Using advanced stats to see which Blue Jays could improve regress

With two months of the 2022 MLB season already in the books, we’ve been able to gather a much larger sample size of statistics that can accurately reflect a player’s performance. Some Blue Jays, like Alejandro Kirk, who currently has an OPS well above .800, have put up some great raw numbers this season, while others like Bo Bichette, who’s struggling to stay above .700, have had a harder time putting up numbers so far this year. Basic stats like OPS, batting average, or even ERA often don’t tell the full story this early in the season though, and advanced stats (often referred to as peripherals) can be a great resource to help project players over the course of a full season, or even explain certain players’ performances to this point.

A brief explanation of advanced stats in this context

I feel like advanced stats or peripherals are terms that are thrown around a lot when talking about stats these days, but it’s not always necessarily clear what they are. When talking about advanced stats (often referred to as sabermetrics) in relation to underlying numbers, people are usually referencing the stats you’ll find on sites such as FanGraphs or Baseball Savant.

FanGraphs generally uses stats like wRC+ to measure raw offensive production, but utilizes other stats like ISO and BABIP to help measure expected production (here’s their offensive glossary). For pitching, they’ll mainly use stats like FIP and xFIP to measure expected pitching performance (pitching glossary). Baseball Savant uses the recently introduced, statcast statistics to place player’s performance in categories from expected batting average to average exit velocity on a percentile scale to create a chart that helps give a good idea of a player’s expected performance.

There are obviously certainly outliers who, despite having weak expected stats, still perform well, but generally the players with good expected numbers are the ones with good raw numbers, over the course of a full season. With that all out of the way, let’s take a look at what the advanced statistics say about certain Blue Jays.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr

Coming off a 2021 season in which he won the American League Hank Aaron Award with the Blue Jays, expectations were pretty high for Guerrero Jr. entering 2022. While his 134 wRC+ is certainly nothing to scoff at, it’s down from what most people were expecting from him entering the season. His ability to hit the ball hard is still very much intact, with his average exit velocity and his hard-hit percentage both sitting in the 95th percentile of the league. His expected stats are still relatively good as well, with his xwOBA, xBA, and xSLG all sitting in the mid to high 80s. Where his issues lie is that where he’s only relatively good this year, he was elite last year.

This decrease in production seems to stem from two major factors, that being his ISO and his BABIP. ISO uses slugging minus batting average to measure what percentage of a player’s hits are for extra bases. Despite his batting average falling from his 2021 season, his ISO is still way down, going from .290 to .233, which shows that not only has he been struggling to get as many hits, but when he does get them, he’s not getting as many bases. His drop in BABIP has also played a huge factor in his disappointing stats, with his batting average on balls in play dropping from .313, all the way to .250. This is directly reflected in his lowered batting average, and while it may seem concerning at first, a low BABIP can often be a sign that a good hitter is simply getting unlucky with where he’s hitting the ball.

At this point in the season, I see no reason to get too worried about Vladdy’s performance, considering how good of a hitter he’s shown he can be and how young he still is. While I wouldn’t anticipate his full-season numbers to look as good as they did in 2021, in a year where the league-wide offense is down, I would still anticipate Vladdy being one of baseball’s top hitters by season’s end.

That being said, there are certainly some mildly concerning trends in his underlying number’s that he’ll need to fix if he hopes to return to form.

Jose Berrios

After earning himself a massive seven-year extension from the Blue Jays this past offseason, Jose Berrios has had some serious struggles to start the 2022 season. His 75 ERA+ is the worst among qualified pitchers in the American League, and his xERA of 6.56 ranks dead last in MLB according to FanGraphs. To make things worse, his Baseball Savant page is not a pleasant sight, with almost every single one of his statcast metrics sitting right near the bottom of the league. To put it lightly, Berrios’ advanced numbers are about as bad as they could be. So what does that mean for Berrios throughout the rest of the season?

Ignoring all the peripheral numbers, knowing the type of pitcher Berrios has been throughout his career, I see no reason not to expect Berrios to bounce back to being an at least above-average player. In his most recent start, Berrios let up a two-run homer in the first inning but bounced back finishing the day with seven innings of two-run baseball to go along with a career-high 13 strikeouts. Trying to use his advanced numbers to project his season makes it much tougher. Berrios hasn’t simple been unlucky this season, he’s just been bad.

FIP (which only looks at the three true outcomes) is always a good metric to look at when seeing how a pitcher might project over a full season, but this season he’s struggled to keep the ball in the yard, all well walking more batters and striking out fewer. This is all very concerning when trying to project him for the rest of the campaign and when trying to glean positives from this, the only thing there is that he really can’t get any worse. I would try not to read too much into this, because like I said, Berrios has proven to be a solid pitcher in years past, but the picture that his peripherals paint right now is not a pretty one.

Alejandro Kirk

Considering his relative lack of experience entering the 2022 season, expectations were fairly high for Alejandro Kirk. He had shown serious potential at the plate, to go along with some decent defense and had a lot of people believing that he could be a difference-maker in the Blue Jays’ offense. However, I think there were likely very few people who thought he would be the favourite to be the starting catcher for the American League in the All-Star Game entering June. Kirk hasn’t just been good this year, he’s been great.

As the Blue Jays recently hit the 50-game mark, we’re beginning to get a larger sample size of advanced stats that could help project some players.

Looking at Kirk’s wRC+ of 146, it would be easy to assume that he’s just getting lucky, but the opposite is true. Kirk’s advanced numbers would lead you to believe that he’s one of baseball’s best hitters. Unsurprisingly, both whiff and strikeout rates are among the best in baseball, and his xwOBA is in the 92 percentile according to Baseball Savant. One area where people believed he may struggle was with producing consistent hard contact, but his average exit velocity is sitting at the 73rd percentile in baseball.

Perhaps the most shocking thing we’ve seen from Kirk this year is that he’s not only a serviceable catcher behind the plate, but he’s also very, very good. FanGraphs currently credits him with four defensive runs saved, which ranks fourth among all catchers in baseball, and Baseball Savant has him in the 91st percentile for pitch framing, which means he not only plays well himself, he’s improving the calls for his pitchers.

No matter which way you look at it, Alejandro Kirk has been outstanding in 2022, and his advanced statistics reflect that. It’s obviously hard to maintain this pace over a full season, but if he can even keep 80 percent of this pace, he’ll be one of, if not the best catcher in the American League.