Part 1: The Infield
Shortly after the quarter-point in the season, I picked one stat for each Blue Jay that I though was reflective of their season to date. Now that we’re a couple of games into the second half (chronologically if not yet customarily), I want to check in and see how things are progressing. Today, I’ll revisit the piece I wrote on the infield.
Vladimir Guerrero jr.: 40.6% swing rate. Update: 41.9% since May 23. Vlad remains more patient than he has in years past, and it’s paid off with a 12.3% walk rate and a minuscule 8% strikeout rate over the last five weeks. He’s still hammering the ball, with a 94.8mph average exit velocity and 16% barrel rate. As with his first quarter, he’s under-performing those metrics with just six home runs and a .197 isolated slugging over the period, but under the hood he still looks like one of the five or so best hitters in baseball.
Alejandro Kirk: 56.6% zone rate. Update: 49.1% since May 23. The opposition attacked Kirk aggressively inside the zone early. They were getting away with it for a while, but it never seemed like a good idea to me. Lo and behold, the Jays’ catcher went out and hilt .358/.417/.519 over the past quarter season. Turns out you should not, in fact, give the guy with power who almost never misses more to hit. He should also be walking away with the AL gold glove, and if it weren’t for a certain man possessed of a certain capacious donk out in Seattle, he’d be firmly in the ‘best catcher in baseball’ discussion through the first half.
Bo Bichette: 9.7% barrel rate. Update: 10.7% since May 23. My point earlier was that Bo was still doing about what he always does during his awful down year at the plate in 2024, but that he just wasn’t quite squaring it up. His performance since backs that up. A .246 BABIP drags his overall production down to league average, but his walk and strikeout numbers are what they usually are and he’s hitting 49.6% of his balls in play hard. As a few more balls fall in for him all indications are that he should perform at his usual near-All-Star level going forward.
Tyler Heineman: 170 wRC+. Update: 160 since May 23. We’re still running, folks. Don’t let the nefarious Road Runner convince you to look down. As long as you believe and keep your eyes forward we’ll be able to run across this canyon.
Ernie Clement: 15.7% strikeout rate. Update: 6.6% since May 23. Ernie makes his living on loads of contact. He doesn’t hit it especially hard, but when he’s right he hits it so often that the singles and doubles pile up. Early on, that wasn’t happening. Since late May, though, he’s in a dead heat with Kirk as the Jays’ best hitter, with a .368/.412/.520 line fueled by a tiny strikeout rate, a surprisingly solid 7.4% walk rate, and sneaky decent power production. Add in very strong D mostly at third base and he’s been the Jays’ most valuable player over the last quarter season.
Andres Gimenez: .220 BABIP. Update: .232 since May 23. Gimenez is back from a significant quad injury layoff (assuming his hit-by-pitch on Sunday doesn’t put him back on the shelf). The offence still isn’t coming, though. A BABIP as low as he’s been running is suggestive of bad luck, but when you’re hitting just 24% of balls in play hard the defence is going to get to a lot of them. Top shelf defence and base running keep Gimenez playable, but until he turns something around he’s dead weight at the bottom of the lineup.
New Addition: Davis Schneider: 24.1% pulled fly ball rate. I skipped Schneider on the early edition because he hadn’t hardly played. He’s gradually worked his way up to 60 PA, though, so we’ve got a little bit of a sample to work with. The results aren’t great. When Schneider’s approach was working in 2023 and early 2024, it was because he used a great eye to work deep counts and ambushed mistakes for home runs pulled over the left field wall. The approach leaned on what he’s good at (excellent pitch selection) and allowed him to minimize his considerable weaknesses (limited ability to make contact, below average raw power). Schneider still produces an above average rate of fly balls to his pull side, which is where he does all of his damage, but he’s not a machine at it like he was in 2023 (37%). With his physical limitations, Schneider has to execute his approach near perfectly to be a major league player. Right now he’s not quite there.