First off, I'll admit, I was a strong proponent to DFA Mr. Radio (thanks Embree!) during the course of the first half of the season. At the plate, he was overmatched often swinging and whiffing air on a regular basis. In the field, he never had good reads on hits, ran strange routes at times, and didn't seem to exhibit the communication skills necessary for good CFs. However, his recent play had me questioning my original position on him and even rooting for the guy! So I went to look at his stats breakdown:

His .285 / .357 / .411 line even trumps my man, Spartacust and is second on the team in OPS to only AK (well also Holliday, but he was he really ever here?). The OBP is a bit higher than his historical .325 clip in 631 PA due in part to a somewhat higher walk rate (did he stop using DJs old sunscreen lotion?), but mostly because his better BA. A more in depth look at his plate discipline shows that the most dramatic improvement he has had is in recognizing when a pitch is outside the zone (reduced from 36% to 29%) and swinging at it (reduced from 65% to 58% this year), otherwise all his PD stats are about the same.  He still has surprisingly high strikeout rate which is even worse than last years, but this is mostly skewed by his first half suckitude. Looking closer at BA component, we see that his BABIP is at a very high .339 rate, which means that either he is 1) getting very lucky (league avg. BABIP is around .290-.300) 2) utilizing his speed to beat out hits (since he does have a 44% GB to FB/LD split) or C) a little of both. He probably won't be able to sustain these rates, but a line of .275 / .335 / .385 rate more in line with his majors track record, which means he's still really a 4th outfielder at best, which his OPS+ of 109 shows.

Since concluding that he is really a 4th outfielder (in offensive capabilities), we’ll concentrate on his defensive capabilities. I still think he gets really bad reads on balls which would coincide with his funky routes (let’s hope he’s not another Burns in disguise!), but luckily his speed makes up for most of this shortcoming. Fortunately, he hasn’t made many errors (2) and his UZR is still pretty good at 6.7, but so is Sweeney’s! If comparing the two, Sweeney has the better arm with the same range (yes, seriously, see fangraphs)! Rajai really needs to work on his reads, so that it will cut down on his circuitous routes, lessen the effect of his lack of arm strength, increase his overall range, and make him a standout defender in the outfield instead of just above average.   

With all of this in mind, if you are a believer in WAR, it tells you that he is about 1.5 wins better than league average, good for 4th on the team in offensive/defensive value. For the casual fans, they’ll tell you that his intangibles such as speed in the outifeld, base stealing (yes really even with a 71% success rate), and clutch hitting of late (inciting echoes of Scutaro everywhere) are an essential component to future success. While many still have serious doubts on his “grits” by looking closer at his stats, we should enjoy it while we can. It may be a sign of things to come for a new era of Moneyball players, but that is for another fanpost! ;)