Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Ezequiel Carrera

You know him as well as I do.

We signed Ezequiel Carrera before the 2015 season. He’ll be 30 in June. He doesn’t do anything particularly well, but then he isn’t terrible at anything.

Last year he hit .248/.323/.356 for us, in 110 games (a career high). He stole 7 bases and was caught 4 times, a success rate that makes me want him to stop trying. FanGraphs has him at 0.4 runs better than the average baserunner.

He had a great first half, hitting .281/.370/.407. And a terrible second half, .194/.243/.272.

His a lefty batter, but his career splits are pretty even. Last year he had big time reverse splits, hitting LHP surprisingly well (.329/.382/.452, in just 78 PA, so small sample warnings) and he didn’t hit RHP much at all (.218/.307/.320). Those are really not the numbers you would like from the left-handed hitting half of a platoon.

Defensively, he can play all three outfield spots, not overly well, but the only one you really don’t want to see him play is CF, the other two spots, he’s average or a little better.

What is Ezequiel’s role this year?

Unfortunately, it looks like he’ll be a platoon, in left field, with Melvin Upton. Personally, I think it is a stupid plan.

Last year I said:

If he makes the team, I'll take it as a sign that the team doesn't know what it is doing.

Which might have been a little overly mean.

But man, Ezequiel doesn’t hit enough, really doesn’t have platoon splits, and doesn’t play outfield well enough for me to want to see him get the lions share of a left field platoon.

Baseball Prospectus’ projection tool PECOTA expects Carrera to hit .238/.311/.367, which seems like a pretty reasonable guess to me. I really wouldn't want to see that line out of my left fielder.

I really can’t see Dalton Pompey hitting any worse than that. And I’d expect Dalton to play better defense and to run the bases much better. And Dalton has potential to improve. With Ezequiel moving into his 30’s, I can’t see that’s there is any improvement ahead for him.

Carrera’s has been roughly replacement level for his career, and if we are going to have a replacement level player on the team, I don’t mind it being him. I do have some affection for him, he’s one of my favorite replacement level players. If he was our 4th outfield, getting 150 or so plate appearances, I’d be ok with him. If he gets 300+ plate appearances (like last year), I really think we are making a mistake.