Poor Mike Zunino, likeable guy.

[D-train]

Likeable, but on the scrapheap of failing Mariner high first round draft picks...

With Fraleys arrival nearing and the pick up of Broxton, the writing is on the wall for Mallex.

Doesn't look like he is going down without a fight. Thinks he can be a corner. lol

Shannon Drayer
@shannondrayer
·
3m
Mallex Smith in the outfield with Chris Prieto taking all sorts of extra early work as he always does. First in left, now in right.

[bpj]

Likeable, but on the scrapheap of failing Mariner high first round draft picks...

With Fraleys arrival nearing and the pick up of Broxton, the writing is on the wall for Mallex.

Doesn't look like he is going down without a fight. Thinks he can be a corner. lol

Shannon Drayer
@shannondrayer
·
3m
Mallex Smith in the outfield with Chris Prieto taking all sorts of extra early work as he always does. First in left, now in right.

Then he should be in the batting cage, not working on his defense, lol.

[D-train]

With Fraleys arrival nearing and the pick up of Broxton, the writing is on the wall for Mallex.

Doesn't look like he is going down without a fight. Thinks he can be a corner. lol

Shannon Drayer
@shannondrayer
·
3m
Mallex Smith in the outfield with Chris Prieto taking all sorts of extra early work as he always does. First in left, now in right.

Then he should be in the batting cage, not working on his defense, lol.

So just learning the nuances of RF and LF defense won't be enough.

[bpj]

Out of curiosity I checked out how Mallex stacks up against corner outfielders:

His .656 OPS would rank him 53rd of 61 RF with 100 or more plate appearances, just behind none other than Guillermo Heredia.

His OPS would rank him 65th of 71 LF with 100 or more plate appearances just ahead of Keon Broxton, Curtis Granderson and Mac Williamson. At least hes not last, right!?

His WAR will sink like a brick in the corner outfield. Because he's not one..

[Marinerjim11]

Love how a post that began talking about Zunino almost always turns into an anti-Mallex Smith thread.

[Juliooooo]

Love how a post that began talking about Zunino almost always turns into an anti-Mallex Smith thread.

It should be a pro Jake Fraley thread, who is 0-1 tonight, but got a sac fly RBI in the 1st.

[bpj]

Love how a post that began talking about Zunino almost always turns into an anti-Mallex Smith thread.

It should be a pro Jake Fraley thread, who is 0-1 tonight, but got a sac fly RBI in the 1st.

Same thing at this point.

[bpj]

Out of curiosity I checked out how Mallex stacks up against corner outfielders:

His .656 OPS would rank him 53rd of 61 RF with 100 or more plate appearances, just behind none other than Guillermo Heredia.

His OPS would rank him 65th of 71 LF with 100 or more plate appearances just ahead of Keon Broxton, Curtis Granderson and Mac Williamson. At least hes not last, right!?

His WAR will sink like a brick in the corner outfield. Because he's not one..

Mallex has gone from .4 WAR since this conversation took place to .1 WAR.

He's been the player of the game a couple times in that stretch. But guess what? You can't survive in a corner with his game.

Guys like him get eaten alive by positional scarcity. He has to be a lot better player just to not have a negative impact on the team in a power position.

[bpj]

Zunino's been accumulating WAR at a rate similar to Mallex Smith because there are no positions on the field where you get WAR tossed in your lap for having a pulse like CF and C.

.2 WAR in 59 games compared to Mallex's .4 in 88.

Maybe we should play the "but he has positive WAR!" game for Zunino like these guys try to do for Mallex Smith lol.

Mallex Smith now at 95 games, .1 WAR.

7 games later, .3 WAR less than he had.

That's what you call "sinking like a brick".

Meanwhile, Zunino's WAR has gone from .2 WAR to .6 WAR in that same timespan.

Positional scarcity is no joke, and, as I have long contended, WAR is of little to no use in evaluating CF and C relative to other players.

[bpj]

You can look at Mallex Smith's numbers over his last 4 years and see in his BABIP how much the turf helped him.

BABIP / AVG
2016 - Braves
.302 / .238
2017 - Rays
.347 / .270
2018 - Rays
.366 / .296
2019 - Mariners
.307 / .232

Same dude, different playing surface. Turf mirage. Dipoto just needs to cut his losses on Mallex.