Ottoneu: Chad’s Keep or Cut Decisions at OF

As always, I am following the lead of Lucas and Jake, the intrepid explorers who ventured into the grass of the outfield earlier this week to wrestle with some difficult keep/cut decisions. And now it is my turn to go over some additional names – and perhaps repeat one.

Jhonkensy Noel, 1B/OF
Salary: $6, $7
Average Salary: $7
2024 P/G: 3.61
Projected 2025 P/G: 4.77

Hey, Chad, why are you bothering us with a guy who put up less than 4 P/G last year and projects for a much better but still not great 4.77 P/G next year? Is it just because you want an excuse to watch this again?

Maybe. I mean, that is worth watching again, right? And just listen to the sound off the bat!

But there are other reasons to bring him up, as well. For example, Noel put up 4.92 P/G in the 48 games he started. For example, Noel put up 1.22 P/PA. Last year, across 4,858 MLB games (actually 2,429, but two teams played in each), 5th place hitters had 4.07 PA/G. Noel’s P/PA with a typical 6-hitters PA per game is 4.97 P/G. Why 6th? Most of his 2024 PA were as a 5th, 6th or 7th hitter.

And that strong P/PA? It came despite a .250 BABIP. It came with a 31.8% K-rate. And while K’s were always likely to be an issue for Noel, he has a track record in the minors of making adjustments and bringing down his K%.

So he was pretty good per PA and there are some reasons to think he can improve. And there’s real upside. As of the end of August, through 144 of his 198 PA, Noel had a 162 wR+. And then things got really ugly. In September, his wRC+ was 0. Yes, 0. His K-rate ticked up from 31.3% through August to 33.3% in September but the big difference was a huge drop in BABIP (from .282 to .182) and HR/FB rate (from 30.2% to 0.0%).

And you can’t really say pitchers adjusted. He started to see more sliders, but he killed sliders all year, to the tune of a 166 wRC+. Pitchers did start challenging him more, as you can see in the two images below.

 

So maybe he just struggled when they came after him? But the best explanation might just be that over one month, in which he got just 54 PA across 20 games, he never really got into a good groove and got hit with some real bad luck in the HR/FB and BABIP departments. So I am pretty optimistic.

Keep or cut?

I know, I just made the whole huge case for Noel, but I think I might have to cut. He doesn’t have a sure-thing starting role and very well might be the small side of a platoon. Both of the teams where I have him my expected keepers are expensive and I am up against a tight budget. So that $6 or $7 price is a bit hefty for that kind of gamble. In mock auctions, he has gone for $3, $1, and gone unselected. I think I will have Noel on a lot of rosters, but I might pass at this price. If I had more flex, I would probably keep.

 

Jordan Walker, OF
Salary: $8
Average Salary: $9
2024 P/G: 2.75
Projected 2025 P/G: 4.77

Hey, Chad, why are you bothering us with a guy who put up less than 4 P/G last year and projects for a much better but still not great 4.77 P/G next year? Is that the theme of the article or something? Nope, just a coincidence. But while I made what I think is a pretty strong case for Noel based on the numbers, Walker is a different story. And my case mostly comes down to this: remember 2023?

Walker had an excellent season, posting a 116 wRC+ as a 21-year-old, and that is hard to do. James Wood, who we are all rightfully excited about, posted a 120 wRC+. He is rightly viewed as a future star. Walker is still just 22 and still has all that talent and still has that impressive rookie season under his belt.

Now the Cardinals say they are committed to giving him a full season of PA, as they should be, and I am not going to give up on him yet.

Keep or Cut?

Keep. If he stinks, he stinks. But find it hard to believe that with that talent and that pedigree that he came up, proved himself over his rookie year, and now is just terrible.

 

Michael Toglia, 1B/OF
Salary: $7
Average Salary: $4
2024 P/G: 4.85
Projected 2025 P/G: 4.93

Hey Chad, why are y…nope, this is a totally different story. Toglia was good and projects to keep being good and he didn’t even have crazy H/R splits despite being a Rocky. Rockie? One of the Rockies.

So maybe the question is why am I bothering you with a good player at under $10? And the reason is some combination of a sky-high K-rate (32.1% last year, 33% for his career) and a relatively high salary ($7 isn’t crazy, but it’s above his standard), with a dash of a pretty weak MLB track record thrown in.

That weak track record though, is countered by some significant gains in his batted ball profile. His EV, barrel rate and hard-hit rate were all career highs. He set a career-low chase rate, while swinging more aggressively in the zone. He had a career low ground ball rate. All of this gives me some confidence that he may, in fact, be able to repeat what he did.

The challenge is that combining a 30%+ K-rate with a .325+ wOBA isn’t an easy thing to do. From 2015-2023, only 18 players managed to do that while getting enough PA to qualify for the batting title. Only Chris Davis, Joey Gallo, and Teoscar Hernandez managed to do it more than once. And Hernandez did it the second time in 2020, which maybe shouldn’t count. Toglia is going to need to either bring down the K-rate or expect to play a somewhat limited role (again), and there is not a lot of reason to think he can lower that K-rate.

Keep or cut?

Keep. I want to see what he can do, a bit like what Jake said about Matt Wallner in his OF keep/cut article.

 

Parker Meadows, OF
Salary: $4, $4, $6, $6, $8
Average Salary: $5
2024 P/G: 4.11
Projected 2025 P/G: 4.75

Lucas talked about Meadows yesterday, but I teased at the start that I might review a player another writer had covered and this is that foreshadowing coming to fruition.

Lucas covered him pretty well, so I won’t go into a ton of detail, but I will note some things I see in his second half that are really appealing to me.

1. He decreased his K-rate a ton. Given how quickly plate discipline stats can stabilize, there is good reason to think that his time in Triple-A led to real changes and that the strikeout improvements are sustainable.
2. He increased his LD% dramatically. He was under 9% line drive in the first half, but upon coming back he was up to 23.4% in the second half. Line drive rate is volatile, and it looks to me like a lot of his early issues might be tied to that.
3. He brought down his FB rate. Wait, what? That’s not good, right? Except his FB% was 65.3%. That is way too much, especially for guy with his wheels. You can’t hit a HR without putting the ball in the air, but liners and grounders get much better BABIPs, and he can really pressure a defense with his speed.
4. He cut down his Infield Fly Ball% by more than 7 percentage points. Infield flies are bad.

Honestly, a lot of this points to the same thing: he was squaring up the ball better. Fewer Ks; more line drives, fewer lazy fly balls, fewer infield fly balls. And he kept that all up into October.

Keep or cut?

Keep. I see a lot of the same things the Lucas does, but I think the talent is legit and I think he has a gear beyond what he did in 2024.