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

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.