 | .685 | 347 | 28 | 54 |
| 2005 - vs. LHP | .324 | .398 | .392 | .790 | 74 | 9 | 9 |
| 2005 - post AS Break | .278 | .335 | .335 | .670 | 248 | 21 | 45 |
| 2005 - post AS Break vs. RHP | .266 | .318 | .332 | .650 | 199 | 15 | 40 |
| 2005 - post AS Break vs. LHP | .327 | .400 | .347 | .747 | 49 | 6 | 5 |
Update [2005-11-30 13:39:34 by Alex Falzone]:Here's the good news though. From 2002-2004, which is as far back as I could find splits for, he fared better against RHP's than against LHP's.
| Split | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | AB | BB | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002-2004 | .263 | .318 | .351 | .669 | 914 | 73 | 152 |
| 2002-2004 vs. RHP | .265 | .314 | .361 | .675 | 778 | 56 | 129 |
| 2002-2004 vs. LHP | .250 | .340 | .294 | .634 | 136 | 17 | 23 |
So maybe it's not as bad as it looks. Of course, a .650-.700 OPS guy with no power isn't what most of us phans were hoping for as a platoon with Bell. But if he is going to spell Bell against RHP's, at least he has more power batting RH than he does batting LH, although his BB/K rate is substantially higher batting LH.