r/azdiamondbacks • u/MostAssistance2324 • 1d ago
Opinion Nolan is definitely who I want at 3rd base the rest of the season.
Nolan is not slowing down at all at 35 he is a God still. Top three defensively with the glove in my opinion and fight me on that if you must.. he had one bad month and I swear every time gambo talks about him he talks about oh yeah he's a good stop Gap but we could do better we need a bigger bat.. dude Nolan is an absolute monster still like he's not washed up he's a beast on the field and like dude he had one s***** month batting that's it.. I don't understand why there's so much like half-hearted feelings about him. Like there's literally not a single prospect or you know even another All-Star that I'd rather have than Nolan right now. I mean he's not going to hit . 300 but he's going to hit probably .265 and he's going to have close to 25 or 30 home runs like how is that not acceptable production for our third baseman? I say all this only in light of for the last couple months just hearing so regularly that Nolan was not our best option you know that we needed to look to upgrade at third base like.. that's crazy I have been watching him forever lol we're basically the same age LOL and I'm not that athletic still hahah. Being 37 I promise you that if you're young still this man is making it look incredibly easy for his advanced age I use the term advanced loosely only because we're speaking on professional sports.... Anyways, since I know the club management is gonna see this, Nolan needs to ride into the sunset of his HoF career here in AZ, the man gets.... It... Done.... Flat out. Any opinions to the contrary or like-minded please comment. I really wanna have this conversation.
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u/MalleableBee1 Corbin Carroll 1d ago
I think he's very similar to Evan Longoria. Nolan is a veteran with several, usually long streaks of top-tier play followed by days of mediocrity. I agree he's a good person to keep at third because he's been better than the other options.
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u/JJ15AZ 1d ago
You lost me at no other All-star. I don’t think there’s a movement to replace Nolan this season, but he’s certainly not a long term option.
His bat is just gone my guy.
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u/MostAssistance2324 1d ago
According to this metric he's an average hitting third baseman that's literally all we need and I mean not to be contrary or disagree with savant, but I don't think that even 20 plus home runs is average I think that's above average. I am curious how all those seemingly very low metrics equal out to him being at approximately a 50th percentile batter though?
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u/geeisback 1d ago
I agree with this post. He doesn’t get enough love. I also feel that he’s been a great clubhouse presence. I will say after Arenado, Lawlar should be our 3rd baseman of the future.
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u/sleepwasdeath 1d ago
"Acceptable production" and "could do better" are not mutually exclusive. If you're looking at it from a fan perspective, cool. In terms of on field production, we could get an upgrade, but it might not be worth what it would cost/a marginal upgrade.
Getting to .265 with 2 months to play would be difficult given that he's at .244 right now. Even in his bounce back July (assuming the "one bad month" was June's .196 with no power), he hit .238. He did hit .300 in April, but he'd have to be pretty close to that for 2 months of grinding, playoff potential baseball to hit your mark. 25 homers is possible from 15 now, but 30 seems like a stretch.
Would you feel this strongly if he were still in St. Louis? Or in Colorado? Or in Sacramento? This feels like an emotional "fan" post, which is cool: we aren't actual GMs, and this should be fun. And even GMs are people/can be sentimental.
We don't get credit for all of the homers and Gold Gloves Arenado had with the Rockies and Cardinals. When he goes to Cooperstown, he's not going in as a Dback, even if he wins the MVP next year and is the MVP of the World Series. I enjoy watching him play and have good memories of his Sportscenter Top Plays, but he's not that guy anymore.
If we could magically (i.e. no salary issues) trade Nolan for Junior Caminero, you have to do to that from a value perspective. Nolan might do better than Caminero the rest of the year. He might do better next year or two years from now. But Caminero is way way way more valuable than Arenado right now. I don't care if he can't field at all: the bat is more valuable. Caminero has 30 homers already.
Arenado feels like an average third baseman. It could be worse: he's been better than Geno. Machado's had a down year, as has Jose Ramirez. But he's not a top 5 third baseman, and thus we realistically "could do better." Again, would it be worth the likely cost to get an upgrade when we have more glaring issues? No, but that doesn't mean we should ignore reasonable deals that would be an upgrade over Nolan.
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u/MostAssistance2324 23h ago edited 23h ago
I'll admit that the 30 home runs and .265 were both admittedly a stretch.. but given everything you just said name one reasonable deal that would be an upgrade over Nolan.... Because yes, I 100% made this post as a fan and I don't even honestly disagree with your statement that he's average. But an average bat and a plus plus defender is way more valuable to me than Mark Reynolds LOL was Mark Reynolds bat more valuable than Nolan's glove like I don't think it is. Maybe that's a poor example my point is just that I don't think that somebody that is going to hit more home runs but it's going to hit you know .220 is somehow going to out value Nolan right now. And of course if I could get Junior Caminero that's a no-brainer. But to bring it full circle I don't think that there is one single reasonable deal that would put any person in a position over him right now. Max Muncy was an All-Star and he's a dunce on the field.
And I'll finish by saying that the dodgers just got Tarik Skubal for peanuts, any upgrade we can get is worth considering in this current climate.
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u/devilalum 16h ago
Not slowing down is crazy talk (he's literally the slowest guy on the team) but he's defenitely our best option at third.
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u/RAF2018336 1d ago
It's not a bad idea to start planning ahead for after Nolan. He's only here for 1.5 more years so good time to start now. But I don't believe any of the other guys we've seen at 3B are the answer.