Can Vlad survive at third?
New MLB statistic confirms suspicions about Guerrero’s defensive struggles
The results are in and the numbers don’t look good for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Defence is one area where the eye test matches the data.
Major League Baseball released a new stat on Wednesday called “outs above average.” It had been around the past two years for outfielders, but until now had not been available for infielders, at least not in the public domain. The conclusions, for Toronto’s young star, were damning.
According to MLB.com, there are four primary factors that affect the chance of a play being converted into an out: How far an infielder must go to reach the ball, how much time he has to get there, how far he is from the base, and, on force plays, how fast the batter is.
This is a complicated way of saying major-league teams have advanced well beyond solely relying on the opinions of their coaches and scouts. Based on where a ball is hit, its exit velocity and the positioning of their defenders, the Blue Jays can determine which plays should have been made and which ones can be overlooked. It replaces the possibility of a personal bias with cold, hard facts.
The overall numbers for Toronto’s infield weren’t quite as bad as one might expect. The Blue Jays finished tied for 11th in MLB with five outs above average. Toronto first basemen were tied for eighth at two outs above average, second base was third at six and shortstop was ninth at 6. Predictably, third base dragged the team numbers down.
Blue Jays third basemen were 28th in MLB with -9 OAA. The only thing that kept them out of the basement was the early season work of Brandon Drury and the occasional defensive replacement later in the year. Outside of the fill-ins, there is very little to like about Toronto’s work at the hot corner.
There were 139 qualified infielders who made Baseball Savant’s leaderboard for OAA, and Guerrero is tied with Minnesota’s Jorge Polanco for the lowest performance in the majors. According to Statcast, Cubs shortstop Javier Baez led by the league with 19 OAA. By comparison, Guerrero was -16.
Guerrero performed the worst whenever he was forced to run in on a ball, with -10 OAA. He was a bit better when moving laterally, -4 when running toward third and -2 when moving toward first.
The Dominican was league average when stepping back with 0 OAA, and he was -11 versus right-handed hitters and -6 against lefties.
One look at those numbers and it’s easy to see why the Jays are frequently asked about Guerrero moving to first base, or worse, needing to become a full-time designated hitter. Toronto has spent the last several years trying to develop Guerrero’s glove and, while there has been some progress, it wasn’t close to being at a professional level in 2019. It’s reasonable to wonder if that will ever change.
The Jays don’t need to rush into anything quite yet. They have come this far with Guerrero, there’s no harm in running him out there during another rebuilding season in search of improvement. According to the club, Guerrero has been training hard this off-season, has lost weight and should arrive in camp next month with more agility.
It’s worth seeing what an off-season away has done for Guerrero’s glove, but expectations should be low. It seems inevitable that he will eventually have to change positions. If Guerrero’s athleticism is this big an issue at age 20, one can only imagine how it will look as he approaches his 30s. Broad generalizations should never be made about a player this young, and yet in some ways it feels like the script has already been written.
Toronto’s other area of concern can be found at shortstop, where Bo Bichette tied for 24th with -4 OAA. The 21-year-old particularly struggled running in on balls at -3, and when moving laterally toward third with -2. Bichette was league average when travelling to his left or stepping back.
Bichette’s performance is one the Jays should ignore for now. He didn’t arrive with the reputation of being a future Gold Glover, and Toronto likely would be content if he turned into a league-average defender. By Statcast metrics, Bichette wasn’t that in 2019, but he fared better in other categories with three defensive runs saved, which ranked 14th. There has been more improvement from Bichette at shortstop than there has been from Guerrero at third, and he deserves a chance to see this through.
The advanced stats were more encouraging elsewhere. Cavan Biggio faced similar scrutiny for his glove but the Statcast numbers are impressive with 7 OAA, which was fourth among big-league second basemen. There has been some talk about experimenting with Biggio in centre, but he might be suited just fine to the position he already has. First baseman Rowdy Tellez, surprisingly, was adequate with a -1, although the bulk of the reps at the position in 2020 will belong to Travis Shaw.
In the outfield, Toronto ranked 21st with -4 OAA. Randal Grichuk was the top performer with 6 OAA, Teoscar Hernandez was -5. Derek Fisher was -3, despite appearing in less than a quarter of the season, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was -4.
Toronto’s pitching should be better this year, but it’s likely another year when the staff won’t get much help in the field. Defence has been a liability for the Blue Jays the past couple season and, barring some unexpected internal development, there is every reason to believe that trend will continue in 2020. The public knew defence was bad, now it has a better idea of just how bad it really was.