With the Thursday night announcement of the signing of Nomar Mazara by the Detroit Tigers, here is my reaction.
Immediate Gut Reaction:
GREAT!
Closer Look:
The 1-year $1.75 million deal is cheap with a lot of upside for the Detroit Tigers. Mazara comes in as a left-handed hitter who has plenty of homerun pop in his bat. As I’ve discussed in my previous post, Predicting the Outfield, this team has been lacking power from the left side since the departure of Prince Fielder.
Mazara entered the league in 2016 and finished in 5th place in Rookie of the Year voting. He came out strong, hitting .325 collecting 8 homeruns in his first 40 career games. Since, he has settle in as a career .258 hitter hitting 15+ bombs in each of his first four seasons (20, 20, 20, 19 from 2016-19 respectively). Despite falling from his .325 start there is still a lot of potential in his bat, maybe a new hitting coach and the new scenery will help with that.
Unfortunately, Mazara strikes out at a rate of 24% in his career (507 times in 2,124 career at-bats). The double whammy comes with his low walk rate as well, having collected only 172 career walks (8%). He’s also struggled against left-handed pitchers hitting only .236 in his career.
Defensively, Mazara has not necessarily been stellar either. According to Fangraphs he has a career defensive runs saved of -22; -7 in leftfield and -15 in rightfield. He has also committed 11 career errors, 8 of which have come in rightfield.
2021 Outfield Outlook:
So what does this mean for players like Christin Stewart, Daz Cameron and Harold Castro who all play the outfield within the Tigers organization? Likely, all three will find themselves somewhere in the minor leagues at the start of the 2021 season.
AJ Hinch has said that the starting outfield will like be Robbie Grossman (possibly moving from Left to Right), JaCoby Jones and Victor Reyes. With the possible move to right of Grossman, that would move Reyes over to left and would likely mean that Reyes and Mazara would be platooning that position.
Christin Stewart is likely to be the first of the earlier mentioned players that the team may give up on. Stew has a career -6 DRS in the outfield and has yet to put everything together at the plate. While Mazara’s DRS is much higher than Stewart, he hass proven he can handle himself at the plate, leaving no reason for Detroit to carry two subpar defensive left-handed batters.
If Hinch is to decide to platoon Reyes and Mazara it is likely that Mazara will get a bulk of the starts against righties and Reyes the lefties. While Reyes has shown strides of improvement from 2018-2020 he still may not be ready for everyday play. It is important to note that Reyes does have a career .286 batting average against left-handed pitchers, hence the starts against lefties in the platoon situation.
Final Reaction:
Good signing, still moves the needle for me!
Work Cited
“Christin Stewart.” Christin Stewart - Stats - Batting | FanGraphs Baseball, www.fangraphs.com/players/christin-stewart/17714/stats#standard.
McCosky, Chris. “Tigers Add Another Left-Handed Bat, Signing OF Nomar Mazara.” The Detroit News, The Detroit News, 12 Feb. 2021, www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2021/02/11/tigers-add-another-left-handed-bat-signing-nomar-mazara/6730813002/.
“Nomar Mazara Stats.” Baseball, www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mazarno01.shtml.
“Nomar Mazara.” Nomar Mazara - Stats - Batting | FanGraphs Baseball, www.fangraphs.com/players/nomar-mazara/14553/stats?position=OF.
“Robbie Grossman Stats.” Baseball, www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grossro01.shtml.
Stavenhagen, Cody. What the Tigers Are Getting in Nomar Mazara (and Renato Núñez). 12 Feb. 2021, theathletic.com/2383246/2021/02/11/detroit-tigers-nomar-mazara-renato-nunez/.
“Victor Reyes Stats.” Baseball, www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reyesvi01.shtml.