FanPost

2016 AL Second Baseman

Opinions on Starlin Castro range from an in his prime building block, to a possible stopgap, to a fringe regular. Given his highs and lows, that's not surprising. His previous hitting suggest reasons for both hope and pessimism. However, 2016 is in the books and Castro can't improve on it. Why do many fans comment that Castro was good? In the NY Daily News "Keep him or dump him" poll (obviously completely non-scientific) 92% of fans selected "keep him". Strange since Castro was not good in 2016, and even his offensive was below average compared to the other AL second baseman.

Here are the 15 players who mostly manned second base in the AL. (note the poorer players on the list played closer to a half season)

Player

Ave

OBP

SLG

HR

Runs

RBI

RC+

SB

BsR

Jose Altuve

0.338

0.396

0.531

24

108

96

150

30

0.2

Robinson Cano

0.298

0.350

0.533

39

107

103

138

0

-1.8

Brian Dozier

0.268

0.340

0.546

42

104

99

132

18

5.5

Ian Kinsler

0.288

0.348

0.484

28

117

83

123

14

3.6

Dustin Pedroia

0.318

0.376

0.449

15

105

74

120

7

-4.5

Jason Kipnis

0.275

0.343

0.469

23

91

82

117

15

1.1

Logan Forsythe

0.264

0.333

0.444

20

76

52

113

6

0.3

Devon Travis

0.300

0.332

0.454

11

54

50

109

4

2.5

Rougned Odor

0.271

0.296

0.502

33

89

88

106

14

4.1

Jonathan Schoop

0.267

0.298

0.454

25

82

82

97

1

-0.5

Starlin Castro

0.270

0.300

0.433

21

63

70

94

4

-1.6

Brett Lawrie

0.248

0.310

0.413

12

35

36

92

7

3.3

Whit Merrifield

0.283

0.323

0.392

2

44

29

89

8

3.7

Johnny Giavotella

0.260

0.287

0.376

6

44

31

80

4

-2.1

Jed Lowrie

0.263

0.314

0.322

2

30

27

77

0

-4.2

In Castro's best categories, he was average. He finished 9th in average, .001 behind the 8th place so I'll grant that he averagely hit for average. Most people cite Castro's home runs as why he was good in 2916. But his 21 home runs was only 8th among his fellow second base man. Unfortunately Castro was very poor at not making outs, or as we commonly read it on the baseball card, OBP. His OBP was 12th, beating out only Schoop, Odor and Giavotella. In other news, the Angels traded for a replacement for Giavotella. In slugging percentage, he finished 11th. Playing everyday doesn't mean playing well everyday.

So yes, Castro didn't kill the team like Stephen Drew did or Lowrie and Giavotella did out west. But let's stop pretending that his 2016 play was satisfactory. It wasn't. The Cubs are thrilled to not be paying his salary. Cashman should be seeing if a team is willing to deal some pitching or prospects for Castro's "potential" and previous All-Star appearances.

FanPosts are user-created content and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Pinstripe Alley writing staff or SB Nation.