Newly-announced Nats CF Denard Span has some stat secrets. He left Minnesota with a .284 career batting average. This means he gets a hit about every 2 or 3 at bats.  He also has a career 254 walks, which also puts him on base a lot.

But Span only has 23 home runs in his entire 5-year career (which is about only 4 or 5 a year). Since he became a major leaguer in 2008, Span has 2,354 at bats.  So this shows us that he doesn’t hit for power.  But in the Nats line-up, Span’s job is really just to get on base, and the big bats hitting behind him, like Werth, Harper, Zimmerman, LaRoche, Desmond, Espinosa and Ramos or Suzuki can drive him in.  If he can get in scoring position, it makes the job of the rest of the lineup so much easier. 

So let’s see how he does in that department.  Span is fast, with.  90 steals in his career.  He was only caught stealing 28 times in 118 tries.

I don’t know much about him defensively.  Is the Werth-Span-Harper outfield better than Werth-Harper-Morse?  It’s hard to say.  I’m glad Harper is moving to a corner, and Span can cover more ground than Morse.  But having Morse in the lineup, when he was locked-in, was great for the Nats the past 2 seasons.  In 2013, the Nats outfield spells “WSH” which is a good sign.

Check out Span’s full stats from MLB. 

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