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Devon Travis and His Blue Jays Breakout in 2015 - Major League Baseball (MLB)

2/3/2018

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by Richard Rowell; Co-owner of Brand Shamans & Write W.A.V.E. Media
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In the 2014-2015 MLB offseason, the Detroit Tigers swapped minor league infielder Devon Travis for outfielder Anthony Gose. Right away, it looked like a bad trade for the Tigers. For a couple of months for the Blue Jays, not only did Devon Travis win the starting job at second base, but he downright lit the world on fire with his bat for awhile!

Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you. Devon Travis is not a 5'9 Babe Ruth. At one point, he was toting a Ruthian slugging percentage over .700! No, it wasn't very sustainable. That being said, Travis was expected to hit. He was not a prodigious slugger in the minor leagues, but he was definitely well above average as a hitter.

Travis would prove to be fast and could beat out more than a handful of infield hits each season. But during his hot streak, he was hitting something like 24% of his flyballs for home runs. No one can keep that up. He did own a healthy 16% line drive percentage. He would be no 30 home run hitter, but he was definitely capable of keeping up the hard-hit singles and doubles.

Devon isn't a Gold Glove caliber defender. But it took him quite awhile to make an error, and for a bit the advanced metrics would see him as a neutral defender. Considering how the second base position was for the Blue Jays in the season before, he was a welcome upgrade.

Unfortunately, injuries would bring Travis' season to an end. He would still prove to be an above average player in 2016, however, as well. While he would go on to make some errors defensively and his bat took a step backwards, he was pretty good and still a slightly above average player. However, his 2017 would see Travis struggling on offense and losing his starting job. Still, Travis has a chance to still be a useful player in 2018 and beyond.

As for the Tigers, they recieved Anthony Gose, who was a decent defender but never hit much at the major league level for the Jays. Gose had a great start with the Tigers, but it was only about 50 plate appearances. His .300+ batting average was held up by a staggering .560+ batting average on balls in play. That is pretty ridiculous and completely impossible to sustain. Meanwhile, Travis had a .400 BABIP or so during the same time, but that wasn't out of character, as Travis enjoyed a .370+ BABIP mark in the minors in 2013. Travis would prove himself. Gose would keep getting chances for the Tigers, and eventually decide to switch to pitching, an experiment on which the jury is still out.

While Devon Travis may never have an All-Star caliber career, he got a great start in the majors and has been a pretty good player for the Toronto Blue Jays.

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Matt Diaz Was a Good Ballplayer (MLB)

1/16/2018

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by Richard Rowell; Co-owner of Brand Shamans & Write W.A.V.E. Media
Braves @ Dodgers
Once I was taking a look at Google Trends, and I noticed a couple of names among trending baseball players that surprised me: Rich Hill and Matt Diaz. I quickly realized that the trending for Rich Hill had to do with the documentary film that shares his name. However, former ballplayer Matt Diaz was coming up for something else, the Diaz Family Foundation. It was started by Matt and his family. The Foundation helps orphans and disadvantaged youth in Polk County Georgia.

I'd like to take some time to say something about Matt Diaz as a ballplayer, who also happens to be a great guy, as well. I watched a lot of Atlanta Braves baseball when I was younger. Many of their games were broadcast on TBS, so it was easy to. I loved watching Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and the many underrated players that suited up for the Braves year after year.

One particularly underrated player was Matt Diaz from 2006-2012, with a brief intermission in Pittsburgh for the better part of 2011. His best years were 2006, 2007, and 2009. In those seasons, he posted OPS numbers of .839, .865, and .878 respectively. If he was such a slugger, as those numbers would suggest, then why did he never get an All-Star nod?

Diaz was the kind of player that manager Bobby Cox and general manager John Schuerholtz valued greatly. He did one thing exceptionally well, and that was destroy left-handed pitching. There were a lot of left-handed pitchers that the Braves faced on a regular basis. So, Diaz, even being part of the "weak" side of a corner outfield platoon, saw a lot of plate appearances. He made the most of them.

For his career, Diaz hit .322/.363/.495 (.858 OPS) versus left-handed pitching in roughly 1000 plate appearances. That's compared to .258/.313/.360 (.673 OPS) versus right-handed pitching. Diaz was no Gold Glove outfielder, either, but in left field, he actually was decent defensively (career 1 Defensive Runs Saved). It was in right field that he had trouble (-10 DRS for his career in RF). Considering he saw almost 3 times as much play in left as in right, that gives you some idea how badly he performed in right.

All in all, when Diaz played left field against southpaw starters, he was an above-average player. The rest of the time... well, he was flawed. A former 17th round pick by the Tampa Bay Rays (then known as the Devil Rays) he had a couple cups of coffee before being selected off waivers by the Baltimore Orioles. He was later released, signed with the Royals, then was traded in December 2005 for a pitcher named Ricardo Rodriguez who was out of organized baseball after the 2006 season. It's safe to say that the Braves won that trade.

Even after letting Diaz go after a subpar 2010 season, the Braves would reacquire him for the 2011 stretch run for another minor leaguer who hasn't amounted to anything, either. Unfortunately, that was the end of Diaz. He had a lousy 2012 season, and couldn't stick with the Yankees in 2013. He did manage to get into a few games with the Miami Marlins in 2013, however. He officially retired in 2014 to spend more time with his family.

Matt's a great guy and it was nice to rekindle the old memories of a very useful ballplayer. It would be nice to see the Atlanta Braves return to their old value-hunting ways during their current massive rebuilding project. Who knows if they'll find another Matt Diaz off the scrap heap?
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