I'm glad you brought it up, I've been looking for an excuse to hate on Norby.
In the long run, it's not possible for a slugger. Sluggers hit the ball hard. You need to be an outstanding contact hitter at ~86 EV to be a good hitter. Altuve, Kwan, and Arraez make it work. .300 Hitters. The rest at ~86 are Austin Hedges or Jorge Mateo types that are just not good at hitting.
You could argue it's a small sample size but Norby's EV at Norfolk was 87.8 this year, too. Which is terrible. Lower than noted sluggers Niko Goodrum, Peyton Burdick, and David Banuelos. Mayo, Kjerstad, Holliday, and Stowers were all above 90.
EV isn't the end all, be all. But if you don't hit the ball hard and you don't make a lot of contact, you're not a good hitter. Norby's Contact% is really bad, too.
Btw, Luis Matos hit .300 in 2003, people forget.
Exactly, it's not like Norby would ever supplant Westburg -- and Urias had the hottest bat on the team at the time. Even now if Norby were on the team he would likely be DH or 1B because Mounty and Kjerstad are hurt. Norby was always going to be trade bait -- just got dealt in a weak trade (so far anyway).
I think we're expecting too much of a team with Eloy Jimenez, Emmanuel Rivera and Austin Slater in the lineup. And we're expecting Holliday and Mayo to be great out the gate, which happens less and less these days.
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