Josh Reddick Following Paul O’Neill’s Career Trajectory
By Jason Burke
Love him or hate him, Josh Reddick is a solid baseball player; especially on the A’s budget. According to Baseball Reference, Reddick, at age 27, is following a very similar career path to former Reds and Yankees outfielder, Paul O’Neill. Let’s look at each player’s stats through their age 27 season and decide for ourselves.
[table id=36 /]
Not exactly identical, but they’re pretty close overall. While O’Neill holds a slight edge in batting average, Reddick hit .299 after the All-Star break (.229 before) in 2014. While many will attribute this to Jonny Gomes being the “Reddick whisperer” perhaps this time the whispers carry over into 2015.
The main difference between Josh Reddick and Paul O’Neill at this point in their careers? Their strikeout totals. In the same time period above, Reddick has struck out 89 more times, or 350 to 261. That is the outlier in the comparison between these two players.
Paul O’Neill is compared to other retired players on the same site. Namely, Bobby Bonilla, Raul Ibanez and Magglio Ordonez.
When compared among his peers, Josh Reddick is most similar to Dayan Viciedo of the White Sox, with Lucas Duda of the Mets rounding out the list. The thread that all three have in common is averaging 20+ home runs a season (Yes, Reddick’s is skewed due to one exceptional season) and they all strike out 120+ times a season.
Numbers aside, the part of O’Neill’s history that most will be familiar with was when he joined the Yankees and started winning World Series Championships. Whether or not Josh Reddick will follow O’Neill all the way to a slew of Championships (four to be exact) remains to be seen. O’Neill was a nice complimentary piece to the Yankees during their title runs, and ended his career a .288 lifetime hitter.
In his age 28 season, Paul O’Neill was named to his first All-Star game, as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. This year’s All-Star game just happens to be in Cincinnati, and it would be a great time for Josh Reddick to continue down the path that O’Neill has set before him.