Upton Over Cespedes Not A Bad Choice For Tigers
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Whether the grass is greener in the yard of Justin Upton or Yoenis Cespedes will remain hotly debated in Detroit for months to come. The Tigers will reportedly sign Upton to a 6-year, $132 million contract, even after they reportedly opened discussions with Cespedes, a former Tiger.
Other names came up, including Chris Davis, but Cespedes was the most popular among fans.
With an increase in the variety of statistics available (thanks, sabermetrics era), criticism of individual players has ramped up too. It's easier to nitpick and find the numbers that make decent player look like busts, and vice versa.
The truth is, baseball can be a bizarre sport. The bounce of a ball or the wind can have more effect in baseball than in any other sport, and "flukey" is often the norm. So sorting players into "better" or "worse" piles can be a gray area.
Tigers fans wanted Cespedes. They haven't been shy about expressing that desire, even after the signing of Upton.
Cespedes is coming off probably the best streak of his career. After being traded to the Mets last summer, he electrified New York towards the end of the regular season and captured the attention of baseball fans everywhere.
From August 21 (when he hit three homers against the Rockies) to Sept. 14, Cespedes totaled 34 hits, 14 homeruns and 34 RBI, all while batting .333 (with a slugging percentage of .882). After that, he didn't hit another homerun until Game 2 of the NLDS against the Dodgers, nearly a month later.
But Upton isn't a slouch either (career .271 batting average with 190 homeruns in nine years). The knock on the 28-year-old often is that he's inconsistent (so is Cespedes), and that he strikes out too much (an unfortunate reality of being a power hitter).
Patience at the plate is also somewhat of an issue with Cespedes, though: He's walked fewer and fewer times each of the past four seasons, even though his plate appearances have increased each of those years, too. He walked in fewer than five percent of his at-bats last season. Upton walked almost 11 percent of the time.
Upton has batted .300 once in his career (in 2009). Cespedes has never done so, but has played fewer seasons.
Of course, the streakiness associated with Upton isn't imagined. According to MLB.com, Upton has gone through a 0-for-14 (or worse) slump 11 different times since 2008. But 10 different times, he has had extra-base-hit streaks of four games or more.
Cespedes finished 2015 with 6.3 wins above replacement, a mark Upton has never reached (his best year was 6.1 WAR in 2011).
In terms of fielding, Cespedes and Upton were neck-and-neck last season in standard fielding statistics. Cespedes led Major League Baseball in putouts by a left-fielder (247), and Upton was second with 235. Upton has been erratic as an outfielder before (13 errors in 2011), but has calmed down in recent years (2011 was the last year he had double-digit errors, and he only had three last season). Cespedes had more errors last season (seven) than he ever has.
Evaluating Cespedes' and Upton's numbers is a tug of war of supremacy, with not much ground being given up either way.
As is the case with so many young talents, Upton is also the product of swollen expectations following early success. He was drafted No. 1 overall in 2005, made his major league debut at age 19, and had the best year of his career when he was 23.
Numbers don't display that Cespedes is a drastically, unequivocally better player than Upton. Marginally? Sure, depending on how and when you look at it. But the opposite could be said, too. Both have displayed streaks of brilliance, but both are inconsistent.
Everyone remembers Cespedes' streak in August and September of last season. But he didn't maintain that into the end of the playoffs, and it's certainly unlikely he'll do so throughout the rest of his career. The brilliance of that streak, though, is freshest in fans' minds, and can be construed as something representing permanence.
In pure baseball years, Upton has the higher value. He'll play most of next season at age 28, heading into what most consider the prime time of a baseball player's career. Cespedes is already 30 and likely has fewer years of value remaining.
No easy answer exists for which player will dazzle baseball the most in the next few years. But when it comes to potential impact on the Tigers' World Series chances, fans don't have to wring their hands too much over having one over the other.
