Mythbusters: Eric Hosmer
As the San Diego Padres shop around his contract in trade, it's time to start busting some of the myths about what Eric Hosmer is not.
After yesterday’s article about the San Diego Padres trading for 2B Adam Frazier, in which I said that the trade makes the most sense if Frazier takes over at 2B and Jake Cronenworth takes over as the everyday 1B, I got a fair amount of Eric Hosmer defenders sending me critical messages through email and social media.
I am not going to be taking on those people one on one, I actually ignored most of them, but I did want to do a quick review of Eric Hosmer so that maybe they might understand why the Padres might consider benching or trading Hosmer to improve the team.
Quick note
I’m not going to be mentioning Eric Hosmer’s contract. Yes, he gets paid a lot, but what he gets paid shouldn’t matter when it comes to his playing time. If he can help the team, he plays. If he can’t, he shouldn’t. The rest is just a sunk cost (as in, it’s money that’s already spent and can’t be changed). The Padres are trying to win a World Series, not balance their books.
Myth: Eric Hosmer is a good hitter
Let’s zoom out for a second. Eric Hosmer is playing his 11th season in MLB. I’m going to use OPS+ as my indicator on how many of those seasons he’s been an above-average hitter.
An OPS+ of 100 means you are exactly a league average hitter, meaning you are easily replaceable at the plate. When it comes to first base, the position that requires the least amount of running and throwing, hitting well is a requirement. If your team’s starting first baseman has an OPS+ under 120, your offense is going to struggle.
Eric Hosmer has posted an OPS+ of 120 in just three of his eleven seasons, including in 38 games last season. He did it in 2015 when the Kansas City Royals won the World Series, and he did it in 2017 before hitting free agency.
Hosmer is a streaky hitter, for sure, but his hot streaks don’t really make up for how poor of a hitter he otherwise is. For some context, this season the only regular starter on the Padres that is hitting worse than Hosmer is Victor Caratini. Brian O’Grady and his .182 batting average have an OPS+ of 93, making him comparable to Eric Hosmer.
And, again, for his career Hosmer has been more of this weak-hitting guy than he has been the other guy. While he has been able to stretch out some hot streaks, especially when younger, he’s a league average hitter. Which, for a first baseman, means he’s a below average hitter.
Since signing with the Padres in 2018, no regular first baseman has posted a lower OPS than Eric Hosmer (.734). The only ones that occasionally come up in searches lower than Hosmer for that stretch are Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, both of whom played more DH than 1B over that span.
Myth: Eric Hosmer is a good defender
Technically, Eric Hosmer has Gold Glove awards. He’s got four of them to be exact. However, he won those before voters had any real understanding of defensive metrics.
The way the Gold Glove used to be voted on was picking a guy that had a good defensive reputation who hit well and played for a good team. Derek Jeter has five Gold Glove awards. Now that we have the ability to analyze defense better, we can go back and see that Hosmer has never really been a good defender.
Pick any defensive metric and you’ll get a similar result here, but I’m going to look at all first baseman that have played at least 800 innings since Hosmer signed with the Padres and then I’m going to rank them by UZR/150.
Hosmer finished 35th out of 46 first basemen, and almost all of the guys ranked below him are now out of baseball (Ian Desmond) or play first base second to playing DH (Vladimir Guerrero Jr.).
Find any way to measure defense and you’ll find that Hosmer is one of the worst at fielding his position in all of baseball, and has been for pretty much his entire career. Gold Gloves or not.
Myth: Eric Hosmer is the team’s leader
This one will be short because it’s harder to quantify, but Padres fans were sold on Hosmer as a clubhouse leader when trying to account for the big contract the team signed him to and he simply hasn’t been needed in that regard.
Manny Machado has proven time and time again that he’s the team’s leader on and off the field, and Fernando Tatis Jr. is a secondary leader in that the guys in the clubhouse will follow him wherever he goes. Those two guys are irreplaceable in the lineup, on the infield, or in the locker room. Eric Hosmer is not.
That'll preach!