Nick Swisher
Posted by Andy on January 4, 2008
So with Swisher's trade to the White Sox, the first thing I wanted to check was neutralizing his stats to the 2007 Chicago White Sox:
Year Ag G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB Avg OBP SLG OPS RC ActG +-------+----+-----+----+----+----+---+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+ 2004 23 20 61 11 16 4 0 2 8 9 11 0 .262 .370 .426 .796 9 20 2005 24 131 467 70 114 33 1 22 78 58 110 0 .244 .332 .460 .792 70 131 2006 25 157 564 112 149 25 2 37 101 103 152 1 .264 .385 .512 .897 109 157 2007 26 150 552 94 154 39 1 24 87 109 131 3 .279 .402 .484 .886 106 150 +-------+----+-----+----+----+----+---+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+ Totals 458 1644 287 433 101 4 85 274 279 404 4 .263 .376 .485 .861 294 458
It makes a big difference. He real numbers in 2007 were .262/.381/.455, giving him an .836 OPS. The adjusted numbers above suggest an .886 OPS, a 50-point bump.
Also, according to his splits, he killed the White Sox in 2007, with an OPS over 1.000.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:20 am
This trade is shocking to me, as one of the things I got out of Moneyball was that Billy Beane LOVED Swisher. The Conspiracy Theorist in me has a.......conspiracy theory. In Moneyball it said that Beane's thoughts about Swisher could be misconstruted as thoughts on a baseball ghost: his former Mets Minor League teammate Lenny Dykstra. Dykstra was implicated in the Mitchell Report, and a little bit of me wonders if that had anything to do with this Swisher trade.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Well, don't rely too much on what a book from a few years ago has Beane saying about Swisher (although I certainly had the same initial thought.) A lot has changed since then. Beane may think Swisher has hit his ceiling. Or, with Swisher's good performance, he may feel that the team is better served with prospects than paying Swisher's arbitration-eligible salary over the next few years. Plus, don't forget that Oakland got Chicago's TWO TOP prospects in this deal. If this were the Red Sox dealing Jacoby Ellsbury and Clay Buchholz, or the Yankees dealing Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes, you might not be so shocked. The ChiSox prospects might be lower on the radar but it doesn't mean that they are necessarily less talented.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:24 am
If Swisher stays healthy (getting tired of having to add this every time) & hits 25 HRs & drives in 85 with that .250 / .375 line I like the move for the White Sox. I'm almost always for giving up prospects for proven major league players - & usually get ripped on for that opinion.