Is There Something I Should Know? How good will Jarren Duran be going forward?

[BringBackMo]

An interesting subplot to this offseason is how SOSH, to say nothing of the Red Sox front office, views Jarren Duran. There’s a robust discussion across multiple threads about whether Duran’s 2024 represented a career year, and if it did, whether the Sox should trade him now, when his value appears to be at an all-time high.

The Sox seem to be reluctant to trade Duran. But should they be? Depending on your favored WAR source, in 2024 he either tripled or quadrupled his production 2023. His defense similarly showed dramatic improvement, according just about every available metric. (His outs above average, for instance, rocketed from 0 in 2023 to 11 in 2024, good for 25th in baseball.) He finished 8th in MVP voting in 2024, including one fourth-place vote.

So, is all of this the natural progression of a talented player from his age 26 to age 27 seasons? Or is it an unsustainable spike that screams “career year”?

For context, here are some key stats, via FanGraphs, from Duran’s 2023 and 2024 seasons:

2023
102 games and 362 plate appearances
2.5 WAR and 120 WRC+
.295/.346/.482 .381 BABIP
8 HR, 24 SB, 34 doubles, 2 triples

2024
160 games and 671 plate appearances (which led the American League)
6.7 WAR and 129 WRC+
.285/.342/.492 .345 BABIP
21 HR, 34 SB, 48 doubles (led league), 14 triples (led league)

Duran is entering his age 28 season and has four years of control left. After earning $760k in 2024, he will earn $4.1 million this season in his first year of arbitration eligibility, according to Spotrac.

So what do you expect from Jarren Duran going forward? And do you think the Red Sox should trade him now or hold onto him?

 

[BringBackMo]

I'm in the New Religion camp. When you dig into the numbers, I think the main differences between Duran’s 2023 and 2024 numbers are plate appearances and defensive improvement, with a bit more power.

His .295/.346/.482 line in 2023 is fairly similar to the .285/.342/.492 he put up this year, even as his BABIP dipped from .381 to .345. He had 8 home runs in 362 plate appearances in 2023, so for a full season in 2024 maybe we’d have predicted 14 or 15 home runs. Instead, we got 21. We also saw a slight reduction in his rate of doubles, which could reflect trading some of them for homers, but could also be a reflection of some of those expected doubles being stretched into triples.

All in all, he’s now shown over more than 1,000 plate appearances that he can hit in the neighborhood of .290/.345/.485 and steal around 30 bases while manning center field. To me, the remaining questions are just how good we can expect him to be in center, and whether he’ll hit 20 to 25 homers a year, or more like 15.

I personally believe that Duran longs for greatness. That doesn’t mean he’ll achieve it, of course, but when you look at how far he’s come from what he was when he was drafted, and what he’s been willing to do in terms of overhauling his entire game, I’m betting on him never feeling satisfied. I think he’ll continue to challenge himself, and to wring every bit of performance he can from his skillset. He’s also on a ridiculously cheap contract.

For all of these reasons, I hope the Sox will hold on to him, and will look for other ways to address the coming logjam in the outfield, and to acquire pitching or catching.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

FWIW, Steamer projects 263/325/444 and a big drop in defensive and base running value, to a total protection of 3.0 fWAR. It’s interesting that he had such a great year last year and yet nobody seems to be talking about him…hope he uses that as further motivation, seems like a guy who has thrived when having a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

 

[scottyno]

FWIW, Steamer projects 263/325/444 and a big drop in defensive and base running value, to a total protection of 3.0 fWAR. It’s interesting that he had such a great year last year and yet nobody seems to be talking about him…hope he uses that as further motivation, seems like a guy who has thrived when having a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

They have his defense dropping back to near 2023 numbers when he was terrible, which makes no sense for me. And his offense dropping to worse than 2023 numbers which also doesn't make a lot of sense since his 2023 and 2024 were pretty similar offensively.

I would expect similar offense to 2023-24 and at worst average defense, which is probably somewhere between the top 2 choices

 

[simplicio]

I'm between 2 and 3 here but I'll give him the 2 upside for the coming season. Before this season I said they should trade him because too much of his value is tied up in his legs and subject to a steep decline with age, and I'm sticking to that. The defense was unexpected and certainly raises his floor, but if some other team values him as likely to keep repeating this year I'd move on in a heartbeat. He's a platoon bat and probably should sit more so he doesn't completely wear out and spend his Septembers as a negative asset.

I think we'll likely be very ready to move on by his last year of control.

 

[Ale Xander]

Friends of mine, you know that I’ve been notoriously wrong on things before. But my reflex answer and matter of feeling is that this baserunning wild boy will be hungry like a wolf to put up more years like this past one. His skills will not come undone and he will not become invisible. Save a prayer that he will put these future great years as a Red Sox.

 

[iddoc]

Please please tell me now!

Anyway, I voted #2, and I think #1 would be a defensible choice. Last year I shared the concern that some of the progress with his hitting was BABIP luck, but he improved his underlying metrics and achieved similar bottom-line results, with less BABIP luck, stretched out over 160 games. Hopefully the September fade was just fatigue.

The improvement on defense was remarkable and surprising, but it seems unfair to attribute the progress to luck.

 

[Cassvt2023]

Friends of mine, you know that I’ve been notoriously wrong on things before. But my reflex answer and matter of feeling is that this baserunning wild boy will be hungry like a wolf to put up more years like this past one. His skills will not come undone and he will not become invisible. Save a prayer that he will put these future great years as a Red Sox.

This is gold.

 

[mauf]

Fangraphs projects Duran to be a 3-win player in 2025, which will be his age 28 season. Assuming mild age-related decline after that, “Ordinary World” sounds closest to right, so that’s how I voted. That’s too pessimistic if you think Duran is now an elite defender in center field — I’m not sure what to think about that.

 

[YTF]

I voted "Someone Else", but I think there is space between that and "New Religion". There's never been an indicator that he would be THAT good in the field and at the plate so I think he may regress a bit, but I feel his elite speed has become such a huge asset in all aspects of his game and until he begins to slow down I see no reason for him not to be an impactful player.

 

[Margo McCready]

I think Duran settles in as a consistently excellent player. His 2024 could well be unrepeatable but that batting line didn’t exactly come out of nowhere following up his ‘23. I also think the fielding is for real. It’s not like he started flashing physical tools he hadn’t already possessed. It looked (admittedly anecdotally) to me like he figured out the mental aspects of playing the outfield, like anticipating good jumps, taking better routes, and knowing where to throw the ball. I don’t expect him to suddenly forget how to do those things. Like another poster mentioned, he does seem to have a burning desire to be great with his dedication to peak fitness and extreme hustle on the field. Who knows, maybe he’s busting his ass figuring out LHP in a cage somewhere as we speak. But… baseball is hard. He may not repeat 2024 but he doesn’t have to, he’ll remain an excellent player for us for several more seasons.

Let’s just hope he keeps cool and doesn’t lash out wish anything stupid again. Then there’ll be countless people positioning to be The Chauffeur that escorts him out of town.

 

[Fishy1]

I voted someone else, but I think he's got a good chance of repeating last year, actually. Duran's last 262 game and 1100 plate appearances are a good baseline, considering his first two seasons were basically lost to anxiety and a maladjustive period where he had no idea what the fuck he wa doing in the outfield.



Now in 2023 he was still kind of a weak outfielder, and last year he made a huge leap. He's taking better routes in the outfield, and he's a huge plus out there. And the baserunning isn't going to get mysteriously worse in his age 28 season -- maybe when he's 31 or 32, yeah, but not now. So I think the most likely scenario next year is yeah, another season of between 4.5-6.5 "wins."

Also... we really need to stop relying on these Fangraphs projections as a board. Look at the projections versus the career line. Notice anything?




Fangraphs relies heavily on the career line with a player who has as limited of a sample as Duran does, and doesn't weight most recent performance more highly in the case of a player like Duran because the career is so short. It doesn't account for improvements in skills, so his projections are basically right in line with his career line.

It's also projecting a comically massive decline in his baserunning and defensive value for no reason whatsoever, even though Duran managed to be worth 2.1 bsr in only 58 games in 2022 and was worth 7+ in each of the last couple years.

The projections are not the result of some super advanced algorithm that incorporates batted ball data or player's speed or improvements in their route-taking. It's lazy analysis to parrot them. They're like the Farmer's Almanac or a tarot reading as far as I'm concerned. A fine place to start, but not really all that valuable.

Could Duran forget how to play the outfield, lose his batting eye and patience and contact skill, and become horrible at baserunning all of a sudden? I guess so. But I don't think that's gonna happen till he's 33 or 34 or even older. Good athletes like him tend to age better, not worse.

 

[BaseballJones]

No real reason to think that this coming year, Jarren Duran won't be a very, very good baseball player.

2023 - 2.1 bWAR over 102 games = 48.6 games per WAR, which comes to 3.3 bWAR over 160 games (the number he played in 2024)

A 3.3 bWAR player would have been 9th in all MLB in 2024 for centerfielders. So not an all-star level player, but pretty close. That's if he just repeated his 2023 season but over a full season of games.

The improvements were real. He hit about the same. Look at these two years' slash lines:

2023: .295/.346/.482/.828
2024: .285/.342/.492/.834

Same hitter. The improvements, then, were on the base paths and in the field. His RF/9 improved considerably. His dWAR went from -0.5 to +2.5. On the base paths, this was his improvement:

2023: 24 stolen bases, 18 bases taken = 42 total bases taken
2024: 34 stolen bases, 31 bases taken = 65 total bases taken

That's like turning 23 singles into doubles. Massive improvement, even with adding a few extra outs on the base paths (5 CS and 6 OOB).

In a few years I expect to see a decline in his baserunning, but not yet. He's still plenty young enough to run the bases well and get a bunch of extra bases over the course of a season. And his fielding should be similar - seems like he's figured some things out in that area. Since his hitting seems to be pretty normalized now at the level he's at, I expect to see him be roughly the same player in 2025 as he was in 2024, barring some really bad luck. I'd expect his bWAR number to drop some, but not a ton. From 8.7 in 2024 to maybe 7.0 in 2025. A drop, yes, but nothing precipitous. 7.0 bWAR, by the way, would have put him 8th in all MLB among position players, so that's still pretty damned good.

 

[tbrown_01923]

I like him as a 4 war-as guy as long as his legs hold out. Still need to see more of his defense and hitting given how poor that was in his early days in the bigs

 

[GreenMonsterVsGodzilla]

Friends of mine, you know that I’ve been notoriously wrong on things before. But my reflex answer and matter of feeling is that this baserunning wild boy will be hungry like a wolf to put up more years like this past one. His skills will not come undone and he will not become invisible. Save a prayer that he will put these future great years as a Red Sox.

I don’t think I knew that more than one of these were Duran Duran. Who says you don’t learn things on SOSH?

 

[Sandy Leon Trotsky]

I’m optimistic but I do really worry about how he closes out the season. He looked worst in those final 6 weeks than he did in his worst stretches of’23.
I think most here believe it was due to his playing 160 games at full blast- I hope that’s just it but I can’t shake that his ‘24 will be a crazy outlier. I did vote- borderline AS on a regular basis, I’d guess for 4 more seasons…. So I’m hopeful but guarded.

 

[YTF]

I’m optimistic but I do really worry about how he closes out the season. He looked worst in those final 6 weeks than he did in his worst stretches of’23.
I think most here believe it was due to his playing 160 games at full blast- I hope that’s just it but I can’t shake that his ‘24 will be a crazy outlier. I did vote- borderline AS on a regular basis, I’d guess for 4 more seasons…. So I’m hopeful but guarded.

He took a lot of well deserved heat for a comment that he made on August 11th. I wonder if that didn't contribute to the first few weeks of that slide.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

I'm not saying he'll necessarily give back all that defensive value but the 2024 metrics suddenly making such a leap makes me wonder why everyone is so sure that isn't an obvious anomaly? From a value-measuring number that is noted for its variability from season to season.

Isn't it likely his defensive value is closer to his pre-2024 numbers than the huge crest there last year?

I don't really have a strong opinion of what he is defensively either way, but I do wonder why I keep seeing assurances that that 2025 projection on his defense is clearly flawed for that reason.

 

[MFYankees]

FWIW, Steamer projects 263/325/444 and a big drop in defensive and base running value, to a total protection of 3.0 fWAR. It’s interesting that he had such a great year last year and yet nobody seems to be talking about him…hope he uses that as further motivation, seems like a guy who has thrived when having a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

Let's see more "Fuck 'em!!"

 

[OCD SS]

I'm not saying he'll necessarily give back all that defensive value but the 2024 metrics suddenly making such a leap makes me wonder why everyone is so sure that isn't an obvious anomaly? From a value-measuring number that is noted for its variability from season to season.

Isn't it likely his defensive value is closer to his pre-2024 numbers than the huge crest there last year?

I don't really have a strong opinion of what he is defensively either way, but I do wonder why I keep seeing assurances that that 2025 projection on his defense is clearly flawed for that reason.

Because it's what we'd rather hear.

The truth is that Defense, and I think base-running to a lesser degree, can be highly variable year to year, and as such they're heavily regressed in a simple model like this one. We can build a narrative around why he improved and think the model is wrong, and inflate the player's performance accordingly, because of course the improvement is real. The thing is, it always looks real, because that's the strength of the narrative. That's the value in letting the model just ignore it and instead "see" that players with large spikes in performance often regress (and he's actually at an age where these skills start going), and just bake that into it's prediction; it can't be fooled by the narrative because it isn't looking at it.

I don't know if there's an archive for these numbers, but I'd be very curious to know what was projected for Ellsbury at this time for 2012, when he was going to be 28...

 

[simplicio]

I don't know if there's an archive for these numbers, but I'd be very curious to know what was projected for Ellsbury at this time for 2012, when he was going to be 28...

Fangraphs CF power ranking projection for 2012:


They gave a health caveat but didn't exactly project him dislocating his shoulder on a slide in April.

 

[OCD SS]

Man, they never do...

Still, that line isn't far off what he wound up doing in 2013.

 

[billy ashley]

The leap in defensive ability is even more shocking than the hitting. He had a real nice track record offensively in the minors. There were always questions about his ability to play the field (he was drafted as a 2B out of college).

I think given the work he's done, and the success he had last year, we can expect the gains to be held defensively. I expect a little less power but an above average hit tool with greet wheels. He's a good player.

Don't think he's a superstar, more than happy to be wrong, though

 

[Saints Rest]

It’s not a perfect comp but age 26&27 Duran looks quite a bit similar to age 25&26 Johnny Damon in many ways. Now Damon had a much longer track record getting there but OTOH he never had a single season as good as Duran last year.

 

[scottyno]

I'm not saying he'll necessarily give back all that defensive value but the 2024 metrics suddenly making such a leap makes me wonder why everyone is so sure that isn't an obvious anomaly? From a value-measuring number that is noted for its variability from season to season.

Isn't it likely his defensive value is closer to his pre-2024 numbers than the huge crest there last year?

I don't really have a strong opinion of what he is defensively either way, but I do wonder why I keep seeing assurances that that 2025 projection on his defense is clearly flawed for that reason.

Because we know he worked a lot on his defense between 2023 and 2024, so even if he does regress his true talent is almost certainly no longer "terrible defensive outfielder" which it was in 2023 and prior.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Because we know he worked a lot on his defense between 2023 and 2024, so even if he does regress his true talent is almost certainly no longer "terrible defensive outfielder" which it was in 2023 and prior.

Oh. He worked on his defense.

 

[Sille Skrub]

Let’s just hope he keeps cool and doesn’t lash out wish anything stupid again. Then there’ll be countless people positioning to be The Chauffeur that escorts him out of town.

This would be a win in itself. Same will go for Chapman.

 

[lexrageorge]

I said Someone Else. He is unlikely to have another 8.7 bWAR season in 2025, or again in the future. 2024 seems like a classic "career year" where everything just came up heads.

However, I also don't see a marked decline happening at age 28. Defensive WAR/UZR metrics are inherently noisy and unreliable, so his d-WAR will likely fall off "just because". However, his improvement in 2024 was real and it will probably be a couple of years at least before his legs start failing him. So, a very good player who will be in All Star consideration for a couple of years, with a floor of being an ordinary, everyday MLB outfielder.

 

[Fishy1]

@JohntheBaptist I feel like people are presenting some pretty reasonable arguments which you're dismissing out of hand.

Duran came to playing in the outfield very late and was a second basemen until 2019 or so. When he started there he was not a natural at it. So much so that SoxProspects had him as a fringe defender when he graduated because of the horrible routes he was taking. The word was out there.

The eye test consensus, I thought, was that he looked a lot better this year. Fewer bad routes, virtually no gaffes, and a number of eye popping plays. And the advanced stats match up with the eye test. You can be skeptical, and that's fair, but the narrative, as you've called it, is not unfounded. It's backed up by the data, and the eye test or the narrative or whatever you want to call and the data is all coming together.

 

[Margo McCready]

Again, anecdotal here but it seemed to me Duran drastically improved on plays going back to and up against the wall. He seemed to have a lot of trouble with that earlier in his career. It’s especially encouraging to see that growth in his game in spite of the fact that type of play led to the turf toe injury that ended his 2023 season.

(Also, Will Middlebrooks, please no with the Hawk Harrelson impersonation.)
View: https://youtu.be/l7ZFjg-gnpg?si=SAY78zUSTr4zaU61

 

[nvalvo]

A decent portion of his WAR is downstream from whether he gets playing time in CF or LF, right? It’s a ten run difference across a season’s playing time. So that depends on what Rafaela’s role is and whether we bring in a slugging corner outfielder, where Anthony plays, etc.

That he has shown he can be good in CF is huge for this team going forward, though.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

@JohntheBaptist I feel like people are presenting some pretty reasonable arguments which you're dismissing out of hand.

I just responded to one? "He worked on his defense" doesn't seem convincing to me, guys with bad numbers work on their defense all the time and don't go from atrocious to league-best. "He worked on his defense" isn't really a reasonable argument for that I don't think.

I genuinely don't have a dog in the fight, it just struck me as odd that an obvious outlier was being relied on going forward more than I was used to seeing here. I thought he looked improved out there in '24 for sure too. But fielding metrics are known to produce outlier seasons in my recollection, and that feels like one to me. Much of Duran's elite value number in '24 comes from a rating on defense that feels like it could be an outlier; I could certainly be wrong, and was wondering why some felt confident banking on it. We'll see though. I certainly don't think he's a liability or anything.

 

[jacklamabe65]

Duran's performance this year reminded me very much of Jacoby Ellsbury's in 2013. There were flashes afterward, but nothing like 2013 for Jacoby going forward.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Duran's performance this year reminded me very much of Jacoby Ellsbury's in 2013. There were flashes afterward, but nothing like 2013 for Jacoby going forward.

I think you mean 2011 when he posted an 8.3 WAR, was the runner up for league MVP, made his only All Star appearance, and was about the only bright spot in that final disastrous month. His second best season was 2013 (5.3 WAR), but it did not reach the heights of 2011 (happier ending for the team though). And I agree. The parallels for Duran's 2024 and Ellsbury's 2011 (both age 27 seasons) are pretty remarkable.

 

[burstnbloom]

Oh. He worked on his defense.

OK I laughed.

Statcast defense is notoriously volatile, so I think its unlikely to expect him to be a 90th percentile defender going forward. That said, even with his bad prior numbers, he always had fantastic reaction numbers and was throttled down by his iffy reads. It's reasonable to expect that he can meaningfully improve his defensive impact when he has the physical tools and measurable impact of an elite fielder, but made iffy decisions with his head. I think he's likely at least an average defender going forward if he's healthy. If he is who he was last year, long term, he's going to be one of the best players in the league perennially until his body breaks down in a few years.

I do think his offense is his offense. There's no real reason to believe that wasn't a significant and real improvement year over year when you look under the hood.

 

[jacklamabe65]

I think you mean 2011 when he posted an 8.3 WAR, was the runner up for league MVP, made his only All Star appearance, and was about the only bright spot in that final disastrous month. His second best season was 2013 (5.3 WAR), but it did not reach the heights of 2011 (happier ending for the team though). And I agree. The parallels for Duran's 2024 and Ellsbury's 2011 (both age 27 seasons) are pretty remarkable.

Yes, of course. 2011. Thank you.

 

[simplicio]

A decent portion of his WAR is downstream from whether he gets playing time in CF or LF, right? It’s a ten run difference across a season’s playing time. So that depends on what Rafaela’s role is and whether we bring in a slugging corner outfielder, where Anthony plays, etc.

That he has shown he can be good in CF is huge for this team going forward, though.

This is a really good point, and while he was still very good in left it looks like Fenway limiting his range there had a real impact.
LF: 611 innings, 6 DRS, -0.1 UZR, 3 OAA, 3 FRV
CF: 810 innings, 17 DRS, 5.2 UZR, 7 OAA, 9 FRV

 

[Cassvt2023]

This is a really good point, and while he was still very good in left it looks like Fenway limiting his range there had a real impact.
LF: 611 innings, 6 DRS, -0.1 UZR, 3 OAA, 3 FRV
CF: 810 innings, 17 DRS, 5.2 UZR, 7 OAA, 9 FRV

It is a good point. However the eye test when you watch the games tells me that the best defensive alignment the Sox can put out there was and is Duran in LF, Rafaela in CF and Abreu in RF. I'm very curious to see What Anthony and possibly Campbell will look like out there and where they would fit the best. (If Campbell isn't at 2B or spelling Devers at 3B)

 

[Fishy1]

I don't get the Ellsbury comparisons. I mean, I sort of get them. But Ellsbury's prime was cut short because he kept getting injured. He fractured four of his ribs in 2010 and subluxed his shoulder in 2011, and surrounded those years with 4-8 win seasons. If Duran becomes plagued by injuries, then sure, yeah, he probably won't come close to repeating last year.

Obviously the one year power surge was bizarre, but Duran has always had some pop in his game. He hit 18 homers in 2022 in just 400 PA.

Ultimately I'm agnostic whether Duran will repeat last year. I just like his chances more than some.

 

[simplicio]

It is a good point. However the eye test when you watch the games tells me that the best defensive alignment the Sox can put out there was and is Duran in LF, Rafaela in CF and Abreu in RF. I'm very curious to see What Anthony and possibly Campbell will look like out there and where they would fit the best. (If Campbell isn't at 2B or spelling Devers at 3B)

If everyone performs according to their upside (and our hopes) I think the ideal future alignment is Campbell/Duran/Anthony with Grissom at 2B and Rafaela UT.

 

[Fishy1]

If everyone performs according to their upside (and our hopes) I think the ideal future alignment is Campbell/Duran/Anthony with Grissom at 2B and Rafaela UT.

Campbell is supposed to the better athlete. I'm not sure why we would park him in left field when Grissom has struggled in the infield.

I've said this elsewhere but I think if anyone is destined for the outfield it's Grissom.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Statcast defense is notoriously volatile, so I think its unlikely to expect him to be a 90th percentile defender going forward. That said, even with his bad prior numbers, he always had fantastic reaction numbers and was throttled down by his iffy reads. It's reasonable to expect that he can meaningfully improve his defensive impact when he has the physical tools and measurable impact of an elite fielder, but made iffy decisions with his head. I think he's likely at least an average defender going forward if he's healthy. If he is who he was last year, long term, he's going to be one of the best players in the league perennially until his body breaks down in a few years.

This is really good, thank you. It makes leaning toward buying-in on the 2024 defensive number leap make more sense to me, so I appreciate it.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

I went with door #2. Offensively, he put up very similar lines in 2023 and 2024, with an .828 and .834 OPS respectively. His defense was drastically improved and he played an additional 60 games however. Do I think he’s going to put up more 8 bWAR seasons, no, I don’t.

But I feel pretty confident he’s going to be something around a 4.5 bWAR on balance player for his 28, 29, 30 and 31 seasons, which are the years the Red Sox control him.

No way I’d be looking to extend him, based on those ages. The flip side of that is there is really no chance I’d be open to moving him either. With the exception of Devers, the rest of the line up (minimum 1 MLB at bat) is too limited to reasonably project to a 4.5 WAR player. Maybe Rafaela could get there, but all the rest of Wong, Casas, Grissom, Hamilton, Story, Abreu, Yoshida and whatever else are decent bets to not suck, but only Casas and Abreu reasonably look like even 3.5 win players.

The team has a high floor, but a very limited ceiling (again, minimum 1 MLB version). As such, Duran is a guy that won’t reproduce what he did last year, but I’d is almost certain to be one of the 3 or 4 most productive players on the roster the next 4 seasons.

 

[8slim]

Man, this is why I've grown to loathe WAR. Much of this conversation seems to be about the dramatic change in that metric, and what caused it. A conversation about one metric with all manner of esoteric things that go into its calculation.

I guess I'm just a luddite but I see a guy who had a solid 2023 offensively, then doubled his plate appearances and maintained his BA/OBP/SLG. Also upped his power a bit.

Seems like a guy who should be a plus player for at least a few more years. I want him on the Sox, he'll help them win games.

 

[Big Papi's Mango Salsa]

Man, this is why I've grown to loathe WAR. Much of this conversation seems to be about the dramatic change in that metric, and what caused it. A conversation about one metric with all manner of esoteric things that go into its calculation.

I guess I'm just a luddite but I see a guy who had a solid 2023 offensively, then doubled his plate appearances and maintained his BA/OBP/SLG. Also upped his power a bit.

Seems like a guy who should be a plus player for at least a few more years. I want him on the Sox, he'll help them win games.

I have too, but truth be told, things have shifted so drastically toward analytics in sports that I think it’s gotten silly in a lot of ways. But that is a different topic and different discussion.

To the point of Duran, however, I think the ”theoretical“ baseball supports the ”real“ baseball, or vice versa. Offensively, Duran put up the same general rate stats. That is a heck of a lot more valuable when done over a full season as opposed to about 60% of one. He also did that while improving defensively quite dramatically (to the eye test), and he does it at a premium defensive position.

Duran is also one of the few players on the team that have some elite skills, while not really being useless at anything and even though he’s “not as good” against same handed pitching, a .320OBP there isn’t so bad as to suppress his overall value.

The Red Sox have a lot of “alright” players, but the bottom line is they really only have 3 players in the lineup that can be useful no matter who is on the mound (Devers, Casas, Duran), and of that, one of those should assuredly be a DH but he can’t be on the present team.

So, in layman’s terms.

I find it highly unlikely Duran is one of the top 10 players in the game again. But I find it very likely he’s inside the top 40 position players in the game (what an all star “should” be if not for the stupid rule about representing each team). Devers probably is too.

The rest of the roster is comprised of a lot of good players, but there are 330 position players in the game (13x30, taking out the 60 catchers), of which 240 are ”starters”. I think the Red Sox have a lot of guys in the what I’ll call the 220-240 range, but very few that are in or really reasonably project to the top 150. And of course a major issue is a lot of those share the same flaw (inability to hit same handed pitching).


So Duran will almost certainly not replicate what he did last year. Even at about half of what he did last year, he’s still easily one of the top 2 players on the team, and nobody else with an MLB at bat is all that close or has much of a reasonable chance of catching him.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Man, this is why I've grown to loathe WAR. Much of this conversation seems to be about the dramatic change in that metric, and what caused it. A conversation about one metric with all manner of esoteric things that go into its calculation.

I guess I'm just a luddite but I see a guy who had a solid 2023 offensively, then doubled his plate appearances and maintained his BA/OBP/SLG. Also upped his power a bit.

Seems like a guy who should be a plus player for at least a few more years. I want him on the Sox, he'll help them win games.

I don't really like WAR either, nor how its used, for many of the reasons you state here and for reasons I figured my question would seem to imply.

He experienced, to me, a suspicious leap in ostensible value coming from one number that has turned the perception of him, via overuse of said stat, into an MVP level player in 2024. The assumption that that suspicious number was real and would continue felt like a good place to challenge the usage. Few people pointed out some tangible things that may have happened. I too think he's a plus player and want him on the team, although I have wondered if there was some value inflation in how his defense is now perceived that could maybe make the team better in a deal.

 

[tbrown_01923]

I find it highly unlikely Duran is one of the top 10 players in the game again. But I find it very likely he’s inside the top 40 position players in the game (what an all star “should” be if not for the stupid rule about representing each team). Devers probably is too.

100% agree with this. Exactly where I am at

 

[BaseballJones]

I don't really like WAR either, nor how its used, for many of the reasons you state here and for reasons I figured my question would seem to imply.

He experienced, to me, a suspicious leap in ostensible value coming from one number that has turned the perception of him, via overuse of said stat, into an MVP level player in 2024. The assumption that that suspicious number was real and would continue felt like a good place to challenge the usage. Few people pointed out some tangible things that may have happened. I too think he's a plus player and want him on the team, although I have wondered if there was some value inflation in how his defense is now perceived that could maybe make the team better in a deal.

Forget WAR then. He hit for solid average and good power. He stole a ton of bases and consistently took extra bases on singles, doubles, and outs. He made a ton of plays in the field. He hit a ton of doubles and triples. His basic, old school stats were excellent and the "eye test" backed that up.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Forget WAR then. He hit for solid average and good power. He stole a ton of bases and consistently took extra bases on singles, doubles, and outs. He made a ton of plays in the field. He hit a ton of doubles and triples. His basic, old school stats were excellent and the "eye test" backed that up.

I agree. Where did I say anything to the contrary?

 

[BaseballJones]

I agree. Where did I say anything to the contrary?

You didn’t. I wasn’t arguing with you. I was just continuing the discussion.