GTD:Jays at OriLOLes

[Boxcar]

Delmon Young should get a shout out too. He had more seasons with negative WAR than positive over a somehow 10 season career.

 

Oops

[Spanky99]

You guys are f***ed, Vlad is nowhere near a bust yet, lol.

[Grant77]

Delmon Young is a way better comp. Generational hitting prospect that got fat and sucked ass for a decade.

 

That seems to be an equally good description of Montero.

[Olerud363]

I knew Boston would be bad, but not the worst team in the league. This is awesome.

 

Awesome for Boston, They reset their salary cap, will draft high, will have a large international bonus pool, all while tanking a season that no one will make much revenue anyway..

 

This is an organization that has won 4 world series in the last 16 years, including a World Series in 2013 with a team built on the fly off of a last place finish. I wouldn't put it past them to do it again in the near future.

[KevinGregg]

I knew Boston would be bad, but not the worst team in the league. This is awesome.

 

Why do you hate Boston so much anyways?

[Olerud363]

You guys are f***ed, Vlad is nowhere near a bust yet, lol.

 

I agree but what happened to Montera and Delmon young should be a warning... even what happened to Pujols and Cabrerra in their 30s should be a warning.

 

Prince Fielder is the exception, can most of these big guys, even ones with lots of talent hit when they are out of shape?

 

Seems these big guys tank fast when they lose a step, whether from age, conditioning, or both.

[Spanky99]

I agree but what happened to Montera and Delmon young should be a warning... even what happened to Pujols and Cabrerra in their 30s should be a warning.

 

Prince Fielder is the exception, can most of these big guys, even ones with lots of talent hit when they are out of shape?

 

Seems these big guys tank fast when they lose a step, whether from age, conditioning, or both.

 

If Vlad becomes any one of those 3 guys I'd be pretty damn happy. lol

[Barkerfan23]

Montero's first 600 at bats are almost the same as Vlad

 

Vlad had better walk rates and iso but the rest is almost right on

[Deadpool]

That seems to be an equally good description of Montero.

 

Montero was a beneficiary of "EVERY YANKEES PROSPECT IS THE BEST EVER" journalism that is still popular to this day...

 

 

Why do you hate Boston so much anyways?

 

It's a garbage city for garbage people.

[saskjayfan]

Pretty sure you’re not a doctor. I’m just going off the history of the injury. If hes back in 2 weeks which he absolutely wont be but if he is he better be 100 percent. He should not be in the lineup until there is zero compromise in his game. That won’t happen in 2 weeks. He will be out a month.

 

So I say he "could be back 10 days to 2 weeks" my best guess and then I post the first thing that pops up on google in my second sentence and you stat definitively "he will be out a month"

 

Ok. Dr Jonn.

[Brownie19]

It's a garbage city for garbage people.

 

I really enjoyed visiting Boston.

[polar bear]

You guys are f***ed, Vlad is nowhere near a bust yet, lol.

 

Tongue in cheek surely.

[wilko]

Delmon Young is a way better comp. Generational hitting prospect that got fat and sucked ass for a decade.

 

Like his bro Dmitri. I guess he didn't suck as much.. he could still hit as a fat man.

[Brownie19]

Easy chief I didn’t go that far. Hes 21. Hes just not that good right now. He hits Baseball’s hard just in the wrong direction.

 

Does he really hit baseballs hard?

 

Using the new Fangraph statcast numbers, I'd suggest he hits ball about as hard as everyone else on the team. For those who don't know, HardHit% is the % of balls hit with an exit velocity >95 MPH

 

Vlad - 2019

 

EV 89.6

HardHit% 38.1

 

Vlad - 2020

 

EV 91.7

HardHit% 46.7

 

Teoscar - 2019

 

EV 91.1

HardHit% 41.5

 

Teoscar - 2020

 

EV 95.5

HardHit% 61.4

 

Tellez - 2019

 

EV 90.7

HardHit% 41.6

 

Bo - 2019

 

EV 90.3

HardHit% 42.9

 

Bo - 2020

 

EV 89.5

HardHit% 36.0

 

Cavan - 2019

 

EV 88.9

HardHit% 39.7

 

Derek Fisher - 2019

 

EV 92.1

HardHit% 41.6

 

Grichuk - 2019

 

EV 89.2

HardHit% 38.6

 

Lourdes - 2019

 

EV 90.3

HardHit% 44.4

 

It certainly doesn't appear that Vlad hits the ball tangibly harder than anyone else on the team (although the upward trend so far this year is a nice to see). I also noticed that his Barrel% is below almost every other hitter listed (no idea how accurate that is though). And then of course his launch angle is abysmal at just 5.3 this year (6.6 last year). Fisher is the only other hitter in single digits (8.8 last year).

[Olerud363]

Does he really hit baseballs hard?

 

It certainly doesn't appear that Vlad hits the ball tangibly harder than anyone else on the team (although the upward trend so far this year is a nice to see). I also noticed that his Barrel% is below almost every other hitter listed (no idea how accurate that is though). And then of course his launch angle is abysmal at just 5.3 this year (6.6 last year). Fisher is the only other hitter in single digits (8.8 last year).

 

He is striking out a bit less than those guys... over 160 he's at about 118 ks, while Teoscar is at 188... so more balls in play.

 

He is still striking out more than his minor league numbers suggested, his projections would indicate less than 100 ks a year.

 

So what was suppose to happen is he'd hit the ball hard a lot, walk more than his Dad, and k less than 100 times a year.

 

Scary thing is though Pujols is still hitting the ball hard with a fairly low k rate and it leads to .250 .300 .420 or so...

 

Laika disagreed but he think might have to hit to all fields to beat the shifts.

 

On the other hand Fernando "franchise changing legend" Tatis isn't hitting oppo too much... though on the highlights it looks like he is hitting oppo homers every night.

 

hmmmmm... Maybe obesity and ground balls just don't work post 2012... with all the shifts and data they know how make fatties ground out.

[Laika]

Guerrero is 88th percentile in average exit velocity and had the highest max exit velocity last season. Yeah, he hits the ball hard. If he ever figures it all out he will be like Judge/Stanton in terms of ridiculous laser home runs

[Orgfiller]

Does he really hit baseballs hard?

 

Using the new Fangraph statcast numbers, I'd suggest he hits ball about as hard as everyone else on the team. For those who don't know, HardHit% is the % of balls hit with an exit velocity >95 MPH

 

Vlad - 2019

 

EV 89.6

HardHit% 38.1

 

Vlad - 2020

 

EV 91.7

HardHit% 46.7

 

Teoscar - 2019

 

EV 91.1

HardHit% 41.5

 

Teoscar - 2020

 

EV 95.5

HardHit% 61.4

 

Tellez - 2019

 

EV 90.7

HardHit% 41.6

 

Bo - 2019

 

EV 90.3

HardHit% 42.9

 

Bo - 2020

 

EV 89.5

HardHit% 36.0

 

Cavan - 2019

 

EV 88.9

HardHit% 39.7

 

Derek Fisher - 2019

 

EV 92.1

HardHit% 41.6

 

Grichuk - 2019

 

EV 89.2

HardHit% 38.6

 

Lourdes - 2019

 

EV 90.3

HardHit% 44.4

 

It certainly doesn't appear that Vlad hits the ball tangibly harder than anyone else on the team (although the upward trend so far this year is a nice to see). I also noticed that his Barrel% is below almost every other hitter listed (no idea how accurate that is though). And then of course his launch angle is abysmal at just 5.3 this year (6.6 last year). Fisher is the only other hitter in single digits (8.8 last year).

 

Using this data in isolation like that doesn't mean anything. Maybe the Jays just happen to target high EV/hard hit% hitters! If you go over to baseball savant, you'll be able to see this is the case.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/vladimir-guerrero-jr-665489?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

 

Vlad is 88th percentile in EV and 85th percentile in hard hit %. He literally does hit the ball, he also had some of the highest max EV hits last season as a 20 year old rookie.

 

Teoscar is 99th percentile in both EV and hard hit rate, he is destroying the ball. Grichuk used to be a high EV and hard hit rate guy, but he's dropped quite a bit since early in his career from an approach change likely in an attempt to reduce strikeouts and see pitches better. Neither Bichette or Biggio are necessarily physical specimens so their EV and hard hit rates are slightly lower, but they make up for it with either elite launch angle or ability to hit the barrel of the bat with high frequency. Tellez, Gurriel and Fisher are all guys who hit the ball hard, their biggest issue is making consistent contact and/or taking walks to go along with it.

 

Make no mistake, Vlad's fundamental problem is hitting ball into the ground, whether that's indicative of a problem in approach, hand eye coordination or otherwise is the underlying issue which needs to be figured out. Given that Vlad doesn't strike out much and has the ability to spray the ball around or do damage on good swings, I'd say it's likely simply a swing path or timing issue, but you don't tend to hit balls hard if your timing is bad.

[Spanky99]

Tongue in cheek surely.

 

So you think Vlad is a bust 1 year into his career at 21 years old?

[Spanky99]

Montero's first 600 at bats are almost the same as Vlad

 

Vlad had better walk rates and iso but the rest is almost right on

 

lol

[Brownie19]

Using this data in isolation like that doesn't mean anything. Maybe the Jays just happen to target high EV/hard hit% hitters! If you go over to baseball savant, you'll be able to see this is the case.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/vladimir-guerrero-jr-665489?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

 

Vlad is 88th percentile in EV and 85th percentile in hard hit %. He literally does hit the ball, he also had some of the highest max EV hits last season as a 20 year old rookie.

 

Teoscar is 99th percentile in both EV and hard hit rate, he is destroying the ball. Grichuk used to be a high EV and hard hit rate guy, but he's dropped quite a bit since early in his career from an approach change likely in an attempt to reduce strikeouts and see pitches better. Neither Bichette or Biggio are necessarily physical specimens so their EV and hard hit rates are slightly lower, but they make up for it with either elite launch angle or ability to hit the barrel of the bat with high frequency. Tellez, Gurriel and Fisher are all guys who hit the ball hard, their biggest issue is making consistent contact and/or taking walks to go along with it.

 

Make no mistake, Vlad's fundamental problem is hitting ball into the ground, whether that's indicative of a problem in approach, hand eye coordination or otherwise is the underlying issue which needs to be figured out. Given that Vlad doesn't strike out much and has the ability to spray the ball around or do damage on good swings, I'd say it's likely simply a swing path or timing issue, but you don't tend to hit balls hard if your timing is bad.

 

And as per Baseball Savant over a full season in 2019, Vlad was 54th percentile in EV and 47th percentile for Hard Hit%, which reinforces what I was showing. Despite the ground balls, it is positive to see his numbers rise this year. I believe EV stabilize quickly, so it may not be a SSS. To conclude - he didn't hit the ball hard last year (compared to the rest of the league); however, he's definitely trending in the right direction this year over his first 19 games.

 

I was just checking guys like Soto, Tatis, Acuna and Eloy - they all hit the ball a lot harder than Vlad in their rookie years, although you can also see improvements over their first couple of years (although Eloy and Acuna haven't changed much).

Edited August 18, 2020 by Brownie19

[Orgfiller]

And as per Baseball Savant over a full season in 2019, Vlad was 54th percentile in EV and 47th percentile for Hard Hit%, which reinforces what I was showing. Despite the ground balls, it is positive to see his numbers rise this year. I believe EV stabilize quickly, so it may not be a SSS. To conclude - he didn't hit the ball hard last year (compared to the rest of the league); however, he's definitely trending in the right direction this year over his first 19 games.

 

I was just checking guys like Soto, Tatis and Eloy - they all hit the ball a lot harder than Vlad in their rookie years, although you can also see improvements over their first couple of years.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast?type=batter&year=2019&position=&team=&min=25&sort=5&sortDir=desc

 

Vlad had the second hardest hit ball in all of baseball, behind Stanton, ahead of Judge, Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber, Nelson Cruz, Mike Trout, etc. You can't fake that, that's 80 power. Did he hit the ball hard all the time? No, of course not, otherwise his performance would have been a lot better. That's already an improvement he's made from last season to this one. Among qualified hitters he also had the second highest avg HR distance.

 

I get it, I would have loved for Vlad to have hit the ground running like Soto and Tatis, and it's annoying that he hasn't. But he's still incredibly young and talented, he has plenty of time to figure it out. Eloy is also significantly older compared to those guys, to the point where I don't think he's particularly comparable as he's closer to this physical prime than any of these guys. Having two years in your early twenties on someone is a big difference physically. I'd be a lot more scared of his K/BB rates compared to Vlad.

[Brownie19]

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast?type=batter&year=2019&position=&team=&min=25&sort=5&sortDir=desc

 

Vlad had the second hardest hit ball in all of baseball, behind Stanton, ahead of Judge, Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber, Nelson Cruz, Mike Trout, etc. You can't fake that, that's 80 power. Did he hit the ball hard all the time? No, of course not, otherwise his performance would have been a lot better. That's already an improvement he's made from last season to this one. Among qualified hitters he also had the second highest avg HR distance.

 

I get it, I would have loved for Vlad to have hit the ground running like Soto and Tatis, and it's annoying that he hasn't. But he's still incredibly young and talented, he has plenty of time to figure it out. Eloy is also significantly older compared to those guys, to the point where I don't think he's particularly comparable as he's closer to this physical prime than any of these guys. Having two years in your early twenties on someone is a big difference physically. I'd be a lot more scared of his K/BB rates compared to Vlad.

 

I was really just curious if he actually 'hits the ball hard' (I was looking at this yesterday when I realized Fangraphs now had Statcast information). It's nice that he hit the ball REALLY hard a few times last year at elite levels, but overall - his #'s were around the league median.

 

It's gotten a lot better this year. It will be interesting to see if he maintains those levels. Out of Soto, Tatis, Eloy and Acuna (who I just added), the biggest 1 year jump was Soto, who raised both stats about 15%. Acuna hit the ball as hard as he does in 2020 as he did in 2018 as a 20 year old. But I get it, Vlad was 20 last year and there aren't a lot of case studies for comparison.

[Grant77]

Like his bro Dmitri. I guess he didn't suck as much.. he could still hit as a fat man.

 

I don't want to overstate this, but Dmitri Young was actually a useful player and very good hitter.

[Ryu In My House]

Does he really hit baseballs hard?

 

Using the new Fangraph statcast numbers, I'd suggest he hits ball about as hard as everyone else on the team. For those who don't know, HardHit% is the % of balls hit with an exit velocity >95 MPH

 

Vlad - 2019

 

EV 89.6

HardHit% 38.1

 

Vlad - 2020

 

EV 91.7

HardHit% 46.7

 

Teoscar - 2019

 

EV 91.1

HardHit% 41.5

 

Teoscar - 2020

 

EV 95.5

HardHit% 61.4

 

Tellez - 2019

 

EV 90.7

HardHit% 41.6

 

Bo - 2019

 

EV 90.3

HardHit% 42.9

 

Bo - 2020

 

EV 89.5

HardHit% 36.0

 

Cavan - 2019

 

EV 88.9

HardHit% 39.7

 

Derek Fisher - 2019

 

EV 92.1

HardHit% 41.6

 

Grichuk - 2019

 

EV 89.2

HardHit% 38.6

 

Lourdes - 2019

 

EV 90.3

HardHit% 44.4

 

It certainly doesn't appear that Vlad hits the ball tangibly harder than anyone else on the team (although the upward trend so far this year is a nice to see). I also noticed that his Barrel% is below almost every other hitter listed (no idea how accurate that is though). And then of course his launch angle is abysmal at just 5.3 this year (6.6 last year). Fisher is the only other hitter in single digits (8.8 last year).

 

It is soooooooo cool Fangraphs posts EV. WHen the hell did that happen? Can a person search for the weakest non-pitcher EV?

[Grant77]

It is soooooooo cool Fangraphs posts EV. WHen the hell did that happen? Can a person search for the weakest non-pitcher EV?

 

Ender Inciarte 76.2 for this season.

 

Last year it was Billy Hamilton, which isn't surprising, but next was Victor Robles.

[Orgfiller]

It is soooooooo cool Fangraphs posts EV. WHen the hell did that happen? Can a person search for the weakest non-pitcher EV?

 

They added it just last week I believe. As for your second point:

 

2020: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=24&season=2020&month=0&season1=2020&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2020-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=5,a

 

2019: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=24&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31&sort=5,a

 

You could also just sort in the main leaderboard dashboard: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2020&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2020-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=18,a

[Jimcanuck]

I thought Vlad was getting squeezed pretty good by the umps last season. Messed up his approach, started swinging more at pitches out of the zone, more grounders.

 

He'll figure it out, but he would be a prime beneficiary of roboumps, IMO.

[Spanky99]

I thought Vlad was getting squeezed pretty good by the umps last season. Messed up his approach, started swinging more at pitches out of the zone, more grounders.

 

He'll figure it out, but he would be a prime beneficiary of roboumps, IMO.

 

Hell he was struck out on a silly call just last night.