Article: What Exactly Did the Blue Jays Get In Andrés Giménez?

[Brandon Glick]

Last month, the Blue Jays acquired their new second baseman. What will he bring to the table next season?

To recap: back during the Winter Meetings, the Blue Jays were going hard after Max Fried following a failed pursuit of Juan Soto. Fried would end up picking the Yankees, who were willing to give him an eighth year on his contract, and Toronto immediately responded by completing a trade for All-Star second baseman Andrés Giménez.

Before diving into the 26-year-old's profile, it's worth noting that Nick Sandlin, the other piece coming to Toronto, has got three years of team control before hitting free agency. On the surface, his numbers are promising — career 3.27 ERA, 55-plus innings pitched in back-to-back seasons, 27.7% strikeout rate — but his peripherals are concerning. His FIP was a bloated 5.23 in 2024, and his career figure is more than a full run higher than his ERA (4.41). His walk rate sits at 11.4%, and his average exit velocity allowed has climbed throughout his career, peaking at 89.6 MPH in 2024. He's got elite off-speed offerings and a top-notch whiff rate, but the Blue Jays have work to do in order to extract maximum value out of Sandlin as a reliever.

However, Giménez is the true prize in the deal that cost the Blue Jays slugging first baseman Spencer Horwitz. Giménez has been worth 16.7 WAR over the past three seasons, mostly thanks to his otherworldly defense and brilliant baserunning (20+ steals in each year since 2022). His bat, however, has declined, with his OPS peaking at .837 in 2022 and falling precipitously to its 2024 mark of .638. The Blue Jays are gambling on Giménez to make a bounce back at the plate. He is signed to a seven-year, $106.5-million deal that runs through 2029 (with a team option for 2030) and will pay him $23 million in each season from 2027 onwards.

It's also worth noting that Giménez, who's played at least 146 games in each of the past three seasons, will bring some much-needed stability to second base. The Blue Jays started eight different players there in 2024. Given that he ranked in the 100th percentile for his fielding range and has an above-average arm, he'll provide positive value to the team on the strength of his defense alone.

So let's take a look at his bat and whether or not he can recover at the plate enough to be more than just a Gold Glove in the field. Using that 2022 season as his benchmark, Giménez has declined significantly in terms of hard-hit rate (37.8% in 2022 to 28.5% in 2024) and pull rate (35.2% to 33.7%). Now, Giménez isn't a true power hitter, but that last figure matters a whole lot to a player who generates practically all of it when hitting to his pull side. Below is a spray chart that show all of his base hits over the past three seasons. In that time, he's hit one home run to the left of center field.

 

Over the past three seasons, his wOBA is .452 to the pull side, .278 up the middle, and .303 to the opposite side. It isn't hard to see that so much of Giménez's value at the plate is tied into how much he can pull the ball. Like most players, that's where he does his damage. And with his speed and ability to generate base hits off of weak contact in or near the infield, he doesn't need to provide much power to offer a wholly usable offensive profile. He just can't produce a .087 ISO (.169 in 2022) and continue to get away with it.

This is also where launch angles come into play, and Giménez hit the ball on the ground much more lately. From 2022 to 2024, his average launch angle fell from 13.1% to 8.6%, while his groundball rate has climbed from 48.2% to 51.1%. This presents a bit of a paradox for Giménez: if he wants to provide more power at the plate, he needs to pull the ball more. But if he can't lift the ball in the air, he needs to utilize an all-fields approach so he can generate hits from his speed. What he can't do is commit to both. It'll be up to the Blue Jays' staff to figure out which plate approach will be most conducive to his success in 2025 and beyond. As his 90th-percentile exit velocity numbers (which indicate overall power potential) have fallen, his zone rate has increased; pitchers are challenging him because they're not afraid that he'll do real damage.

Now, for some good news, Giménez has improved in some key areas in recent years. His exit velocity is actually up from 2022, though he's merely in the 29th percentile after ranking in the bottom one percent of MLB two years ago. His strikeout rate is nearly down five points, and he's improved on it every year since 2021. His line-drive rate (24.0%) was practically the same as it was during his best season, and his .286 BABIP suggests some bad luck may have been involved in his results last year, given his career .304 mark. It's clear that he's traded some power for some contact.

There's a talented hitter somewhere in there, but the Blue Jays need to decide which version of Giménez they want to see. Do they want the table-setting, slap-hitting leadoff man who can punch the ball to all fields, or the player who leans into his pull-first approach and provides some power to the top or bottom of the lineup? Neither answer to that $106 million question is wrong, but getting caught in the middle won't work.

View full article

[mphenhef]

Good read.  Thanks.  Was he is the 90th percentile in exit velocity in 2022?

Call me a cynic but I don’t have a lot of faith in the Jays coaching staff to get his bat back anywhere near 2022.  It will be a very pleasant surprise if he does get back to that!

[Brandon Glick]

14 hours ago, mphenhef said:

Good read.  Thanks.  Was he is the 90th percentile in exit velocity in 2022?

Call me a cynic but I don’t have a lot of faith in the Jays coaching staff to get his bat back anywhere near 2022.  It will be a very pleasant surprise if he does get back to that!

Sorry if I didn't make it clear enough in the piece: he was in the 29th percentile in EV in 2022. It's never been a strong suit for him, but the difference between an 87.8 MPH EV (where he was in 2022) and 86.3 MPH EV (2024) is monumental for a guy with his speed and hands. 

I agree that the Blue Jays probably won't be able to restore him to his MVP-caliber form, but he's a much better player than he showed last year. There's gotta be something in his profile the team really liked to give up Horwitz for him.

[Jimcanuck]

Gimenez true talent with the bat should be somewhere between his 2022 and 2024 results.  With the defense, this is a very valuable player.

A good deal by Atkins 

[Jimcanuck]

By the way it's often not a matter of mechanical adjustments, but pitchers making changes to how they attack a hitter.  The hitter then needs to adjust the plate approach.

So it is possible the Jays see something in the data and think they can make an effective adjustment to approach.

[Dick_Pole]

When no one takes the Jays money in FA, these are the types of deals that must be done. Gimenez was a good "buy low" candidate. In that they gave up very little in terms of players for him, not in terms of salary. Much like the Berrios contract, between inflation and steady play, I think it will age rather well. 

[Terminator]

Yeah I think most people's negative perceptions of the Gimenez trade stems from the fact that the 2025 team needs more offense and Gimenez is a defensive-oriented player.

I get that criticism so the short term outlook of the trade isn't necessarily as great as it looks long term, but but overall I think it's a really good trade. Short term it will look better if we make the necessary moves to add some power to the lineup.