Player Highlight: Tampa Bay Rays Outfielder Randy Arozarena

Randy Arozarena is having a great start to the season coming off his electric World Baseball Classic appearance. Arozarena is one of the better upcoming players in the league. His story involves him leaving his original home country of Cuba to play baseball in Mexico. He plays baseball good enough to be scouted by Major league scouts and eventually gets to the Major leagues. He has a breakout performance in the 2020 season playoffs. In the World Baseball Classic, Arozarena showed off his personality. He played for Team Mexico because he DM’d the Mexican President asking if he could play for them. The President saw to it that Arozarena and his family were able to get citizenship in Mexico and in return Arozarena would represent Mexico. Arozarena showed off his clutch hitting and amazing glove. Now let’s see what he’s done this season so far. 

Before we get too deep, let me just note that it’s 17 games into the season. So all his averages are slightly higher than his career averages. However, when you see his counting stats, 3 doubles, 4 homeruns, 18 RBI and 2 stolen bases, it confirms what the inflated averages are telling you. Arozarena is absolutely raking. It’s too early to say it’s his year but if he keeps this up, he’s on track for a better season than last year. 

When looking at his ratios, you can see that Arozarena has just been mashing the ball like no tomorrow. This is evidenced by his significantly lower walk rate and homerun rate. Nearly 2 percent down and 5 percent down on his career averages. Once again the small sample size should be noted here, and his ratios should creep back to near his career average.

In this run value chart from Baseball Savant, I’ve highlighted the top four pitches he sees the most. You can get a feel for how he’s handling each pitch this year compared to 2022. For example, the fastball is by far his best pitch to hit. This was the case last year as well. Another example of a minor but still early on change is the sinker. Last year, he had -1 Run value on the sinker and this year it’s 1. He’s only seen 51 sinkers in 2023 so far compared to 425 last year. But the change seems to be the 4 percent whiff percentage and 15 percent K percentage. It means that he’s not swinging over/under this pitch as much as last year. Obviously still early, but it’s possible he’s just seeing the sinker better this year.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1udQhTzvoa3Z1_23hTaQSl9D6Cd52QV46/view?usp=share_link

Above is an example of Arozarena hitting a sinker from the bottom of the zone out of the park. 

I think that Arozarena is one of the more electric players in the league. It’s also true and according to the percentile rankings by Baseball Savant that Arozarena is one of the best pure hitters in the league. I think Arozarena is set to have a great season and will definitely be leading the charge for the Tampa Bay Rays this season and beyond.

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Thanks to Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant for the charts and statistics!

Colorado Rockies: Kris Bryant Disappointment

The Colorado Rockies had a weird past few years with regards to roster moves. The Rockies ownership seemed like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to tank or compete. But this past offseason the Rockies signed star utility outfielder Kris Bryant. Unfortunately, the Rockies only won 68 games and lost 94 games. This seems like a low win total for a team with a star like Bryant who helped the 2016 Cubs win a world series. As we’ll see the reason or part of the reason for the Rockies struggle was that Bryant spent 120 games on the IL. First, I’ll look at what Byrant did despite injury. Then I’ll look at CJ Cron who stepped up the offensive production for the Rockies.

Kris Bryant is a utilty outfielder and third baseman. He throws and bats right. Bryant was originally drafted out of highschool by the Toronto Blue Jays and then again in the 1st round out of the University of San Deigo. Bryant is 30 years old with 8 years of MLB experience. He signed with the Rockies this past offseason for 7 years 182 million dollars. Before we take a look at his stats, it should be noted Bryant only played less games in the 2020 COVID shortened season at 34. When Bryant did play, he actually played well: 

A quick look at his stats just ignoring the small sample of 42 games, his slash line is respectable. HIs OPS is above average and his OPS+ also backs this up. It’s impressive that his batting average is actually a career high at .306. The next highest was in 2017 where he played 151 games as a Cub and hit .295. I would imagine Bryant could have a much bigger impact if he could have stayed healthy. 

While there were other players who stepped up for the Rockies offensively, the best one was CJ Cron. Cron is a first baseman who throws and bats right. Cron is 32 years old with 9 years of MLB experience. Cron has a really awesome nickname “Big Fella”. Cron didn’t have his best season but did play a career high 150 games. Cron also has shown his consistent power hitting by reaching near 30 homeruns. Here are the full stats: 

One alarming thing which is probably due his power stroke is the strikeout totals being the highest of his career. Cron had a better season last year but still reached career highs in RBI and triples. I think Cron would have done even better if his strikeout percentage didn’t rise 5 percent and his homer percentage dropped by nearly 2 percent. He also stopped walking as much, nearly 5 percent less all compared to last season. 

If Kris Bryant and CJ Cron can return to form in the same season, I think the Rockies have a potent 1-2 punch in the middle of that lineup for at least a few years to come. 

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Thanks to Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant for the statistics.

San Diego Padres: Postseason Production from Trade Deadline

The San Deigo Padres were eliminated by the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS in the 2022 playoffs. They had a really good run despite missing their best player Fernado Tatis (80 PED violation). Back in late July and August, the Padres made a few trades. Of those trades previously mentioned, Juan Soto and Josh Bell from the Washington Nationals. The other trades saw the Padres acquire Brandon Dury and Josh Hader. This post has a simple goal to evaluate what contribution these acquisitions made in their fantastic postseason run.

 Just to recap: The Padres made it as the fifth seed wildcard. They played the 4th seeded New York Mets and won the wild card 2-1. The Padres advanced to play their “daddy” the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS. The Padres showed the Dodgers who’s really Daddy by handling them 3-1. In the NLCS, the Padres met the lowest wild card six seeded Phillies who beat them 4-1. With that, let’s start with the contribution of Josh Hader. 

Josh Hader struggled after being traded from the Milwaukee Brewers. But near the end of the season and into the postseason, Hader returned to form. Hader is one of the premier relief pitchers or closers in the league. The results for Hader speak for themselves. He only got better as the postseason went on:

What stands out most for me about Hader is that he didn’t give up any runs. Plus the strikeouts per 9 just continue to climb up. The more the inning he pitches in means the better he is. Obviously as a reliever he only pitched 5.1 innings so it doesn’t jump off the page. But the zero runs allowed is what matters here. 

Juan Soto is a known lefty threat at the plate. Like Hader, Soto struggled at first to be his usual self. Unfortunately for Soto, he never really found his groove in the postseason. 

Soto only hit two homeruns and only had 4 walks in a lot of at-bats. I guess if you want to be nice about it, you could say he stepped it up in the NLCS. His stats otherwise are unimpressive, particularly in the series against the Dodgers. Perhaps his National’s teammate Josh Bell performed better?

Josh Bell also struggled after being traded but seemed to find his stride in the playoffs. You can safely ignore his stats against the Dodgers with only 6 AB in the whole 4 games played. But in the other two series, Bell hit slightly better than Soto. 

Similar to Soto, Bell really hit well against the Phillies. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough but he was productive when he did play. 

Brandon Dury is an interesting case because in the first two series he didn’t get as much playing time. In the series against the Phillies, Dury made his impact felt and the stats prove it:

As you can see his 1.104 OPS and .667 slugging tell the story for Dury. I remember when Dury had a stint with my Mets, he really took good advantage of his opportunities off the bench. I want to believe he probably stil has that in him. 

Of all the four players, which one do you think had the biggest impact for the Padres? I would probably give it to Hader or Dury. Hader doesn’t surprise me given his history. But Dury is a little surprising. I would have thought that Soto being on that 2019 Nationals world series run would be able to produce more. But overall, I believe the Padres aggressive trade deadline was a big part of their 2022 playoff run. 

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Thanks to Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant for the statistics and charts!