Wilson Valdez Back to Normal

It took awhile, but Wilson Valdez masquerading as a good player in 2011 has come to an end.

Lady Luck can only be on your side for so long. With his 0-for-one performance April 26, his on-base percentage finally dipped below .300.

For whatever reason, Valdez has a special place in many fans’ hearts. Looking past his poor power, on-base percentage and persistent grounding into double plays, some even held the ridiculous notion he was the team’s MVP in 2010.

The early part of spring training this year only added fuel to those fans’ fire.

For what seemed like most of the preseason, Valdez was hitting over .400. Fans clamored how he should be the clear starter over an uninspiring group of Pete Orr, Michael Martinez, Luis Castillo and Josh Barfield.

Even with ending the preseason in a one-for-22 stretch, some held the notion that the injured Chase Utley would not be significantly missed with Valdez the starting second basemen.

Like in Spring Training, Valdez started the year off hot, going nine-for-21 with a .429 average and on-base percentage. This temporarily kept the fallacious notion that he is, in fact, a good player, or that he is improving.

Since that start, I’ve been waiting for regression to the mean to come full circle. 

Valdez’s current 2011 line is .250/.297/.300. That is bad. Tack on his average defense, he is already at -.3 to -.5 wins above replacement, depending if you prefer Fangraphs or Baseball-Reference.

Aside from the occasional seeing eye single, he rarely gets the ball past the infield. When he’s had the chance to use his power, by pulling the ball or hitting it to center, he’s just mashed it into the ground at a 78.6 and 89.5 percent clip, respectively.

The few times he has hit flies and line drives this year, it’s been to opposite field where his already meager power is all but wiped away.

There’s a better chance of the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series this year than Valdez hitting an opposite field homer.

With all the ground balls, I expect his ground-into-double-play rate to regress toward last year’s number as well. So far this year, he’s hit into a double play 19 percent of all his opportunities. That’s still a bad number, but lower than his third-worst in baseball 24 percent last year.

With a double play worth roughly .35 runs, he cost the team almost four runs last year, over one third of a win.

When I think of Wilson Valdez, I can’t help but think of the atrocious utility men who came before him in the Phillies organization; players who, in no right mind, would ever be confused or considered a potential team MVP.

He is no different than such luminaries as Tomas Perez, Kevin Sefcik, Alex Arias and Kevin Jordan. Sure, Tomas Perez may have been a fan favorite because of his personality, but neither he nor any of those others were ever put on a pedestal as something other than what he was.

I know lot of you post-2007 fans might have never heard of such players, but believe me, they weren’t good.

With Valdez’s inevitable crash to normalcy, I can once again be satisfied that all is right with the world again—at least from perspective of replacement-level players showing their true ability.

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