Evan Longoria has been a fixture at third base for the Rays and Giants for 15 years. He’s a first time free agent in his career which is kind of incredible. After 10 seasons with the Rays in 2017, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants. Now 5 years later, he’s a free agent and has signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks. It may seem like a kind of insignificant move but according to fangraphs, Longoria will be the starting DH in the lineup.
Longoria is one of the better hitting third baseman of all time. His career numbers are Hall of Fame quality. This post is less about the move to the Diamondbacks and more about his career. At 37 years old, it’s not impossible to think it might be his last stop. Over 15 years, the accumulation of counting stats is expected. But his career percentages are so good despite playing for so long. Let’s take a look at career stats:
You’ll notice at the bottom, his career slash line is very good. There aren’t many players who end their career with BA .265/ OBP.334/ SLG.472 /OPS.806 /120 OPS+. If you look at the right side under the awards you can see Longoria has quite a few MVP votes but no wins. Longoria also has a causal 58 career WAR. Longoria has 3 gold gloves and 3 silver sluggers with 3 all star appearances.
I think it’s fair to say that Longoria doing anything close to his career averages would be a win for the Diamondbacks. It’s a low risk, high reward type of deal for only 1 year. If Longoria doesn’t do well, I would definitely hope he would retire rather than ruin his excellent career numbers.
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Thanks to Baseball Reference and Fangraphs for the charts and statistics!
Technically Analytics 