San Diego Padres: A Closer, More Advanced Look at Eric Hosmer

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The casual San Diego Padres’ fan can see what Eric Hosmer brings to the table simply by looking at his statistics. Let’s take a look at his advanced metrics and see if we can’t get a clearer picture of what the Friars spent all of this money for.

The San Diego Padres’ Eric Hosmer is an All-Star, a World Series champion, a Gold Glove first baseman, and by all accounts, exactly what any team would look for in its franchise centerpiece.

The team took some heat for committing the amount of money they did to a player who hasn’t been as consistent as others have been who signed similar, in dollar amount, free-agent contracts.

What I’m going to try and do here is break down Hosmer’s career based on his yearly Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and On-Base Plus Slugging Plus (an adjusted OPS-based value that’s aimed to eliminate any field-to-field advantages or disadvantages).

I’m also going to take a look at his defense, via fangraphs.com, using his Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), comparing his numbers both league-wide and versus other first basemen.

San Diego Padres certainly did their homework

Before signing on to become a cornerstone piece for the San Diego Padres, Eric Hosmer spent seven seasons with the Kansas City Royals, winning the 2015 World Series over the New York Mets in five games.

During his tenure in one of the best baseball cities in America, Hosmer was, at times, one of the best players in all of MLB both offensively and defensively.

Though his defense never truly faltered, his offense, you could say, took a year or two off during his time in Royal blue.

Not to say that he had unbelievably awful seasons during his two true down-years, but they were no place near the heights he reached in previous and following seasons.

Hosmer’s Offensive Advanced Stats

Eric Hosmer’s WAR over his time there was 14.2. Divide that by seven seasons and you get a 2.0-or-so WAR per season player. The San Diego Padres would be happy simply with that, I’m sure.

While that’s not super-extraordinary, while keeping mind that WAR most definitely has its shortcomings as a full spectrum of player analysis, it’s an impressive stat nonetheless.

Truth is, though, Hosmer wasn’t a consistent, 2 WAR per-year, player. Since 2011 he hasn’t had less than 547 at-bats in a season so, needless to say, he’s been in the lineup consistently, which is definitely a plus.

His WAR, per season from 2011-2017 is as follows: 1.4, -0.5, 3.5, 0.8, 3.6, 1.2, 4.1. Like I said, he has not been a consistent 2 WAR guy, to say the least. But, again, besides his 2012 and 2014 seasons, he’s had very productive seasons otherwise.

A WAR oddity

While his two off-years were likely not up to his personal standards, (as 3.6 and 4.1 WAR-per-season years are likely more what he’s looking for, being the competitor he most obviously is) but Eric Hosmer has been a darn good ballplayer, overall.

While he most certainly hasn’t been the 8.32 WAR player that Jose Altuve was last season, they’re two completely different players who play two completely different games.

To make that point even clearer, Aaron Judge, another totally different type of ballplayer, had an 8.08 WAR last year. Wild statistic.

Hosmer’s OPS+

Eric Hosmer’s OPS+ tells more of the same story. From 2011-’17, these were his OPS+ numbers: 118, 81, 118, 99, 122, 102, 132.

Again, his 2012 and 2014 seasons were borderline-disastrous in the big picture of his career but would be decent seasons for 50% of MLB position players.

More from Friars on Base

To put things in perspective once again, Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds led all of MLB in OPS+ last season with 168. Hosmer’s 132 last year isn’t a far cry from the league leader in Votto.

If this is the player we can expect to see over the next few, prime-of-his-career seasons, it makes the San Diego Padres investment worth every penny.

Padres’ new first baseman’s advanced fielding stats

Eric Hosmer has won a handful of Gold Glove Awards for his play at first base over the last seven seasons. From 2011-’17 his UZR was as follows: -10.5, -12.8, 2.5 (Gold Glove), -0.4 (Gold Glove), 1.0 (Gold Glove), -8.4, and -0.3 (Gold Glove).

In Hosmer’s Gold Glove-winning seasons, his UZR never ranked above 11th among MLB first basemen (2013, 13th; 2014, 11th; 2015, 17th; 2017, 14th).

Researching and finding those stats certainly weaken my faith a little bit in the Gold Glove Award selection process, but I’m not the first to make that observation and won’t be the last either.

Next: Padres Have Stockpiled Arms to the Point it's Unfair

If the San Diego Padres get, for example, a handful of seasons like Eric Hosmer had in 2017, again, their considerable investment in a fringe-elite player will have been completely justified.

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