There has been a lot of chatter about Cristian Pache since the A's traded Sean Murphy, mainly because the entire reason the Milwaukee Brewers were roped into that deal was because the A's wanted centerfielder Esteury Ruiz. The A's acquired Pache, a gold glove caliber defender in center, as one of the bigger pieces in the Matt Olson deal with Atlanta that also landed them Shea Langeliers behind the dish, which ended up leading to the Murphy trade.
The reason Pache has been such a topic of discussion is that he is out of options, meaning that he has to be on the A's 26-man roster come Opening Day. If the team doesn't feel that he's ready for another look in the big leagues, then they could either trade him, or DFA him, removing him from the 40-man roster, and hope that another team doesn't claim him. If he were able to pass through outright waivers, which is unlikely, then he could be sent to Triple-A Las Vegas.
Pache finished up last season playing in 91 games while batting .166 with a .218 OBP. In the biggest look he got with Atlanta (22 games) he hit .111 with a .152 on-base, so there were minor improvements in his time with the A's. He also increased his walk rate from 2.9% in the small sample with the Braves up to 5.8% with Oakland. Still not a great walk rate, but an improvement. His strikeout rate also trended in the right direction, going from 36.8% to 26.9%.
Pache is a work in progress, and his time with the A's will be determined by how well the A's feel he's progressing, and whether he's made enough progress to be on the Major League roster.
The 24-year-old is also playing for Estrellas Orientales this winter, and taking one look at his stat line, the numbers don't appear to have gotten better enough for Pache to hang in the big leagues. In 17 games played, he's batting .218 and has a .308 on-base. Those numbers are better, but this is also in the Dominican Winter League.
In the 66 plate appearances that he has accrued to date (on Baseball Reference), he has seven walks and ten strikeouts, which is a 10.6% walk rate and a 15.15% strikeout rate. His approach at the plate seems to have gotten better.
It should also be noted that in the second half of the 2022 season (16 games, 46 plate appearances), Pache appeared to have taken a step forward, too. After compiling a 24 wRC+ in the first half, in his limited playing time post-break, he put up an 84. That's still 16% below league average, but a huge improvement if he can sustain it. His walk rate also rose to 8.7% in the second half, up 3.6%.
This could be small sample sizes doing their best to make people hope for the best when it comes to Cristian Pache, but the approach seems to have changed since he was demoted to Triple-A at the end of June, and that has carried over to his time in the Dominican Winter League.
The batting average may not be there for Pache this winter, but a lot of the time players are in these leagues to work on something because the results don't matter, a lot like spring training. The process is what is important right now for Cristian Pache, and at the very least he's making more contact and drawing more walks. The hits will come.
We'll have to wait and see if that approach translates when he gets to Mesa next month. He's in the lineup tonight for Estrellas Orientales, batting eighth.
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