Through Martin Prado’s first 779 major league at bats he has been extremely productive, especially for a middle infielder. He has a career .360 OBP, .451 SLG, and a .353 wOBA (similar to OPS, but weighs OBP more than SLG, mean is around .330 just like OBP).
Prado also performed extremely well after being promoted to full-time status last season after Kelly Johnson and Omar Infante were injured. Despite all things going well for Prado, I am still skeptic about him starting the season at second base.
Prado has never come into a season with the big club as a starter. He was used sparingly and was a replacement player for most of his four seasons with major league at bats.
Matt Diaz was in a similar situation in 2008.
Diaz played so well in the previous two seasons that he forced the Braves to give him an every day job. Diaz looked overmatched and he was not nearly as productive as he had been in the past as a platoon partner.
He had a terrible start to the season and he was subsequently injured, missing three fourths of the season and ending up with a .244/.264/.304 line.
Maybe Diaz would have come back and picked his numbers up as a full-time starter if he were healthy the rest of the season, but the Braves have not been willing to try him out there alone since the start of 2008.
As I mentioned in Analyzing the Atlanta Braves’ Depth , one of Bobby Cox’s best attributes as a manager is getting the most out of his fringe starters and bench players. The Braves have seen countless players perform better in part-time roles in Atlanta than they had the rest of their careers.
I fear that this may be the same type of situation with Martin Prado.
One thing we must remember is that Prado was not even the first option to start after Johnson’s injury. Cox gave the job to Infante and he got injured as well, and then Prado took the job and never looked back. He absolutely killed the ball the rest of the season and his power numbers were a pleasant surprise to the Braves’ lineup.
The front office was forced to not tender Kelly Johnson a contract and keep Prado as the starter, as paying both of them arbitration salaries would have made little sense.
The question is can Prado keep his production up for 150 games with four plate appearances in each game?
I cannot help but question whether the uphill battle is what drove Prado to produce so well in the past. This will be Prado’s first Spring Training where he is an every day starter, and his preparation will be much different than the previous few seasons, which could factor into his on the field success.
Prado has been very bad defensively at second base throughout his career as well. His career UZR/150 at second base is a very poor -15.2 and although his glove is pretty solid, his range is pretty bad.
If Prado hits as he has the past two years, then the Braves offense should be better than most expect. If his bat is cold, his defense alone is not enough to keep him in the lineup every day.
With all of the optimism that surrounds this team in Spring Training, second base is the only position where I cannot help but see the glass half empty.
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