Can Locklear step up as D-Backs answer at 1B?
James Schiano explores how Tyler Locklear, though not stellar, has filled the gaping hole at first base for the Diamondbacks admirably since being called up and unpacks his fantasy viability.
Video Transcript
As the Diamondbacks desperately try to fill the black hole that's been their first base position all season, Tyler Locklear may be emerging as a viable option.
In four games since being called back up, he's gone five for 13 with one home run, five RBIs, and better than 1100 OPS.
And they really, really want him to be able to take this job and run with it, because he was the big piece that came back to them in the Eugenio Suarez trade, last trade deadline, from the Seattle Mariners, who they also sent their incumbent first baseman Josh Naylor to just a few days before.
And Locklear should have come in and probably hit the ground running.
That season in AAA, he had 19 home runs, 18 stolen bases, and better than a 900 OPS through almost 100 games, with great batted ball metrics that looked like they would translate to the next level.
Yet he flopped very, very hard in his first cup of coffee with the Diamondbacks.
In a shade over a month with the Big League squad last year, he had a 175 batting average, 267 on base percentage, 262 slugging percentage, and nearly 40% strikeout rate.
He was unplayable for a Diamondbacks team that did sell off and was trying to give him a shot, and still couldn't even do so.
Then he went back down to AAA to start this season, now 25 years old, and was productive again, had those same solid quality of contact metrics, but made a big approach in his plate discipline that could unlock something this season.
He swung much less, which in turn helped him chase fewer pitches out of the strike zone, but he also maintained a very similar in-zone contact rate.
So hopefully that passivity can translate to just better contact rates in general at the Major League level.
Also because the Diamondbacks, currently in the third wildcard spot in the National League entering play on Friday, have to make a decision on whether or not they want to keep Locklear there or acquire a new first baseman.
Because on the season, their first baseman have combined for a 617 OPS, by far the worst in the league, and they really need to make an upgrade there if they want to stay in the race
