Yesterday, Chad gave us an encouraging update on the Reds young shortstop, Jose Peraza. Among all the positives the Reds offense has given us in the first half, Peraza certainly belongs among the discussion as his play of late has been pretty good. The improvement of his numbers so far, as well as his young age, give reason to be optimistic.
Peraza does not walk much nor does not hit many home runs, so he is relying on base hits for most of his production. Therefore, Peraza’s numbers can be very much dictated by his BABIP. The chart below shows exactly that for about two seasons worth of data, with a little deviation towards the end.
Since Peraza’s time with the Reds began in 2016, his wOBA has never outpaced his BABIP. That is, until the last 14 or so games, where he sustained production that was not directly because of a high BABIP. Maybe this is just a blip, as his BABIP skyrocketed after his record 11-hit series against the Cardinals. Or maybe it is an indication that he is improving as a hitter.
While Peraza will never be confused for Joey Votto when it comes to plate discipline, he has once again descended into the Votto-like depths of low O-Swing%, at least for the time being.
Just as he did last year, Peraza has dramatically cut his swings at bad pitches after a poor start to the year. While he is not quite to league average for 2018 (30.6%), his 33.7% this year is down from 36.8% in 2017 and 38.3% in 2016. This has helped raise his walk rate (5.5% vs 3.9% last year) and drop his strikeout rate (10.9% vs 13.5% last year), all contributing to his increased production.
Peraza’s batted ball profile shows even more ups and downs, with a sustained drop in soft contact after a spike to start to the year.
Again, there is big improvement here, dropping from 26.6% in 2017 to 19.0% so far in 2018. The question that Jose needs to answer is if he can develop more consistency and keep his both his Soft% and O-Swing% down closer to league average for the second half of the season.
Even if he is unable to do so, there are other signs that Peraza’s strong hit tool will continue to drive his offense. Below are his wOBA, xwOBA and exit velocities for each hitting zone in 2017 and 2018, courtesy of Baseball Savant.
The current state is not perfect but it is another improvement, with fewer “soft zones” across the board. And even though his exit velocity is low overall, there are only three zones that are below league average, which gives pitchers fewer ways to attack him.
Peraza obviously still has his shortcomings. His hard contact rate this year of 29.2%, while up from his career 23.8%, is still well below league average of 35.4%. Exit Velocity and Barrel Percentage metrics from Baseball Savant tell similar stories. With an xSLG (.368) a bit below his actual SLG (.391), his 5 home runs are probably not going to become 10 by season’s end (he hit 5 all of last year). Bottom line, he is not turning into Francisco Lindor anytime soon.
For now, that is alright. The Reds offense has found another level recently and with Nick Senzel still to come, should have plenty of firepower to support Peraza’s bat, if that is what the organization decides to do. As of right now he is exactly average for an MLB shortstop and above average for an NL shortstop (as Chad pointed out in yesterday’s post), according to wRC+. He provides value on the base paths (25th in MLB in BsR) and continues to look more comfortable on defense. And yes, he is only 24 years old.
This is an excellent post. A couple of comments:
I’m really not a fan of talking about where a player ranks among others at his position in terms of value in a given season. Different positions are strong in different years. I went on about this with Suarez last year, when 3Bs had the best season in major league history. My persona opinion is that it’s best to either use WAR (which is designed to make all players comparable) and compare him to the league. Or, if you’re using something like wRC+, compare him to what shortstops have typically done instead of what they’ve done in half a season this year.
Very good points, especially on the bias of positional comparisons. Regardless of the year the league is having, Peraza has turned into a nice, solid SS with a bit more upside to be had. Certainly, he’s not holding us back any (see pitching, starting).
The situation with Peraza is that is OBP is going up but it is primarily being driven by his ability to hit singles although his walk rate is improving.Can he sustain his high average even if he never improves his walk rate and does his power numbers go up as he matures are the real questions for me and we won’t know that for awhile.Right now his OBP is along with his defense and his ability to steal bases is good enough for him to be starting at shortstop for the Reds.It is a good situation right now and honestly I see his power numbers going up sooner then his ability to improve his walk rate.He has shown some pop and at 24 he will get bigger and stronger.
The hair-pulling thing about Peraza earlier in the year was his propensity to dink weak fly balls to right field, often from chasing balls low and away. The gratifying thing now is that he commands the strike zone much better everywhere, but especially on the low outside corner, which greatly lessens the dinks to right field.
This is reflected in the graph of the 25-game Soft%. That graph also shows that his prior “peaks” in Soft% are higher and broader than the most recent one at the start of this year. While he will almost certainly have slumps in the future, the trend is that the slumps will be shorter and less severe.
Controlling the strike zone has the side advantage of allowing a hitter to get himself more consistently in hitter’s counts.
Good call! Ted Williams’ first rule of hitting was “Get a good pitch to hit.” Doing that allows you to hit the ball harder (hitter’s pitches), get ahead in counts, and draw walk when you don’t see anything good. And, as you mentioned, selectivity levels out the ups and downs and leads to more consistent production. It has been great to see him lay off those pitcher’s strikes low and out instead of jabbing the bat out at them for possible bloops. If he keeps heading this way he could be a really nice ballplayer.
Fantastic post, Matt.