XAVIER NADY
11/14/78; '00 2nd (San Diego); Univ. of California
R/R; 6-2, 205
| Level |
BA |
OBP |
SA |
AB |
2B |
3B |
HR |
BB |
K |
SB |
CS |
| 2000 NL (SD) |
1.000 |
1.000 |
1.000 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| 2001
A+ (SD) |
.302 |
.379 |
.527 |
524 |
38 |
1 |
26 |
62 |
109 |
6 |
0 |
| 2002 AAA (SD) |
.283 |
.329 |
.422 |
315 |
12 |
1 |
10 |
20 |
60 |
0 |
1 |
| 2002
A+ (SD) |
.278 |
.382 |
.580 |
169 |
6 |
3 |
13 |
28 |
40 |
2 |
0 |
| 2003 NL (SD) |
.267 |
.321 |
.391 |
371 |
17 |
1 |
9 |
24 |
74 |
6 |
2 |
| 2003 AAA (SD) |
.265 |
.329 |
.471 |
136 |
7 |
0 |
7 |
12 |
28 |
0 |
0 |
| 2004 NL (SD) |
.247 |
.301 |
.416 |
77 |
4 |
0 |
3 |
5 |
13 |
0 |
0 |
| 2004 AAA (SD) |
.330 |
.391 |
.629 |
291 |
19 |
1 |
22 |
22 |
42 |
3 |
0 |
| 2005 NL (SD) |
.261 |
.321 |
.439 |
326 |
15 |
2 |
13 |
22 |
67 |
2 |
1 |
| 2006
NL (NYM) |
.264 |
.326 |
.487 |
265 |
15 |
1 |
14 |
19 |
51 |
2 |
1 |
| 2006 NL |
.300 |
.352 |
.409 |
203 |
13 |
0 |
3 |
11 |
34 |
1 |
2 |
| 2007
NL |
.278 |
.330 |
.476 |
431 |
23 |
1 |
20 |
23 |
101 |
3 |
1 |
The Pirates acquired Nady from the Mets in a deadline deal for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez. The move was ironic, because the Pirates had tried to obtain him from the Padres in the deal for Brian Giles, but ended up "settling" for Jason Bay. Nady was widely regarded as the better prospect of the two at the time, but his stock has slipped a good deal since then.
Despite their reluctance to trade Nady to the Pirates, the Padres for some reason were just as reluctant to commit to Nady as a regular. His bid to become an everyday player was hampered occasionally by injuries, including an appendectomy and a minor wrist problem with the Mets. Nevertheless, he was having his best season when the Pirates acquired him. He has some power, but he's been held back by the weak plate discipline he's shown since he got past class A. PNC Park is not kind to RH power hitters, but he actually hit slightly better at the extreme pitchers' parks in San Diego than on the road, and was hitting far better at Shea Stadium, another pitchers' park, than on the road in 2006. At the time of the trade, Nady had had a fairly extreme platoon split; he posted only a .677 OPS against RHPs from 2003-05, and .778 (as opposed to .897 against LHPs) prior to the trade in 2006.
Nady got hot after the trade, hitting 359/411/466 in August and prompting a lot of talk about the trade being a steal. He then hit 219/272/333 in September. The real problem was that he hit for very little power. It's possible the power outage was injury-related. As was almost always the case with Dave Littlefield's acquisitions, Nady arrived injured, specifically with a cracked bone in his hand. Nady has played all the corner positions and even a little CF. After coming to Pittsburgh, he played mostly 1B in August and RF in September. With the acquisition of Adam LaRoche, he entered 2007 as the regular in RF. This has been his primary position in the majors, as he's played in only 45 games at 1B.
Nady had a good season in 2007 when he was healthy. He led
the team in slugging and had several dramatic, late-inning HRs. Unfortunately,
he missed nearly 40 games with a variety of problems, including a serious
digestive ailment, a strained hamstring that kept him hobbled during much of the second half, and the after-effects of a beaning. He hit LHPs slightly better than RHPs, although it probably helped that Jim Tracy occasionally spelled him in RF with Ryan Doumit against some RHPs. Nady slugged .506 with 13 HRs on the road and .439 with seven HRs at home, so PNC probably hurt him. His plate discipline obviously was terrible, which raises doubts about whether he can keep up his production much longer. He also has a long swing that pitchers may be able to take advantage of. Going by zone rating, he had roughly average range in RF and Baseball Prospectus rated him about average as well, but the hamstring problem may have affected him during much of the season's second half. His arm also is about average. Nady will be eligible for free agency after the 2009 season. There's a lot of sentiment among Pirates fans that he should be traded to make room for Steve Pearce and the Pirates reportedly did try hard to trade him over the winter. They found, however, that his trade value wasn't very high. Instead, according to reports in the local papers their strategy will be to hope he has a good first half and increases his value. Of course, if that happens most fans will be furious if he's traded.
Return to Outfielders