In his fourth season in Major League Baseball in 2017, St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong was, for the first time in his career, above-average as a hitter. By wRC+, Wong scored a 107, which is to say that he was seven percent above league-average for the year.
That it took Wong four years to be above-average at the plate did not mean that he was an insufficient player. Wong had also been an above-average fielder at a premium defensive position and was also a good base runner (endless replays of the worst moment of his professional career aside).