Soto, Shmoto: Joey Meneses Is Washington’s Pleasant Surprise

On the commerce deadline, the Nationals shipped out their franchise participant, Juan Soto, to the Padres in return for an admittedly spectacular array of prospects. Dropping him, together with first baseman Josh Bell, eliminated the final two dynamic hitters from one of many worst offenses in baseball this facet of the Tigers. Changing your greatest offensive participant, particularly one as gifted as Soto, isn’t a straightforward tax, although it’s one the Nats managed to do final time when the Bryce Harper period easily gave strategy to the Infantile Bambino one. And for the very brief time period, at the least, Washington has pulled this trick for a second time.

No, the Nats haven’t discovered one other phenom to succeed Soto, however as an alternative, they went with journeyman minor league outfielder Joey Meneses. He isn’t a prospect of any kind, or perhaps a younger participant; he’s older than not solely Soto but in addition Harper. However what Meneses has carried out in defying expectations is spectacular, together with his 158 wRC+ in additional than 200 plate appearances really besting Soto’s pre-trade wRC+ of 152. I’m not going to counsel that Meneses is definitely capable of exchange Soto, however this can be very cool to see a minor leaguer be capable of capitalize on such a uncommon alternative.

For the background on Meneses, I urge you to check out the piece written by our friend Ben Lindbergh over at the Ringer earlier this month, for which I provided a ZiPS minor league translation for Meneses’ 2022 season, which got here out as a helpful however un-enthralling .260/.303/.430 line and a 110 OPS+. But the supposedly imminent Cinderella-esque pumpkinification has but to occur, and Meneses has continued to hit in September, with a .324/.364/.560 line and 6 homers. After a pair hundred visits to the plate, it turns into more durable to dismiss performances like this, so I assumed I’d leap in and take a extra detailed take a look at the way forward for Meneses.

About 35 years in the past, Bill James coined the time period “Ken Phelps All-Star” to indicate gamers who play very effectively within the excessive minors however get little or no enjoying time within the majors as a result of the crew doesn’t consider in them for one motive or one other. The unique Ken Phelps All-Star, Ken Phelps (naturally!), acquired little or no significant enjoying time within the majors till his age-28 season, when he put up a 143 wRC+ for the Mariners. He continued to hit, and the Mariners finally despatched him to the Yankees for Jay Buhner, a participant who contributed till the daybreak of the twenty first century and who Frank Costanza would not have traded.

This was again within the days when it was robust to get an opportunity within the majors when you misplaced any whiff of prospectdom. There are fewer Ken Phelps All-Stars today, as groups are way more keen to vary their minds a couple of veteran minor league slugger, and with Japan and Korea changing into viable different choices to Triple-A purgatory. A participant like Nelson Cruz won’t have gotten one other likelihood after age 26 if he had been born 20 years earlier. Even Corridor of Famer Edgar Martinez was a near-miss; the Mariners didn’t suppose extremely of him as a prospect, and to get an prolonged shot, he needed to destroy the Pacific Coast League, and Jim Presley needed to sink to near-mythical ranges of awfulness.

Is Joey Meneses a rarer fashionable Ken Phelps All-Star? Properly, probably not. Taking a look at his year-by-year translations, it’s comprehensible why groups had not given him enjoying time within the majors:

Word that the 2022 translation has moved barely as I supplied the newest replace of the 2022 park elements. Nonetheless, Meneses didn’t actually change into an fascinating hitter within the minors till 2018. He didn’t hit effectively in Japan, after which the COVID yr quickly eradicated the excessive minors, a devastating factor for a veteran minor leaguer hoping to showcase his skills.

So what do the Nats have in Meneses? On the very least, they in all probability have an honest stopgap starter, as his current translations counsel. And you may’t wholly discard two months of play, both. So let’s hearth up the ZiPS-o-Matic 5000 and crunch out a projection:

ZiPS does venture Meneses to remain a viable starter, however with a big catch. The truth is that as a 30-year-old rookie, he’s already coming into the decline part of his profession and doesn’t have loads of spare defensive worth to cushion the decline. He’s sadly unlikely to final lengthy sufficient to get a big free-agent deal or an enormous arbitration increase, however a $700,000 minimal wage crushes Triple-A paychecks, and he’ll earn service time for a pension. In any case, it’s a big enchancment from his best-ever ZiPS projection coming into a season: an 83 OPS+, 0.2 WAR projection earlier than 2022. The Nats are in for an extended rebuild, and a participant like Meneses will preserve getting probabilities to indicate he’s for actual.

No matter turns into of him sooner or later, Washington, D.C. has arguably already gained the Battle of First Meneses (Bull Run within the north). The success he has tasted in 2022 should function a reminder that organizations are smart to provide their minor leaguers each alternative to edit their story.