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Blue Jays mid-term report card: Whit Merrifield

By Tom Dakers
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Toronto Blue Jays v Baltimore Orioles Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images

Next up, Whit Merrifield.

We picked up Merrifield in August last year in exchange for Max Castillo and Samad Taylor. Max has pitched in 4 games for the Royals with a 5.14 ERA. Samad was called up a couple of weeks ago, has played in 7 games, and has a .174/.296/.174 batting line, but it is early days in his career.

Whit didn’t immediately become a fan favourite in Toronto. He hit .182/.239/.227 in his first 26 games with the Jays and was one of the exhibits in the fire Atkins travelling museum there for a while.

But he got on track soon after that.

This year:

Standard Batting
Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ GDP HBP
34 TOR AL 71 286 260 31 76 15 0 2 29 18 5 21 47 .292 .350 .373 .723 104 8 3
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/26/2023.

Reasonable numbers for a second baseman maybe not quite what you would want to see from a corner outfielder, but he is doing fine as a fourth outfielder.

He had a little dip in May, but April and June were great:

  • April: .320/.377/.413.
  • May: .267/.306/.362.
  • June: .300/.378/.350.

He has a 1.3 bWAR and fWAR.

He’s one of the few on the team hitting well with RISP, .288/.333/.452. It is cool that he’s also good with the bases empty, .310/.387/.365, but in a more “get on base” way, while with RISP, he’s hitting with more power. It is what you’d like to see.

In the world of interesting stats, he’s hit poorly with no outs (.565 OPS), better with one out (.787 OPS) and even better with 2 outs (.830). I doubt it means anything.

And he is stealing bases, 18 for 23 as a base stealer. And you likely know he is second in the MLB for steals of third with 6 (caught twice).

FanGraphs has him at 1.6 runs better than average on the bases.

He’s played:

  • 43 games at second base. FanGraphs has him at a -0.8 UZR/150 there. About league average.
  • 31 games in left field. 4.0 UZR/150.
  • 4 games in right field.

He’s been a lot of fun to watch and seems like a good teammate. I’ve often thought I’d like to make a list of the most likeable players. Whit would be up there for me.

Poll

For the first half, I’d give Whit Merrifield an

This poll is closed

  • 27%
    A
    (185 votes)
  • 46%
    B+
    (310 votes)
  • 20%
    B
    (136 votes)
  • 3%
    B-
    (21 votes)
  • 0%
    C+
    (6 votes)
  • 0%
    C
    (1 vote)
  • 0%
    C-
    (2 votes)
  • 0%
    D+
    (0 votes)
  • 0%
    D
    (0 votes)
  • 0%
    D-
    (2 votes)
  • 0%
    F
    (0 votes)
663 votes total Vote Now

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