This season, Nasim Nunez has had the chance to prove he can be an everyday player. While he showed some promise at times in the summer, he has failed in that mission. For most of this season, his flaws have been brutally exposed as he has been overplayed. Nunez has skills, but this is not something that works in a full-time role.
It is tough to overstate just how bad Nasim Nunez has been offensively. On the season, his OPS is .534, which is over 50 points worse than the second worst qualified hitter.
You can be an all-world baserunner and defender, but there are offensive thresholds you have to hit to be on an MLB field every day. Nunez is simply not hitting those.
When you look at his Baseball Savant page, it is very easy to identify the problems here. Nunez just is not strong enough to consistently make hard contact. His xwOBA, xSLG and barrel rate are all in the first percentile. There are actually ways to work around this, but Nunez either can’t or won’t do that.
Chandler Simpson has the same issues as Nunez, but he is hitting .308 this season. That is because he has gone all in on making contact and weaponizing his speed. Simpson only strikes out 8.2% of the time while Nunez strikes out over 20% of the time. Being like Chandler Simpson is the only way for Nunez to have offensive success. However, I just don’t think he has the bat to ball skills to do that.
The result of this is pretty disastrous. This season, Nunez has an insanely low 52 wRC+. That means he is about half as good as even an average hitter. It is rare to see a wRC+ that low for a guy with over 450 plate appearances because usually those sorts of bats don’t get this much rope.
People would counter that Nunez makes up for this on the bases and in the field. However, fWAR does not think so. Even while grading out as an elite baserunner and very good fielder, Nunez still has -0.2 fWAR. With his profile, you have to be an impressively bad hitter to compile negative WAR. That is exactly what he is doing though.
It feels like the new regime has really bought into Nunez’s skillset. He is getting way more opportunities than he did with the old regime. They even moved CJ Abrams off of shortstop to get Nunez looks over there. Seaver King has been knocking on the door for a while, but Paul Toboni has decided to stick with Nunez.
With a slash line of .211/.289/.245, that faith is not being rewarded. Lately, Nunez has been as close to an automatic out as you get in the modern game. He is hitting .116 with a .302 OPS. Even old NL pitchers would be disappointed by those numbers. In his last 15 games, it has gotten even worse with an .095 average and .235 OPS. These numbers are just comically low.
With the offense having a tougher time post-deadline, you just cannot have this player in the lineup with any regularity. Whenever he comes up in a big spot, you are just conceding an out to the other team. That is what happened last night, with Nunez looking helpless at the dish.
Nasim Nunez has a unique skillset, so I understand giving him some run in a rebuilding year. However, entering next season with Nunez as an Opening Day starter would be unacceptable. He has proven to be incapable at the plate and not starter quality.
You can keep him around as a defensive replacement and pinch runner. However, if he is a starter on the 2027 infield, the offseason would be a failure. Nunez has gotten his chance and has very clearly shown he cannot be an everyday player.
