Steve Pearce is exactly what the Rays offense needs

The Rays are closing in on a contract with 1B/OF Steve Pearce, though the details remain unknown as both player and team have pushed the formal signing out until next week, presumably to clear roster space.

Expected to fill a utility role, his signing should give some much needed life to the Rays offense whenever he is placed into the line up. A quick look at his Fangraphs page may not tell the full story of his potential to contribute, but here's what you might find on first glance:

That 2014 looks amazing, but that 2015 looks disastrous. What's the deal?

We began a look into Pearce's story earlier today, and the section below illustrates just how much an injured oblique hampered his 2015 season:

After a poor start to his 2015 campaign, Pearce would eventually find himself on the disabled list with an oblique injury that caused him to miss six weeks. The chart below will show his improvement once returning from the disabled list and playing an everyday role.

	PA	BB%	K%	BABIP	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+
Before DL	193	6.2%	23.3%	.264	.227	.290	.392	83
After DL	132	8.3%	18.2%	.186(!)	.203	.288	.466	103

After returning from the disabled list Pearce showed much better plate discipline, and while his BABIP was exceptionally low, he was able to be an above average hitter leaning on his eight home runs and seven doubles to produce a .263 ISO.

For those calling to add a power option to the lineup Pearce could also be your man, as he's one season removed from 21 HR and still hit 15 HR in his "disappointing" 2015 campaign.

Despite an injury hampered start of the season and some apparent back luck upon his return, even at age 32 Pearce has had some impressive offensive spurts -- and remarkably, that applies to both handedness of pitcher.

Here is Pearce's offensive production broken down into his batting splits by handedness over the last three years:

Pearce is coming off a particularly down year versus left-handed pitchers when compared to his career average .262/.343/.481 123 wRC+ line. With a bounce back he would be a very nice addition to the needed roster platoon, but that sells the story short.

Importantly, over the last three seasons, Pearce has produced at an above average level against right-handed pitchers.

With Jennings, Guyer, and Mahtook in the outfield there hasn't been anybody step up and show they can handle right-handed pitchers at this level, and Pearce can fill that role.

Adding a bat to the outfield mix that you don't need to platoon fills a real need, especially in case of injury.

Narrowing our focus to players most likely to be in contention for the Rays active roster, here's some context for how well Pearce has performed against RHP over the last three seasons (min 100 PA):

These are limited plate appearances for Pearce -- in three seasons he tallied fewer opportunities than Kiermaier -- but it's still the strongest performance among our active Rays. This is quite remarkable, and makes you wonder why he isn't an every day player. Perhaps more on that soon.

Using the same criteria against southpaws (min 100 PA) he remains one of the best among the Rays options over the last three years:

Of course, past performance is no guarantee for the future. Among those three seasons of Pearce, only one is remarkably strong, which is why we're taking the three-year average when talking retrospectively.

Now let's look forward.

Using the early projections from Clay Davenport (a co-founder of Baseball Prospectus), with a little bit of my reformatting, here is how the Rays roster shakes out overall (against both hands):

As an aside, the projection on Tim Beckham is not very strong. He's likely to make the opening day roster in a bench role, but if he doesn't hold his own through April, look out for a promotion of Taylor Motter. Using the same projections, Motter's line looks fairly close to Kiermaier's, which is a step up from what Beckham likely offers.

Overall, Steve Pearce appears to have the strongest numbers in the projection, right in between two guys who should also perform better than their 2015 selves: Steven Souza and James Loney. The trio was mired in injuries last season.

Poor health felled what should have been an impressive Rays roster last season, and accordingly, health may be the most important factor for this 2016 Rays team.

That, and Steve Pearce.