I'll take a quick break from the end of season review and focus on something that has come up quite a bit lately and that is Andres Torres.

I like Torres, I think that he plays excellent defense and is far more valuable than what most people understand. That being said there is a very worrying trend that is starting to show up.

In 2009 he was a huge surprise, posting a .270/ .343/ .533 triple slash line. In 2010 he did his best to prove that it wasn't a fluke posting a .268/ .343/ .479 triple slash line while smacking extra base hits all over the yard, playing excellent defense and being one of the most valuable guys on the team.

Leading into 2011 I was nervous but at the same time optimistic that this would be a new normal for the journey man center fielder. Looking back makes me look like an idiot and a bad trend has emerged.


This is his daily wOBA over the last 3 years and it paints a rather bleak picture. That trend is going in the wrong direction and it makes you wonder if the scouting report has caught up with him and if he is capable of making the needed adjustments to get back to that previous level of performance that made him so special.

Even with this kind of depressing trend I would really like to see Torres get one more chance, because even with all of his struggles at the plate he was still one of the most valuable position players on the team last year according to fWAR (although that might tell us less about how good Torres was and instead just how bad the rest of the offense was) and I think at a minimum he can be a perfect 4th outfielder.

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