Danny Valencia was off to a good start this season, and made it even better with a three home run game on Sunday as the Athletics defeated the Rays 7-6. In part time duty this season, Valencia is now hitting .342/.377/.589.
Valencia is a good study of how a part-time player can have widely variable seasons. He came up in 2010 and in 322 plate appearances posted a solid .311/.351/.448 slash line. That earned him a full time job in 2011, and he fell to a poor .246/.294/.383 line. He was worse in 2012, which prompted his first trade. Playing part time for Baltimore in 2013, and hit over .300 again with a high slugging percentage. In 2014 he was back down to his 2011 levels and was traded again. He rebounded in 2015, and was traded again (probably the Royals thinking they were selling high. However, Valencia has continued to hit well since he joined Oakland.
My guess is that teams need to figure out what situations allow Valencia to excel, and limit him to those at bats. Looks like the A’s are doing a good job of that so far.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1XdedYd
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