Juan Violá is a challenging projection as we try to square his performance, his having played (albeit quite mediocrely) in the minor leagues, and his election to the Cuban baseball Hall of Fame.
Ultimately, we’re pretty pessimistic about Violá, seeing him as having a long career, but not a terribly useful one.
The thumbnail here is an inability to put the ball in play, virtually no power, and little control of the strike zone. These projections have his batting average only climbing above .250 twice: once in his rookie season, in which he certainly impressed, and again in 1909, easily the best year of his career, and his OPS only edging above .600 once, in 1909.
Defensively, Violá was solid in the OF and quite poor at 3B, where he played quite a bit.
He pitched a bit as well, but not well enough in our view to warrant representation as a 2-way player. This may be an error, and may be part of the reconciliation needed between his reputation and these projections, as Violá was good enough to get a fair number of innings for a few years of his career. But he only had a winning record once (and that was 1-0 in a year of limited use), and only had a decent ERA (for the deadball era) once (that same year).
Our projections have Violá out of the league after 1913, 2 years before his historical exit: it’s just hard to see him getting more opportunities given the overall level of performance.
Future revisions for Violá could swing either way. I could see additional research unearthing more about how his value was perceived that could nudge his projections up; but I could also see more analysis resulting in him being seen as an aberration in some ways, whose career should be far, far shorter (most likely years being removed from the start of his career, delaying his presence in the big leagues until 1905 or so).
| Name | Juan Violá |
| ID / Status | viola01jua / Draft |
| Pos | U |
| DOB / i9s Career | 1883 / 1902 - 1913 |
| Birthplace | Havana, La Habana (Cuba) |
| Height / Weight | 5'11" / |
| B / T | R / R |
Batting Projections
| Year | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 1902 | 224 | 59 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 31 | 9 | 3 | 0.263 | 0.286 | 0.308 | 0.594 |
| 1903 | 324 | 75 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 40 | 13 | 4 | 0.231 | 0.254 | 0.256 | 0.511 |
| 1904 | 365 | 77 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 44 | 14 | 4 | 0.211 | 0.234 | 0.219 | 0.453 |
| 1905 | 366 | 79 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 56 | 14 | 4 | 0.216 | 0.249 | 0.254 | 0.503 |
| 1906 | 326 | 62 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 53 | 19 | 3 | 0.190 | 0.228 | 0.206 | 0.434 |
| 1907 | 352 | 77 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 14 | 37 | 14 | 4 | 0.219 | 0.249 | 0.241 | 0.490 |
| 1908 | 493 | 120 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 23 | 55 | 32 | 5 | 0.243 | 0.277 | 0.280 | 0.557 |
| 1909 | 499 | 141 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 22 | 60 | 26 | 7 | 0.283 | 0.313 | 0.319 | 0.631 |
| 1910 | 254 | 44 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 17 | 26 | 10 | 3 | 0.173 | 0.225 | 0.197 | 0.422 |
| 1911 | 279 | 61 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 33 | 23 | 4 | 0.219 | 0.251 | 0.247 | 0.498 |
| 1912 | 323 | 74 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 25 | 40 | 32 | 7 | 0.229 | 0.284 | 0.272 | 0.557 |
| 1913 | 155 | 29 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 17 | 7 | 2 | 0.187 | 0.241 | 0.226 | 0.467 |