Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Isiah Kiner-Falefa

The Jays signed Isiah Kiner-Falefa to a two-year, $15 million contract two days after Christmas because, apparently, we have a fetish for utility infielders. He’s a right-handed batter who has been in the majors for six seasons, four with the Rangers and two with the Yankees. He turns 29 in March. I’m unsure if anyone else has as much trouble remembering his full name as I do. I’ve misspelled at least one of the parts of his name almost every time I’ve typed it.

He has a .261/.314/.340 career batting line and has had OPS+ numbers ranging from 58 to 93 (the 58 was an outlier. His next lowest number was a 78. At 29 I’m not expecting a career year, I think we know what he is as a hitter. He doesn’t have much for left/right splits, with a career .673 OPS against LHP and .655 against RHP.

Isiah can steal the odd base. He had 14 of them last year.

His defense has been good at short and third, and he can also play second. He also has 566 innings in the outfield. But then I don’t want a guy with a .660 career OPS playing in the outfield (for comparison, Daulton Varsho has a .715 career OPS).

I’m still baffled about his signing. I said before, “Signing Isiah Kiner-Falefa seems like holding up a big sign that says, ‘We don’t want to have to play our prospects”. And I haven’t changed my opinion.

I wasn’t the only unhappy; our poll on his signing:

His defense seems to be his calling card, might be overrated. In a post on Pinstripe Alley, Matt Ferenchick said about his 2022 season:

What was really a disappointment was his defense. While the advanced stats go back and forth on whether he was good or bad, he could be really frustrating to watch at times. His 16 errors were tied for the 10th most in all of baseball last year. Beyond that, several of them came at inopportune moments. While the particular error didn’t get charged to him, he was part of the one that partially ended the Yankees’ season in the ALCS. In the seventh inning of Game 4, Gleyber Torres couldn’t handle Kiner-Fafela’s rushed throw to second as part of an inning-ending double play attempt. That kept the inning alive and allowed Houston to turn a one-run deficit into a 6-5 lead as they swept away the Yankees. Kiner-Falefa does have a Gold Glove in his history, but that came at third base and in 2020.

PECOTA doesn’t have high hopes for his season: 102 games, a .251/.310/.344 batting line, with 5 home runs, for a 0.8 WAR.

ZiPS, 129 games, .250/.305/.332 with 5 home runs and a 0.7 WAR.

Steamer, 104 games, .260/.316/.360 with 6 home runs and a 1.1 WAR.

I feel like I’m being overly negative about Kiner-Falefa, but reading these projections, maybe I’m not negative enough. It is hard to get excited when the best of the three projections puts him at a .676 OPS.

Poll If we put the over/under on IKF’s OPS at .670 I’d take the Poll If the over/under on IFK’s 2024 games played is 110 I’d take the Poll Tom will learn to like IKF?