The (Not Very Good) Outfield

The Post reports that Frank Robinson is trying to juggle five outfielders in three positions and some of his outfielders--Brad Wilkerson in particular--aren't happy. Let's look at the five candidates.

Player	OBP	SLG	OPS	VORP
Guillen	.345	.505	.850	28.5
Church	.354	.484	.838	16.6
Wilkerson	.354	.418	.772	16.4
Wilson	.337	.409	.746	2.6
Watson	.267	.462	.729	-0.8

The Nationals don't have a premier hitter in their outfield the way the Braves--Andruw Jones--or Marlins--Miguel Cabrera--or a lot of other teams do. One of the first orders of business for the new owner and new GM next year will be to upgrade the outfield.

In any event, there are three clear frontrunners for the three positions--Guillen, Church, and Wilkerson. Wilson is a distant fourth and should be a fourth outfielder. Watson doesn't have enough at bats for a meaningful evaluation, but we continue to believe that he should be playing every day in the minors.

The cause of the problem seems to be Preston Wilson. Although his stats clearly suggest that he should be sitting, Frank Robinson isn't ready to reach that conclusion. Here's what Barry Svrluga reports:

"Statistically, Wilson would seem to be the man who would be left out. Since arriving in a trade with Colorado on July 13, he has struck out 33 times in 92 at-bats, and is hitting .251. Though Robinson earlier in the week hinted Watson would take Wilson's place, he didn't sound inclined to make that move Saturday.

'You're going to get a guy, and in less than a month, you're going to give up on him?' Robinson said, though he conceded that Wilson hasn't made the offense better. 'The numbers speak for themselves.'"

Robinson needs to realize that we have a lot more than a month's worth of data as a basis for this decision. Wilson's road stats while he was in Colorado this year (his home stats would skew the analysis because Coors Field is an extreme hitter's park) were terrible: .280 OBP, .411 SLG, .691 OPS. In other words, there's no reason to believe that his stats as a National are an aberration or reflect a slump. No, Wilson just isn't that good anymore.