If You Want A “League Average Third Baseman,” He’s Your Guy

If your goal is to finish 81-81 then I suppose you could aim to put league average players everywhere on the diamond. If you aspire higher (ooh that rhymes...wait, nobody cares, myself included), it doesn’t mean you have to find above average players everywhere. You can succeed with some excellent players and some who are merely in that 50th percentile on which above/below average is judged.

So when I discuss a 3B option that is utterly average it is neither to heap praise nor criticism. It is merely to note, with a touch of astonishment, how incredibly “league average” one player appears to be — and he’s available on the free agent market.

Meet Gio Urshela. He celebrated his 33rd birthday in October, having just finished a 1 year, $1.5M deal with the Tigers and the Braves, the latter of whom he was dealt to at the trading deadline.

I raise Urshela as a possible A’s target not to promote the idea nor to campaign against it. I simply point him out as a marvel of the 50th percentile in action. Perhaps the A’s wish to be more ambitious in their pursuit of a 3B solution or maybe they would be thrilled to get average production from a position that was a collective failure from the likes of Max Schuemann, Darell Hernaiz, Aledmys Diaz, and Nick Allen.

Mr. League Average Hitter

In 792 career games, Urshela has put up a wRC+ of 99 thanks to a slash line of .273/.316./413.

Most hitters have platoon splits, but Urshela is impressively committed to being league average under all circumstances so he provides an exception. His L/R splits are uncanny in that in probability and statistics, deviation is normal.

When you flip a coin 100 times you don’t especially expect it to come out “heads” 50 times. Certainly not exactly 500 times in 1,000. You expect some arbitrary deviation, which is why two splits rarely come out nearly identical.

But Urshela is no ordinary man. No, he is extraordinarily ordinary.

For his career, Urshela is batting .275 against LHP and .272 against RHP.
For his career, Urshela has a .317 OBP against LHP and a .316 OBP against RHP.
For his career, Urshela is slugging .416 against LHP and .412 against RHP.

Put it all together and here’s what you get:

vs. LHP: .275/.317/.416, .313 wOBA, 98 wRC+, 5.7% BB rate, 18.7% K rate

vs. RHP: .272/.316/.412, .314 wOBA, 100 wRC+, 5.9% BB rate, 18.0% K rate

Oh, in the 1st half of the season over his career? .272/.316/.405, 99 wRC+ In the second half? .274/.317./422, 100 wRC+

What About His Defense?

Would it surprise you to learn that in 2024, at 3B Urshela had a DRS of 0? He is actually ever so slightly positive over his 9 year career, with +10 DRS. Averaging about +1 DRS for a decade makes him, well......pretty much league average?

Especially if you knock him down for OAA (-14 career) about as much as you build him up for his DRS.

Over 9 seasons he has been a little above average here but a little below average there. In aggregate? Let’s call it even.

Should The A’s Consider Him?

That, of course, depends on what your goals are for 3B, but one point in Urshela’s favor is that he doesn’t figure to be terribly expensive. He will benefit, certainly, from how weak the 3B market this off-season — basically it’s Alex Bregman and an excess of chaff.

But Urshela coming off a season in which he made $1.5M and did not put up great numbers (2024 was a down year offensively with a .250/.286/.361 slash line), so he will not command a contract that would prohibit the A’s from signing or acquiring another SP.

If you had asked me about Urshela before I dove into his stats, I would have been very tepid as my sense of him was that he was a below average fielder whose bat was a bit like Miguel Andujar: hits the ball hard when he hits it, maintains a good BA, but hacks his way to mediocre results.

In fact, though, Urshela has been a league average hitter, with the possible caveat that he did see a noticeable dip last year (81 wRC+) and there is no guarantee he will bounce back. But if he shows up in 2025 as Joe Average, the A’s could do worse and his splits show that you can pencil him in any day and expect about the same result.

So maybe he’s worth considering as a place holder, hopefully, for Max Muncy. Perhaps by getting just “decent” at their weakest position the A’s could take another step forward towards wild card relevancy.

Or maybe not. He’s 33, not terrific to begin with and coming off of a poor season. You might view him right now as being “average at best”. He would counter with “Yes, and also ‘average at worst’.”

Just another day in the life of Joe Average, the ultimate “81 win player”.