I'm sure the IFFB% is contributing in a big way to the low BABIP, but he's still getting crushed by hard contact and getting away with it.
Blue Jays Discussion: 2024 Season - Complete without a great title in keeping with the performance
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34% of all at-bats have a 0% chance of positive outcome lol
That makes it really easy to have good numbers.
Hard contact is great until it is on ground outs and balls hit too high (his LD rate is down).
That being said, it is highly likely that his IFFB is noise and if it goes down, all of the bad stuff goes up.
jetsforever
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Eyedea
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Happened to Sanchez and Biagini too. Combined no hitters are kinda silly anyway.
TheBeastCoast
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Dr.Funk
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Suntouchable13
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Horwitz can still DH against righties. Just depends on how the off-season shakes down. Lots of things can happen.
Yup...
If you ever want a clear understanding that the Jays analytics department has at best a fleeting understanding of baseball statistics...
Horwitz -4DRS, 1 OAA, 1 FRV
For reference, DRS (and rPM which is the component that is terrible) is based on positioning. In other words, if a ball is hit to traditional 2nd base and Horwitz is standing a foot to the right of 2nd, he gets a negative. OAA is based on where he is positioned and where the ball is hit (ie evaluating his defending with respect to what he could have done).
The reason this is important is when you look at the data from 2020 to present for 2B for the Jays
Major League Leaderboards - 2020 to 2024 - Fielding | FanGraphs Baseball
28 player/season combos have played at least one inning of 2B for the Jays. Of the 28, there have only been 4 with both a positive DRS and OAA (Semien who is a SS playing 2B, IKF who is a SS playing 2B, Espinal who is a SS playing 2B, and Panik (who if memory serves correct had the luxury of not being shifted in the few games he played 2B that year).
Outside of that, the Jays have two other positive DRS seasons (Jimenez and Biggio) where guys with poor range happened to be positioned well most of the time and 4 positive OAA seasons with negative DRS. I will grant that a part of the noise is DP ability (they treat the DP relay different so for example Biggio in 2022 would be a positive OAA who gains a slight OAA benefit from his DP relay sucking).
Basically the Jays are making decisions on who should play which defensive position using DRS as a primary stat with no regard for the fact that they are playing objectively inferior defenders and using incompetent positioning as the justification.
Note: this discrepency is more significant at 2B than other positions because of more people playing it defensively and more significant shifting, but the same argument says that Vlad at 3B has been an average fielder and that Barger (in double the innings) has been a terrible defender who gets decently positioned and who has suffered from the 2B not being great at turning DPs (keeping in mind that the slow hands reason that guys like Schneider/Horwitz can't play 3rd also means that they will be slow transition guys for DPs).
Edit: a little extra clarity.
OAA is also a play-based stat. That means that Horwitz is judged to have one more out prevented than average.
DRS is a weighted stat. Assuming it is based directly on expected runs, that would mean that every single instance where there is a runner on 2nd with no one out and the Jays shift him to nearly behind the bag and the batter hits a single into the 2B gap would count as more a full negative DRS.
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Some interesting stats with 31 games left:
Varsho is back down to 2nd in CF DRS. He still leads LF in DRS (but isn't eligible for the LF GG).
Kirk is 11th in DRS and 4th in overall Def but Raleigh is the current C GG leader in the AL.
Vlad is the 2nd worst defensive 1B in OAA and middle of the pack by DRS (one of the two completely ignores him actually catching throws at 1B).
Shortstop...both Bo and Clement have positive OAA, but Clement has a positive DRS. Ernie's better arm strength is definitely a factor, but part of this is clearly that the Jays positioned them differently as well.
At 3B, if Ernie played the whole season there, he's not far off of providing what Chapman did last year. A slight uptick in offense, and the Jays have Chapman for a fraction of the price (assuming he isn't playing SS).
In LF, if Loperfido's range improves as he gets used to playing the position defensively, he could be a gold glove candidate. He's got a 5 DRS (9th) despite range issues.
Varsho is the best CF in baseball defensively (best defender).
Springer is pretty much a middle of the pack defender in right.
Basically, if you trade Bo, then Clement to SS and Vlad to 3rd and get a 1B bopper makes a ton of sense. If you extend Vlad and Bo, then Clement to 3B, learn how to position a 2B and sign a DH/1B bopper.
Varsho is back down to 2nd in CF DRS. He still leads LF in DRS (but isn't eligible for the LF GG).
Kirk is 11th in DRS and 4th in overall Def but Raleigh is the current C GG leader in the AL.
Vlad is the 2nd worst defensive 1B in OAA and middle of the pack by DRS (one of the two completely ignores him actually catching throws at 1B).
Shortstop...both Bo and Clement have positive OAA, but Clement has a positive DRS. Ernie's better arm strength is definitely a factor, but part of this is clearly that the Jays positioned them differently as well.
At 3B, if Ernie played the whole season there, he's not far off of providing what Chapman did last year. A slight uptick in offense, and the Jays have Chapman for a fraction of the price (assuming he isn't playing SS).
In LF, if Loperfido's range improves as he gets used to playing the position defensively, he could be a gold glove candidate. He's got a 5 DRS (9th) despite range issues.
Varsho is the best CF in baseball defensively (best defender).
Springer is pretty much a middle of the pack defender in right.
Basically, if you trade Bo, then Clement to SS and Vlad to 3rd and get a 1B bopper makes a ton of sense. If you extend Vlad and Bo, then Clement to 3B, learn how to position a 2B and sign a DH/1B bopper.
Suntouchable13
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What about Alonso for 1B? Who else is going to be available via FA at 1st base?
Alonso is the best target for 1B if Bo goes IMO. On a short term deal, Goldschmidt might be available and cost-efficient.
I am of the belief that the Jays have to make a serious offer to Soto (because he's easily the best player on the market and striving to be a contender involves making offers to the best players), Burnes should be looking at an offer, and Alonso should have an offer.
Naturally, you don't sign all 3 (or even 2 of 3), but if Soto comes to TO, then that completely changes the finances and the HOW of building the next team and the same thing for Burnes. Alonso might honestly fit in without a whole lot of extra.
One of the worst traits about this FA is that they are bad with money (so they have to do a lot of dumpster diving or trades for controllable assets) but they are also really bad at making baseball trades (it's easy to go get a reliever in demand and pay the price, but this FA has not shown any ability to flip a current piece at one position for a piece at another to change the configuration of the team). By the latter, I don't mean moving a Moreno for a Varsho, I mean trading someone who is going to be excess (who isn't the top rated prospect in baseball) for a position that isn't as deep (as an example, if the Jays started playing Horwitz at 2B for the rest of the year, boosted his value, then moved him to someone else for a quality reliever because the Jays theoretically have a half dozen other 2B options (trade the guys before their value falls off a cliff)
Suntouchable13
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Definitely on board with Alonso. Him at 1st and Vladdy at 3rd, that’s a lot of thump at the corners. I am also fine with trading Bo for help elsewhere. Clement is a fine SS. And Leo is coming along very nicely.
Suntouchable13
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Another question: do we finally have some decent trade bait? Prospects that other teams actually want? We may have some surplus now.
I simply don't buy any stat that says that Vladdy is a bad defender at 1B.
Vladdy is one of the worst 1st basemen in baseball at going after popups behind him. It's not a play that happens often, but he is absolutely awful at it. Looking quickly at his baseball savant page, he is also absolutely dreadful on balls in.
Also keep in mind that OAA gives him credit for range only (it shouldn't surprise anyone that a big guy doesn't have great range). It doesn't look at anything he does outside of recording outs on balls hit near him.
There are two really scary situations with Vlad at first. If a lefty bunts the ball down the first base line, it's almost a guaranteed hit and another is the popup behind first base that requires a running catch.
One of the things I'd wonder, though, is whether having a converted CF in LF behind Vladdy instead of Teoscar or whatever means that Springer is just taking charge of a lot of balls. I don't see a ton of cheap pop-ups falling in behind Vladdy for hits.
He's a big guy without terrific range ... but almost all 1Bs are big guys without terrific range.
Yeah, to me he looks consistently athletic there and I'm seeing a lot more 'wow that was a really good defensive play' from him than I am 'ugh, can't believe he didn't get to that'.
Like, when Justin Turner was at 1B he looked noticeably sluggish and unathletic by comparison. Edwin Encarnation was an obviously bad 1B when he played there. Guerrero is nothing like this. He's one of the more athletic 1Bs I see around baseball watching games.
'Guerrero is a terrible defensive 1B' feels kind of like the 'the stats say that Roberto Alomar was a mediocre defensive 2B as a Jay'. Something isn't right there.
He’s not great at either but it’s not like he’s so terrible it discounts everything else he’s good at there.
I feel like 'LHB bunting for a hit' is like 1% of the defensive situation/value for a 1B and shouldn't be making/breaking evaluations on whether a player is a good defender.
Also this happens so seldom that I'm guessing there's going to be huge statistical variations due to luck and sample size.
Let me phrase this slightly differently.
With OAA, most of the grounders near Vlad would be considered high probability plays meaning that they have an incredibly low positive value when he makes the play and a high value if he doesn't. OAA gives no value whatsoever for his stretches or for any throws that aren't on balls hit to him.
This means that for Vlad, every error on a grounder hurts his OAA dramatically. Bloops behind him aren't common but there are a few a year (I think only one has been fair this year, but there have been a few that have either landed in foul territory or in the first two rows in the stands).
I don't think you understand my objection. In that particular case, Vlad would be one of the worst 1B at fielding it in baseball (possibly the worst). It's not a common play because teams don't do that, but that doesn't mean that a team like Boston couldn't get 5 or 6 hits in a game by doing that.
This is so theoretical it's pointless, though.
It's like saying 'Vladdy is only hitting .152 against pitches on the upper-inside corner of the strike zone so he's a bad hitter because theoretically if every single pitch was thrown there he'd be bad'.
If you're bad at something that barely every happens and concede 1 or 2 extra hits over the course of a season relative to average ... it's just not statistically significant. Defensive value comes from how you play the literally thousands of routine chances in a game, not rare plays that happen 10 or 15 times in a season.
I posted two stats. One is OAA (he's bad at it). The other is DRS (he's average at it).
Based on those two, he's an average overall defender with flaws (the ones I specifically mentioned). Also, I've argued before (and will continue to) that DRS still understates his contributions around the bag (but OAA gives him 0 credit for it)
I did a quick Statcast search. Opposing lefties have bunted towards first three times this year. One was two feet in front of the plate, so the catcher made the play. One was a Varsho-style bunt between the pitcher and 2B (just the other day against the Cubs). The other one you could argue was the 1B ball, but he was playing deep... and it was Horwitz.
So for this year, at least, it seems like the sample size is zero.
dredeye
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