No more so than thinking Lane Thomas is a piece moving forward for a contending team. Starting piece anyway. People want to sell off other guys (Finnegan) because the team is not contending so might as well roll the dice and let Robles play. He’s career 6.3 bWAR over about 1500 at bats so he is better than replacement level per actual data no matter what fans think.
4.4 of that was piled up in 2019. 3 straight years of 70 or lower OPS+. fWAR, which is better, has him at 4.0 for his career, 3.5 in 2019, with awRC+ < 70 the past 3 years. He was a 1 year wonder who got by on weak contact. Believe the contact for going forward, not the fluke production one year. In the Robles thread, there's a discussion of why hit velocity data is more predictive. For that matter, that's why Garrett is a much more interesting hitter going forward.
