Asdrubal asked to be traded last year. He was the only veteran not traded. At the time, financially, it made sense. Cabrera is making 8.5 million this year which given his production on the field (or really, with the bat and not on the field) is a good value. Knowing what we know now about this year’s free agent situation the 8.5 million doesn’t sound as good as it did, but it is still a good deal.
Here’s what several different sources project for Cabera this season:
| Asdrubal Cabrera | ||||||||
| Source | PA | AB | H | R | HR | AVG | OBP | SLG |
| Baseball Prospectus | 610 | 109.72 | 78 | 17 | 0.252 | 0.313 | 0.405 | |
| ZiPS | 540 | 129 | 63 | 15 | 0.265 | 0.327 | 0.429 | |
| Steamer | 504 | 452 | 118 | 59 | 16 | 0.26 | 0.324 | 0.427 |
| ESPN | 483 | 130.893 | 63 | 16 | 0.271 | 0.336 | 0.437 | |
| MLB.com | 502 | 134.034 | 65 | 15 | 0.267 | 0.325 | 0.418 | |
| Baseball Reference | 527 | 474 | 128 | 63 | 17 | 0.27 | 0.333 | 0.441 |
| Average: | 545.25 | 477.75 | 124.9412 | 65.16667 | 16 | 0.264167 | 0.326333 | 0.426167 |
| 2017 Stats: | 540 | 479 | 134 | 66 | 14 | 0.28 | 0.351 | 0.434 |
Cabrera is helped immensely by the Todd Frazier deal. It doesn’t pain me as much to see Cabrera in the field with Frazier as it would with Cabrera and Reyes trying to play something close to defense.
Offensively last year he came back down to Earth from his previous years but the average of his projections doesn’t see too steep of a drop. A 25 point drop in OBP would be significant, but .326 OBP from Cabrera sounds reasonable. If Cabrera performs better than his projections (an OPS north of .800, right ow its at a .752) then he will be a tremendous help to the Mets this year. Maybe having a more consistent lineup around him can make that happen.
