In the lab: Putting LaMonte Wade in the lab

I make no bones about the fact that “Major League” is probably my favorite baseball movie. Half of my fantasy baseball teams have the name “Jobu’s Rum.” There are other good ones to be sure. “The Natural” is a good one. “Bull Durham” is a classic. “Eight Men Out” is another one. There are probably more including “Field of Dreams” that get you in a soft spot, but Major League has so many lines that I can recite from heart. One of my favorite exchanges is below.

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Lou Brown: That’s Jake Taylor. He was an all-star in Boston right?

Charlie Donovan: Yeah, he wound up in the Mexican Leagues because he had trouble with his knees.

Pitching Coach: Wish we would have had him two years ago.

Donovan: We did.

Pitching Coach: Four years ago then.

I’m not saying Wade is Jake Taylor, but that scene always comes back to me when teams sign guys like Wade. He was a really good player back in 2021 and 2022. However, it was short-lived as these things usually are. However, there is a difference between the basic numbers and the underlying numbers. So, let’s take a look at both and see what the Astros are getting.

AVGHRRunsRBI2021.2531852562022.207829262023.2561764452024.260845342025.16721918

Observant readers will notice that the 2026 numbers are missing. That is because he has not been at the big league level yet this season. He was toiling in the International League with the White Sox’ triple A affiliate. In just over 200 plate appearances he has a .250 average, seven home runs, and 26 RBI. Of course, just looking at these numbers buries the lede. If you look at the ratios and BABIP it begins to make more sense.

SO%BB%HardhitBABIP202123.48.741.7.289202220.310.434.3.233202318.314.639.8.290202422.415.544.1.331202524.011.231.8.220

As you can see, some of the underlying numbers look a lot better than the basic numbers. In particular, he seems to fit in with the new approach by the hitting coaches. He takes more pitches and therefore takes more walks. His swing percentages are consistently in the same neighborhood as Isaac Paredes. His chase rates never went above 23 percent and sit at 19.5 for his career. Those make him perhaps the most selective player on the Astros roster.

He is normally a neutral fielder in left field, but has spent most of his time playing right field and first base. He has -5 defensive runs saved in over 1300 innings in the outfield. He has -1 DRS in almost 2400 innings at first base. So, you have a guy that can play three different positions at almost league average ability. Ostensibly, he is taking Joey Loperfido’s spot on the roster, so let’s take a look at his periherals.

SO%BB%HardhitBABIP202436.35.034.7.331202526.03.837.1.431202628.89.140.0.400

When you look at the Astros bench, it looked like they were a little heavy on the strikeouts. The Astros sent Zach Cole down, but before he went down he had a strikeout rate of nearly 40 percent. Zach Dezenzo has a strikeout rate near 35 percent. Brice Mathews looks like a contact fiend compared to them. His K rate is “only” 32.9 percent. Suffice it to say, when you add in the substitution of Collin Price for Cesar Salazar and it looks like the Astros are trying to beef up their bench.

In 1996, Gerry Hunsicker (then the Astros general manager) signed veteran pitcher Terry Clark mid season to join the bullpen. At the time, Hunsicker said he was trying to “catch lightening in a bottle.” Clark would go onto have an ERA over 11,00 in five games with the Astros. Clearly, the lightening came nowhere near the bottle. Wade is no Clark, but this feels like a similar gamble. In AAA this season he has been the same guy he always was as he has drawn more than 40 walks. If we look at the statcast numbers we can see that Wade has been an underrated hitter throughout his career.

What statcast does is look at the expected numbers across the board depending on the quality and rate of contact by the hitter. Including in that is an adjustment for Fangraphs’ weighted on base average (wOBA) they call xwOBA. If we look at that along with the career numbers we can see what might be possible for Wade in Houston.

wOBAxwOBAxAVGxOBPxSLG2021.343.344.249.322.4752022.298.320.216.314.4172023.347.360.258.375.4562024.337.356.253.373.4372025.241.281.205.309.321Career.322.338.241.341.428

Weighted on base percentage is a number most fans are not familiar with. It mimics OBP but it includes a slugging element to it. A career .322 wOBA is actually pretty close to league average. As you can see, the expected numbers are better than that across the board. So, he is not a gas can like Terry Clark was, but there is a calculated gamble here. The gamble is that there will be some regression to the mean. The downside is that he might be on the way down.

Of course, a league minimum salary is not that much of a gamble. The Astros officially activated Joey Loperfido and optioned him to Sugar Land. The worst that can happen is that Wade isn’t the next Jake Taylor. If that happens then you cut him and bring Loperfido back up. What do you think? Are you excited about the Astros adding Wade?

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