Bryan De La Cruz Suffers From a Lack of Contact(s)

Proposition No. 1: Figuring out the neatest entrance workplace in baseball could be a troublesome activity even when it weren’t such a loaded query to begin. How do you weight scouting versus growth? How do you issue the affect of possession, for good or ailing? Or accidents, or luck, or different parts of power majeure?

So I’ll state my premise this manner: The Braves appear to be a competently run group. They’ve made the playoffs seven years working — six of these by successful the NL East — and are arrange nicely to proceed contending sooner or later. They’ve had inner developmental successes, savvy commerce wins, and the occasional opportunistic buy-low transfer for a veteran free agent. Are they the best-run staff within the league? I don’t know, however I’d hear out an argument to that impact.

Certainly they wouldn’t exit of their solution to purchase a participant coming off a traditionally dangerous season.

Proposition No. 2: Baseball groups are fairly good at figuring out dangerous gamers today. The theoretical alternative degree is as theoretical because it’s ever been; anybody who spends lengthy intervals of time submerged beneath that line tends to get bounced from the lineup earlier than he can do an excessive amount of injury. Previously decade, you’ll discover a full season of -1.0 WAR or worse roughly as soon as in each 100 particular person participant campaigns. That’s 14 occasions in 1,375 certified place participant seasons since 2015, and simply 4 occasions in 658 particular person participant seasons of 600 or extra plate appearances.

Often, a participant that dangerous earns taking part in time via previous efficiency. Or, extra precisely, although path dependence based mostly on a large contract earned via previous efficiency. Albert Pujols, Victor Martinez, Chris Davis, and Pablo Sandoval have all damaged via this statistical thermocline. For a participant in his prime to get 600 plate appearances whereas stinking out the joint to this extent… nicely, it’s uncommon.

However Bryan De La Cruz simply did it. He hit .233/.271/.384 in 622 plate appearances for the Marlins and Pirates final season. That 77 wRC+, together with below-average nook outfield protection, was ok to saddle him with a millstone WAR determine of minus-1.2.

Proposition No. 3: The Atlanta Braves simply signed Bryan De La Cruz.

Why would they do such a factor? It is mindless!

I’ll caveat this proper off the highest: I do know that De La Cruz is on a non-guaranteed break up contract, which signifies that he’d receives a commission a unique quantity based mostly on whether or not he’s within the main leagues or the minors. (Presumably, De La Cruz’s donation to the Atlanta Braves Basis could be adjusted accordingly.) And since he has two possibility years left, De La Cruz may certainly get demoted.

However he at present has the within observe on at the very least a platoon position out of spring coaching, as a result of — imagine it or not — “traditionally dangerous” just isn’t essentially a downgrade on what the Braves have within the outfield in the mean time.

It feels ridiculous to say that, given the splashy names on the prime of Atlanta’s outfield depth chart. Michael Harris II is a must-start, however after that it will get a bit of darkish. Ronald Acuña Jr. is likely one of the greatest gamers within the league when wholesome, however he most likely received’t be again from his torn ACL by Opening Day, so there can be at the very least a short lived emptiness in proper subject. And left fielder Jarred Kelenic didn’t react as nicely to his change of surroundings because the Braves would’ve hoped. I may cite Kelenic’s unimpressive 86 wRC+ over a full season, however as a substitute I feel it’d be extra illustrative to indicate you what number of of Kelenic’s plate appearances got here in opposition to left-handed pitchers on a month-by-month foundation. For comparability, I’ve added the league-wide splits each for left-handed hitters and for all hitters. Should you have been graphing Atlanta’s confidence in Kelenic’s skill to play on a regular basis, you may give you worse proxies.

Having traded away Jorge Soler, lower free Ramón Laureano and Adam Duvall, and having hidden Marcell Ozuna’s glove from him, the Braves are surprisingly skinny within the outfield. Other than the gamers I’ve already talked about, there are three present members of the Braves’ 40-man roster with main league outfield expertise: Austin Riley (has higher issues to do), Luke Williams (profession 59 wRC+), and Eli White (additionally a profession 59 wRC+).

Sooner or later, you simply want a man to go stand out in proper subject. I haven’t measured De La Cruz’s temperature not too long ago, however I’m assured that he counts as a heat physique. So does Conner Capel, whom Atlanta signed to a minor league deal over the weekend.

Capel is a profession minor league veteran. (Is 59 massive league video games over three seasons at age 27 sufficient to qualify him for Quad-A standing? In that case, I apologize; I don’t need to be unkind.) However De La Cruz was considered as a promising expertise not that way back, and has been an on a regular basis participant for two-plus years prior to now. He introduced again two prospects on the commerce deadline simply 5 months in the past. The Braves will be apt to screw round with lottery tickets with their fourth and fifth outfield spots — particularly early within the season. God is aware of I fell for the Sam Hilliard okey-doke two years in the past.

Is that each one that is? Someplace between a placeholder and this 12 months’s Sam Hilliard? Or can he do greater than make up the numbers?

Properly, De La Cruz hasn’t been an above-average hitter, in keeping with wRC+, since his rookie half-season in 2021. As of proper now, he walks sparingly, strikes out as a lot as Mickey Moniak, and doesn’t hit the ball significantly exhausting. Regardless of common dash velocity, he has rock-bottom vary within the outfield, although his arm is likely one of the few attributes that doesn’t appear to have atrophied.

De La Cruz does hit lefties higher than righties, and whereas he’s not precisely Wily Mo Peña in “MVP Baseball 2005,” his 99 wRC+ in opposition to left-handed pitching final 12 months was fairly a bitter than Kelenic’s 41. Put the 2 collectively and also you’ll have one barely below-average hitter in left subject.

Again in 2022, De La Cruz — whereas performing unremarkably on the plate normally — did make lots of exhausting contact. However over the previous three seasons, he’s gone from the 96th percentile in xBA to thirty sixth, and from the 86th percentile in HardHit% to 58th. His general numbers in opposition to fastballs and offspeed pitches have stayed in the identical normal ballpark, however he appears to have simply misplaced the flexibility to sq. up breaking stuff.

There are few prospect profiles as contact-averse as “toolsy Marlins outfielder,” however even in that context, that is fairly stunning. Whereas he’s backed up by way of high quality of contact, he’s additionally swinging extra — 49.2% in 2022, 53.4% in 2024 — whereas seeing extra strikes — 45.6% in-zone fee in 2022, 48.7% in 2024. Pitchers aren’t afraid of him, in order that they see no purpose to keep away from the zone. Subsequent factor you already know, De La Cruz — who was hardly a Joey Votto tribute act to start with — is within the backside 10 in stroll fee amongst all certified hitters.

That’s survivable for a hitter with 20-homer energy at an up-the-middle place (Trea Turner, Ezequiel Tovar, Jackson Merrill) or for Luis Arraez, who has outlier bat-to-ball expertise. Much less so for a participant like De La Cruz.

So one among two issues is occurring right here. First: De La Cruz has simply misplaced it. His bat’s slowed down, his pitch recognition, such because it was, is in the bathroom, and there’s no getting back from this. The Braves will discover this out rapidly, and De La Cruz can be in Gwinnett — or worse, on the White Sox — by Memorial Day. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Or — and listen to me out right here — we may study from one other member of the Minus-1.0 WAR Membership. Enrique Hernández hit .237/.289/.357 and dropped all the best way to negative-1.1 WAR in 2023. He was even worse within the first half of 2024. Then he received glasses someday across the All-Star break and all the pieces was fastened.

Hernández hit .274/.307/.458, a 112 wRC+, within the second half, and lower his strikeout fee by greater than 15%. By October, he was an everyday starter for the Dodgers, and hit .294 with two dwelling runs in 14 playoff video games, en path to a second ring.

In different phrases, De La Cruz ought to go to the optometrist earlier than all of us write him off for good.