Think of old-school Rod Carew. From his age-27 on, and to the end of his career at age-39, he never struck out more than his walks. Carew was kind of unique even in old-school baseball. He got on-base and stole bases, and those were his super powers. He only had two seasons when he hit double-digit home runs. At the age of 31, he drove in 100 runs and scored 128 runs. Carew was an All-Star for 18 years, and an MVP for one. He was a contact, line drive hitter, who was a tough out, and retired with a .328 batting average.
In today’s game, would Carew have been treated like Luis Arraez, a player that analytics has not held in high regard? Is baseball changing after this year’s postseason where the small market teams showed that scoring runs with good pitching, good defense, team speed, and doubles/singles made home run power overrated?
If you were listening to Game 5 of the World Series, they did a segment on Chandler Simpson of the Tampa Bay Rays. To refine his game, Simpson studied video of elite hitters like Carew, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, and Luis Arraez, alongside base-stealing legends like Vince Coleman, Billy Hamilton, and Kenny Lofton. He even analyzed the mechanics of world-class sprinters—including Olympians Tyson Gay, Usain Bolt, and Michael Johnson — to see what he could incorporate into his own running style. Seeking further insight, he spoke with Tony Gwynn Jr. to gather advice and absorb the wisdom of his late-father, the eight-time batting champion who passed away in 2014.
Some compare Simpson to a faster version of Arraez. Who would you rather have on your team? Simpson is a Gold Glove finalist but has a weak arm. He is kind of a 2.5-Tool player with the hit tool, speed, and we give him half a star for his good defensive range. Arraez turned his defense into a positive in the 2026 season but is more two-dimensional with the hit tool and improved defense.
Teams pay more for players with super powers, and especially power/speed combo players — and if they can play defense with those other tools, you have that new Bobby Witt Jr. and Pete Crow-Armstong types who get MVP votes. But Chandler and Arraez are showing that they have star potential without the power.
This is a tough love segue to Nasim Nuñez. After watching Simpson, you can’t help but wonder, can’t Nas do that? He is so much more than what he showed in the 2026 season. We know that because we saw glimpses of a developing bat in the 2025 season with Nuñez. The team gave him the job to start at second base, and he blew it. We know the results, we saw the process, we don’t know the why? Why?!? He went from a .699 OPS in 2025 to .535 this season. Simpson’s OPS was .689 this year with a FanGraphs WAR of +2.3.
Watching Simpson during the postseason felt like he was paying homage to Carew in practice and theory. Both bat lefty, and aren’t swinging for power, rather control. Simpson had zero home runs in 2026. In modern baseball, that usually spells the kiss of death — but Tampa loves Simpson.
The Statcast and slash-line profiles for Simpson and Nuñez from the completed 2026 Major League Baseball season show two completely different results. While both profiles are structurally devoid of standard MLB power, that wasn’t for the lack of trying for Nuñez who regularly swung for the fences as he dipped that back shoulder for lift-off.
Simpson’s unique swing plane and contact rates translated into a highly efficient top-of-the-order output, whereas Nuñez’s swing path vulnerabilities suppressed his overall slash line.
1. Bat Speed & Launch Angle Mechanics
- Chandler Simpson: Averaged a 65.1 mph bat speed paired with a razor-flat 1.2° average launch angle. Simpson features a zero-stride rotational approach designed to actively keep the ball flat or ground it directly into the dirt. He entirely trading off heavy impact velocity for pure plate coverage.
- Nasim Nuñez: Generated a slightly quicker 68.3 mph bat speed, but paired it with a sub-zero, negative average launch angle. His erratic bat path lacked consistency and his 8.3° average launch angle would give the wrong impression because he hit too few near 8.3°. Mostly his mix was standard weak ground-ball outcomes or lazy fly balls. His barrel % was 0.9 percent that ranked him in the bottom 1 percent.
2. Spray Chart & Contact Mapping
- Chandler Simpson: His 2026 spray chart is a densely and evenly distributed matrix of softly hit line drives, line slaps, and infield chops across all sectors of the field. Backed by an elite 90.4% contact rate and a microscopic 7.8% strikeout rate, he kept his chart flowing with ball-in-play events, leading the major leagues with 40 infield hits. Simpson has said he wants to increase his walk rate.
- Nasim Nuñez: Nuñez’s 2026 spray chart is noticeably sparser based on the switch-hitters side of the plate. He did exhibit better bat to ball skills batting right-handed. Plagued by empty-swing issues against high-level pitching, he pulls the ball too often. By modern standards, his 20.1% strikeout rate and a 21.6% whiff rate are better than league average — the issue is quality of contact. When he did put the ball in play, his spray map skewed heavily toward pulled grounders on the infield.
3. Traditional Slash Line Breakdown (2026 Season)
The divergent underlying Statcast mechanics translated into significantly different baseline outputs over the course of the 2026 season:
| 2026 Standard Metric | Chandler Simpson (TBR) | Nasim Nuñez (WSH) |
|---|---|---|
| Batting Average (AVG) | .306 | .209 |
| On-Base Percentage (OBP) | .333 | .291 |
| Slugging Percentage (SLG) | .356 | .244 |
| On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS) | .689 | .535 |
| Hits (H) | 175 | 90 |
| Home Runs (HR) | 0 | 1 |
How Hitting Approach Explains the Slash Lines
- Batting Average (.306 vs .209): Simpson’s flat launch angle and extreme contact profile directly sustained his elite average. Because he avoids strikeouts (only 48 SO in 612 plate appearances), he continuously puts his 99th-percentile speed to work. Nuñez’s higher strikeout profile (99 SO in 493 plate appearances) took away his opportunities to utilize his own high-tier speed tool out of the batter’s box.
- On-Base Percentage (.333 vs .291): While Nuñez possesses a more disciplined eye—drawing 49 walks to Simpson’s 26—Simpson’s massive raw base-hit volume overrode Nuñez’s walk edge, keeping Simpson’s OBP far superior for the top of the lineup.
- Slugging & OPS (.356/.689 vs .244/.535): Neither hitter drives extra-base hits in a traditional sense. Simpson completed his improved 2026 campaign with zero home runs. However, his ability to slice line drives into the gaps resulted in 16 doubles and six triples, pushing his slugging percentage well past Nuñez who did manage to hit one home run in 2026, but his immense high-frequency grounder volume and low line-drive rate dragged his overall SLG and OPS down to the bottom tier of qualified MLB hitters.
Modern Analytics
Modern analytics don’t favor Simpson based on OPS, but the Tampa analytics group and old-school thinking likes where Simpson is heading. He is still 25 years old and room for improvement.
Evaluators can see the promise in Nuñez while hating the process in his swing mechanics and thinking. What is he trying to do? It seems clear to my eyes that he is trying to jack home runs. That is not who he is. Nuñez sells out for power and had one home run to show for it. All of that would be fine if the numbers were better overall offensively.
Nuñez‘s strengths are his defensive range, arm strength for throws, and speed. That makes him a solid 3-tool player but so deficient in the other two tools of hitting and power that he is no longer a viable starter in the MLB. He finished the season with a negative WAR of -0.2. If Nuñez could hit even .240, he would be a viable starter given his strong 3-tools.
The Solution
There is never a simple solution. You can lead a horse to water but not make the horse drink. What has gone on behind closed doors with Nuñez? Have they led him to water and he refuses to drink?
All we know is that Nuñez‘s 2026 offensive production is not good enough. The Washington Nationals in 2026 had seven returning starters all improve from their 2025 season. The expectation was that Nuñez would improve. He did not, and while that is a disappointment, we can only hope that he does what is necessary to improve in 2027.
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