David Freese does not suck

David Freese does not suck. Some Angels fans seem to think he does, but he doesn’t. He’s not great. He may not even be good, but he does not, in fact, suck.

For some reason, there has been a movement this offseason by a segment of Angels fans to rid the team of David Freese due to the misguided perception that he sucks. There were calls for him to be non-tendered back in December and other calls for him to be traded for a bag of baseballs after that non-tendering failed to occur.

This wasn’t a case of folks thinking that there was a better alternative to Freese at third base though. In fact, the preference seems to be for him to be replaced by the same players who are currently projected to replace Howie Kendrick. You know, the same players that people generally are unexcited about as new potential members of the Angels starting lineup. They aren’t good enough to replace Kendrick, sure, but they are more than good enough to replace Freese because Freese, allegedly, sucks.

But David Freese does not suck, actually. It really isn’t even a matter of opinion either. The stats speak for themselves. In parts of five seasons in the big leagues, Freese has been worth 10.1 fWAR and 7.8 rWAR. Mind you that Freese played fewer than 100 games in 2011 and 2010, so he’s essentially been averaging two wins per year despite not being a full-time player in two of the five seasons. That’s the value of a league average starter. Last time I checked, league averages starters do not suck.

Now, Freese is hardly perfect. In 2013, he was basically a replacement level player, but that was because he played through a bad back that impacted both his fielding and his hitting. But for the rest of his career, Freese has been solid. He’s got a career 116 wRC+, .348 OBP and .338 wOBA. That’s a quality bat to have in the lineup if you look at his contributions as a whole. He’s had a hard time staying healthy, but that is a much different problem than him not being any good.

The problem, as I see it, is that the people who think he sucks are focusing on very specific parts of his offensive profile. Freese’s underwhelming power seems to the biggest objection. On his career, he’s sporting just a .137 ISO and has only one season in which he has hit more than 10 homers. So, yeah, the problem with Freese’s bat basically boils down to MOAR DINGERZ!!

Legitimate complaints can be lodged against Freese’s defense, which is average, at best. He has a career Defensive Runs Saved of -28 and a career UZR of -12.5. To be fair, a lot of that came in his injury plagued 2013 where he compiled a -19 DRS and -16.5 UZR. Remove that outlier season and Freese looks a lot better, but still not great with the glove. In other words, he may not be a defensive asset, but when it comes to defense, David Freese does not suck.

Or maybe the issue is simply that David Freese hasn’t ever been able to recapture the magical clutch hitting abilities from the 2011 World Series that turned him into a cult hero in St. Louis. Let’s be honest, when you think of Freese, you think of that double he ripped over the head of a bumbling Nelson Cruz to save the Cardinals in the World Series. So every time he comes to the plate for the Halos in a high leverage situation and does anything other than hit a six-run homer. He’s a victim of his own success and, as a result, people think that David Freese sucks.

Another factor could be Freese’s miserable start to his Angel career. Due to contracting Anaheimnesia, Freese posted a 54 wRC+ in April then a 63 wRC+ in May before going on the disabled list for a few weeks with a finger injury. That had to have poisoned the well quite a bit with the Angel fan base. Their minds were made up, this guy stinks and there is nothing he can do to change that. Even though came back with a 112 wRC+ in June and 150 wRC+ in July before finishing the season with an 80 and 150 wRC+ in August and September, respectively, the jury already delivered the verdict: David Freese sucks.

If folks still think Freese is terrible despite is perfectly respectable line in 2014, then they are only in for more disappointment in 2015 as Freese is projected by Steamer to “suck” his way to a 1.8 fWAR season with a 320 wOBA. ZiPS only has him at a 1.3 win season with a .309 wOBA. You’d think a fan base that lived through the Jeff Mathis era could correctly identify what a truly bad season looks like, but I guess the new bar is that a league average starter at third base now “sucks.” Somehow I think the Angels front office is going to be OK with that because they know that, in reality, David Freese does not suck.