Carlos Peguero is bad at playing baseball

Not relative to any of us readers, of course. We’re all worse baseball players than Carlos Peguero, presumably. Compared to me, Carlos Peguero is pretty good at playing baseball. Unfortunately, he’s pretty bad at it compared to his peers.

Peguero’s bad at just about everything when it comes to the plate. If he had enough plate appearances to qualify, Peguero’s 47.6% O-Swing rate (rate of times where a hitter swings at a pitch outside of the strike zone) would be the worst in baseball. Vladimir Guerrero is over a full percentage point lower, and he leads the league.

Only one player has a worse contact rate that Carlos Peguero’s putrid 66.4% rate. That one player, unfortunately, is Miguel Olivo. Mariners! Peguero also would lead the league in swinging strike percentage, at 19.4%, which is really, really bad.

It’s not like he makes up for it by being patient either. His 5.5% walk rate would put him even with Jeff Francouer, who has more than questionable strike zone judgment. Peguero’s .268 OBP seems like it might even be a little bit high, and above his current talent level.

Power isn’t enough reason to keep his bat in the lineup either. His 6 home runs and .214 ISO look fairly decent compared to other Mariners players, that’s still not outstanding enough to merit a lineup spot given his terrible on-base skills. Plus, two of his home runs are listed as “just enough” by hit tracker online, suggesting that those home runs may have been a bit lucky.

Finally, the argument most people seem to make to defend playing Peguero over Carp is his defense. While he looks like a giraffe on roller skates in the outfield to me, and doesn’t pass the eye test, he doesn’t pass the UZR test either. It’s admittedly a small sample, but Peguero has been worth -2.5 runs in left field thus far, which is on pace for -12.9 runs over the course of a season. That seems to agree with how he’s physically looked in the field as well.

It all adds up to Peguero being worth -0.1 WAR this season. Not terrible for a rookie, but not good enough to warrant the level of playing time he’s been getting. Mike Carp is the better hitter, and Peguero isn’t much of a defender himself. Carlos Peguero needs to return to Tacoma, and Mike Carp should be getting the starts in left field against right handed pitchers until a permanent solution for the position is found.