What's real?
Likeability
I don't know Edman. I've never met him. But I like him.Edman's cousin wrote a wonderful post about his call-up. (To read it, click here.) The post was pure joy and pride at a family member making it to the majors. After reading it, I was really pulling for Edman to stick in the majors.
Another feather in the Edman likeability cap is the fact he attended Stanford and is therefore smart. Edman believes in advanced stats like WAR. That's wonderful.
Edman looks like a child. Sixteen years ago, Yadier Molina's similarly youthful appearance caused us all to carve out a space in our hearts for him. Unlike Yadi, Edman has the mustache of a 12-year-old, which is at once gross and endearing. It's easy to imagine Edman playing in a sandlot game of baseball down the street if kids still played sandlot games of baseball down the street.
Then there is his speed and fielding skill. It's really fun to watch Edman run the bases because he is a speed demon. And he's a pretty good fielder at multiple positions. Even if he probably shouldn't play the outfield over other players on the roster, that's manager Mike Shildt's fault, not Edman's.
And the cherry on top is Edman's preference for wearing his pants high to show the classic Cardinals stirrups.
Speed
Watching Edman run the bases takes one back to the days of Whiteyball (which is probably one of the reasons he's so popular among the Cardinals faithful). Statcast puts a number on a player's sprint speed. And Edman's is excellent. His spring speed is in the 99th percentile, which is to say that it's elite.Inability to Draw Walks
Edman started out in the low minors with healthy walk rates. But as he climbed the minor-league ladder, his walks lessened. After posting a 10.5 BB% in his first 76 PAs in Triple-A in 2018, he managed only a 6.9 BB% in 218 PAs with Memphis to start last year. Edman only walked in 4.6% of his PAs last year with the Cardinals, which would have ranked 128th out of the 135 hitters who qualified for the batting title in 2019 had Edman qualified.Fielding Ability
Edman is fast, which helps him in the field. He also is smart, which helps in the field. The fielding metrics have a similar assessment of Edman's defense. For 2019:- By Fangraphs Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), Edman was worth 5.1 runs on defense last season while playing multiple positions, which is good, but not great.
- StatCast has Edman at 5 Outs Above Average (OAA).
- According to The Fielding Bible, Edman put up the following Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) totals by position:
- 6 at second base.
- 2 at third base.
- 3 in right field.
- 0 in center and left.
Below-Average Ability to Hit Homers
Edman does not possess home-run power, even with a juiced a ball. Edman's HR/PA last year for St. Louis was 31.7 compared to 27.5 for MLB as a whole. In Triple-A, Edman's was 31.1 while the PCL as a whole's HR/PA was 26.2. Edman hits homers at a below-average rate.Dependency on BABIP
Why do walks and homers matter? They give a player a buffer against the vagaries of batted-ball luck. The less a player walks and hits balls beyond the fence, the more dependent he is on generating offense with balls in play. This makes the player's hitting performance subject to more volatility.
Edman's BABIP last year with the Cards was .346 in 349 PAs. Nine big-leaguers who qualified for the batting title posted a higher BABIP last year. In 2018, that number was 17. The following table compares those 17 players' BABIP in 2018 to 2019.
Top 17 in 2018 BABIP vs. 2017 & 2019 BABIP
*2016 BABIP; did not play in 2017
**13 PAs
***Cheater
It's an anecdotal sampling showing that the odds are against him. Only a handful of players managed a BABIP that was similarly high in 2017 or 2019 as to 2018. One player, Baez, managed to be consistent across three seasons.
This is not to say that Edman will not post a similarly high BABIP in 2020. Rather, it supports an assessment of what is most likely. This season it's more likely than not that Edman's BABIP will be lower at the end of the year than it was in 2019. Because he doesn't walk much or hit many dingers, this means his offensive production will be suffer more than your average big-leaguer because of it.
But the Cardinals front office has done more than speak words about Edman. They've also taken action in constructing their roster that suggests they don't think Edman's 2019 is repeatable. During the offseason, they inquired about acquiring Nolan Arenado to be the new third baseman. Then the club signed Brad Miller, a lefty hitting utility infielder to join the bench. You don't sign Edman insurance if you're 100% sold on Edman as the team's utility guy.
Front Office's Opinion
If you don't believe me or projections, consider the St. Louis front office. John Mozeliak, the president of baseball operations, and Michael Girsch, the general manager, have consistently refused to guarantee Edman an everyday lineup spot. Instead, they refer to him in the same way they have consistently referred to him since his callup last year, as a utility man. Needless to say, utility men are usually not as skilled, and therefore receive less playing time, than everyday position players.But the Cardinals front office has done more than speak words about Edman. They've also taken action in constructing their roster that suggests they don't think Edman's 2019 is repeatable. During the offseason, they inquired about acquiring Nolan Arenado to be the new third baseman. Then the club signed Brad Miller, a lefty hitting utility infielder to join the bench. You don't sign Edman insurance if you're 100% sold on Edman as the team's utility guy.
What's a mirage?
Power
When looking at a player's power production, I use Isolated Power (ISO) instead of Slugging Percentage (SLG). Why? Because SLG includes singles. If we're measuring power-hitting, why would we use singles? ISO, on the other hand, excludes singles and includes on extra-base hits.Edman is an example of SLG making a player seem like he hit for more power than he did. Among the 273 players with 300 or more PAs, Edman's .500 SLG tied for 85th last season. But Edman's .196 ISO tied for 129th.
Thus, the popular perception of Edman's ability to hit for power might be a bit exaggerated by the continued use of a misleading stat.
But more than that, there's the juiced ball. Edman put up an ISO of .196 for St. Louis last year after posting a .208 ISO in Triple-A. Before 2019, Edman had never managed an ISO above .155 in the minors. In the hitter-friendly Texas League, Edman hit for an ISO of .104. So there is ample reason to be skeptical of Edman's increased power in the juiced-ball leagues last year, given his resume before it, and the likelihood that MLB's inept leadership will overreact to 2019 in their attempts to de-juice the 2020 ball.
Base-Running
Edman has elite speed. He is also a skilled baserunner. But how good?Fangraphs explains its Baserunning (BsR) metric as follows:
Base Running (BsR) is FanGraphs’ all encompassing base running statistic that turns stolen bases, caught stealings, and other base running plays (taking extra bases, being thrown out on the bases, etc) into runs above and below average. It is the combination of Weighted Stolen Base Runs (wSB), Weighted Grounded Into Double Play Runs (wGDP), and Ultimate Base Running (UBR) which are all available on the leaderboards and player pages.Edman finished 2019 with 6.6 BsR, which ranked 11th in all of MLB last year. It's tempting to extrapolate that out over a full season's worth of playing time and come up with a BsR of over 10. But that's unrealistic for Edman.
BsR serves as the base running component of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and provides a lot more information than simply looking at a player’s stolen base total if you are interested in judging a player’s base running performance.
In order to generate value on the basepaths, a player has to reach base safely. Edman has never shown an ability to draw walks, likely because he never hit for much power before 2019. But even in 2019, he didn't walk much. Moreover, Edman's BABIP is likely to be lower in 2020 than in 2019, when it was rather high. All of this means Edman's on-base percentage (OBP) is likely to be lower, perhaps significantly so, in 2020, which will reduce his ability to generate value on the bases.
Further, it's hard to put up a high BsR. The following table shows BsR totals for 2010 through 2019 or the last ten years. It covers 13,300 player seasons.
BsR Player Seasons: 2010–2019
There were 160 player seasons totaling 6.0 or more BsR from 2010 through 2019. That makes up 1.2 percent of the 13,300 player seasons that make up the list. To expect Edman to put up another 6.0+ season is to expect him to be a top-one-percent baserunner. Could Edman be that good on the basepaths? It's possible. Is it likely that Edman is a top-one-percent baserunner? No.
Slash Stats
Edman played only a partial season in notching 349 PAs, which is cause for skeptism. You'll recall Harris Bader fever after his 427 PAs worth of a .264/.334/.422 (.326 wOBA, 107 wRC+) in 2018. Or Aledmys Diaz. Or Randal Grichuk. Or Bo Hart. You get the idea of how good hitting over a fraction of a season can be something more than an accurate reflection of a player's true hitting talent.Edman's batting line is likely more mirage than reality because its foundation is BABIP. The volatility of BABIP makes for a shaky foundation. Edman's is particularly volatile because he doesn't walk very much or hit many homers. Almost every projection system forecasts Edman's BABIP to drop significantly, but remain above average this year:
This table shows the ripple effect of Edman's BABIP dropping. His BA goes down. This drags down his OBP and SLG (because he doesn't walk much or hit many dingers). The overall effect is shown in wOBA.
