Part 1: The Infield
I’m reviving a series I started but never finished last year, picking one statistical indicator for every player on the Blue Jays to try to tell the story of their season. We’re roughly a quarter of the way in (plus eight games, but what’s a week between friends?), so we have a pretty good body of work for each Jays regular. I’ll review at the halfway mark (ish), then at three quarters and at the end of the season. Hopefully this exercise helps explain what we’re seeing from the team this year. Today, I’ll start with the infield. Stats accurate through Sunday’s game.
Vladimir Guerrero jr.: 40.6% swing rate. Vlad has become notably more passive this year, with a swing rate that’s way below both his previous career minimum (46.8% in his 2019 debut) and the league average (47.0%). That’s resulted in a career best 14.2% walk rate, without increasing his strikeouts. Vlad has lagged expectations so far, although his expected stats suggest he should be primed to bounce back to his historic power levels.
Alejandro Kirk: 56.6% zone rate. Opposing pitchers are attacking Kirk at one of the highest rates in the game. Only 12 of 250 hitters who have taken 100 PAs this year see a higher percentage of pitches in the zone. Consequently, Kirk’s hitting for a higher average (.282 so far, compared to .252 the past couple of years) but with a lower .318 OBP. It’s hard to tell why this is happening. Kirk is still making lots of contact, and he’s actually hitting the ball harder than he has in years, but the league seems comfortable challenging him anyway. We’ll have to keep watching to see whether he can start punishing those opportunities.
Bo Bichette: 9.7% barrel rate. Last year, all of Bo’s underlying numbers looked pretty normal, except that he just wasn’t squaring the ball up. His strikeout and walk rates were at or near career bests, and while his average exit velocity was down a tad he was still in range of career norms, but he barrelled the ball up (combing high exit velocity with a launch angle likely to do damage) less than half as often as usual. This year, that’s rebounded and so have the results, which all but confirms that lat season’s issues were a mix of bad luck and injury more than a real change.
Tyler Heineman: 170 wRC+. Nothing to say except that this is definitely real. Don’t look at any of the underlying numbers. That would be like Wile E. Coyote looking down while he’s running across a canyon. No good can come from asking questions.
Ernie Clement: 15.7% strikeout rate. Clement’s game is built on contact, and that has unfortunately taken a step back this season. He’s still getting the bat on the ball 93% of the time when he swings at strikes, which is elite, but his contact rate outside the zone has dropped 10 percentage points. The latter metric is noisy, so this may be a blip. It’ll have to be, as Clement doesn’t have the pop or discipline to survive if he isn’t avoiding Ks almost completely.
Andres Gimenez: .220 BABIP. After a brief hot start it’s been pretty grim for the big off-season addition. It looks like more luck than anything else, though. Gimenez’ walk rate is a career high and his strikeout rate is below his average. He’s hitting the ball harder on average than he ever has. His .320 xwOBA suggests that he ‘deserves’ to be a slightly above average hitter. It was reported on Tuesday that he’s begun a running program as he returns from a quad strain, so hopefully on his return luck evens out somewhat and he begins producing.
I’ll be back tomorrow with stats for the outfield.