Hey there all, I live! I’ve actually moved back to St. Louis, so I’m not the Baseball Geek in Galveston anymore and will likely change my alias at some point. One of the first things I thought about when I got back up here was bringing the blog back to life. I know it’s been ages since I’ve made a post, but I’m hoping to post regularly again, hopefully at least once a week. We’ll see how it goes.
Today’s subject is one of my favorite Cardinals, Tommy Edman.
Edman is one of those guys I just can’t help but like, mainly due to his personality. He’s got a great attitude and always seems to smiling. Edman definitely isn’t one of those just playing for the paycheck.
Of course, if you guys remember me, you’ll remember that I’m a bit of a stats guy. On offense, Edman isn’t really that impressive, especially when it comes to one of my favorite stats, OBP. His career OBP is only .327, and this year he’s only got a .311 OBP. (The OBP is 45 points higher than his .266 batting average, which isn’t terrible, but it isn’t great either.) Edman also doesn’t have much pop, with only 4 homers so far this year, he’ll probably end up around 10-12 at best.
I do like his baserunning smarts. He’s stolen 13 bases and only been caught twice. That doesn’t offset the low OBP though.
On the defensive side of the ball, Edman plays multiple positions, but I’m going to focus on his primary position, second base. In 54 games there, he has a .984 fielding percentage, 115 assist and 3 errors, and a range factor per 9 innings played of 4.20. All of those stats are solid.
Of course when you think of Edman as a second baseman, you have to think about his predecessor at that position, Kolten Wong.
Wong has been injured a bit this year, but in less time he has a higher average (.281) OBP (.340) and more homers (6).
On defense, he has performed well in counting stats. 99 assists and no errors for a perfect fielding percentage of 1.000. Where the injuries have affected him is his range. Last year when he was healthy and won a Gold Glove, his RF/9 was 4.26. This year it’s only 3.50.
Overall Edman compares pretty well to Wong. Wong has the better bat and eye, but the defense at Second Base is actually pretty equal, and this year at least, Edman has the better range, which can be important at Second Base.
As always, thanks for reading
