Esteury Ruiz Has So A lot to Achieve, and So A lot to Bruise

Things aren’t going nicely in Oakland in the intervening time. Ownership, after years of quiet quitting, is up and transferring the staff. (Or perhaps not, if proprietor John Fisher and his confederates change into worse at lobbying than they’re at pest management.) That leaves a last-place membership to play out the string in entrance of “SELL THE TEAM” banners, most likely for a number of years to return. The most blatant simile for this case could be one thing alongside the strains of “like the waning days of a loveless marriage,” however that might be an insult to loveless marriages.

Still, a couple of dozen unfortunates are obliged to placed on the storied inexperienced and gold colours of the Athletics and carry out baseball six days per week. And they’re attempting, albeit not too efficiently, to win. It might occur! All the time we see a staff made up principally of children, or with a payroll out of the mid-90s, get hit by lightning and make a run on the playoffs. Frequently that has even been the A’s in recent times.

Unfortunately, this 12 months’s Athletics most likely wanted 5 or 6 completely different lightning strikes to show their 100-loss roster right into a contender. One break the A’s wanted — following on the staff’s greatest offseason transfer — concerned outfielder Esteury Ruiz.

Ruiz got here west in December as a part of a three-team blockbuster commerce with the Brewers and Braves. More individuals modified groups in that commerce than dwell in, like, Andorra. But on the heart of the deal: Oakland moved beginning catcher Sean Murphy to Atlanta, Atlanta moved catcher William Contreras to Milwaukee, and Milwaukee despatched Ruiz, a rookie outfielder heading into his age-24 season, to Oakland.

The concept, from Oakland’s perspective, was to ship out their Most worthy commerce chip with a purpose to get youthful, cheaper, and higher at a distinct place. Murphy was 28 and simply coming off a five-win season, however he performed at Oakland’s solely place with a surfeit of main league expertise. Shea Langeliers had simply damaged into the massive league lineup, rendering considered one of him or Murphy redundant; that made Contreras unattractive to Oakland as nicely.

Plus Murphy was about to get costly, or no less than costly by Oakland’s requirements. Atlanta shortly signed him to a six-year, $73 million extension, or about the identical assure they gave a (superb, admittedly) rookie pitcher the identical offseason.

If this isn’t a problem commerce (suppose Zac Gallen for Jazz Chisholm Jr., or Michael Pineda for Jesus Montero), it’s adjoining to the idea. All Oakland wanted to return out on high was for Ruiz to carry out on the extent of Contreras and Murphy, adjusted for age and place.

You’ve received to be affected person judging any commerce, notably one involving a participant as new to the majors as Ruiz. But it’s been a month, so it may possibly’t damage to test in and see the way it’s going for Oakland:

Even after his large night time on Wednesday (2-for-3 with a double and two stolen bases), he’s nonetheless getting outhit by two catchers for the season.

Okay, it’s somewhat harsh to check Ruiz to Murphy and Contreras; by one month of the season, Langeliers has been considered one of Oakland’s greatest gamers, and a part of the reasoning behind the commerce was to get him within the lineup day-after-day. And it bears repeating that Ruiz is the youngest and least skilled of the three commerce principals, so we should always give him some latitude. But the success of this commerce was predicated on Ruiz being good. Whether he’s met that customary, based mostly on complete efficiency, is open to debate. What’s not up for debate is how attention-grabbing he’s been.

Ruiz leads the American League in two classes. The first is stolen bases; he’s taken 13 in 14 makes an attempt. That’s good; an enormous a part of the enchantment of Ruiz is his 70-grade pace. If he can seize further bases along with his legs, that takes some stress off his bat. And he’s working each probability he will get. Ruiz has reached base 43 occasions this season; 23 of these have are available such a fashion that the bottom in entrance of him was unoccupied, and he’s tried to steal 14 occasions.

Just from an aesthetic perspective: Hell yeah.

Unfortunately, Ruiz must be on first base with a purpose to steal second or third, and that’s been problematic. He’s hitting simply .265 and has walked simply 4 occasions in 130 plate appearances. About per week in the past, I wrote about how Ryan Mountcastle was killing the ball, however for some cause the hits weren’t falling for him. Therein, I identified that except he began strolling greater than as soon as a month, it doesn’t actually matter how good his exit velo is — it’s very, very tough to be an above-average hitter when your stroll charge is within the low single digits.

Ruiz walked simply 2.8% of the time in his temporary main league cameo final 12 months, and he’s walked simply 3.1% of the time in 2023. Moreover, he’s not making something like the standard of contact Mountcastle is. Of Ruiz’s 30 hits, 23 have been singles, seven doubles. His remoted energy, .062, is one hundred and sixty fifth out of 174 certified hitters. Ideally, a hitter will each draw walks and hit for energy — and Ruiz did within the higher minors — however you must do no less than one.

Since 2016, in a 162-game season, there have solely been 9 situations of a professional hitter posting a BB% underneath 5.0 and an ISO underneath .100. Generally, hitters like that get benched earlier than they qualify for the batting title, and also you’ll see why:

Most of those hitters have a wRC+ under 80. Anything under that and your hitting coach will begin to gently recommend that baseball won’t be for you, and begin leaving hints that you simply could be higher off going to grad faculty.

The solely hitter who walked this little and hit for this little energy, and managed to return near a league-average batting line, was Dee Strange-Gordon in 2017. That 12 months, he hit .308 and wore 10 pitches, which boosted his OBP to .341. That’ll play, even when Strange-Gordon hit for zero energy.

There’s little trigger for optimism in Ruiz’s contact profile. He hits fastballs nicely, however even then, his .367 batting common on heaters is lower than 100 factors underneath his .449 slugging proportion. Ruiz is within the backside 10% of the league in hard-hit charge, and even when he does hit the ball laborious, his groundball-heavy profile makes it tough to squeeze out greater than the odd single.

But generally you hit the ball, and generally the ball hits you.

One of my favourite school baseball gamers of all time is University of Buffalo outfielder Nick Sinay. As a junior, Sinay hit .328/.477/.377 with 39 stolen bases from 48 makes an attempt in simply 51 video games. Having an OBP 100 factors greater than his SLG, you would possibly conclude that Sinay was some type of strike zone judgment savant. Not actually, although he drew his justifiable share of walks. His secret was getting hit by 22 pitches in simply 237 plate appearances. And as soon as he received on base, Sinay, a plus-plus runner, might determine issues out from there.

Sinay received drafted by the Blue Jays within the twenty second spherical, and lasted simply two and a half seasons within the minors earlier than he retired. He by no means hit professional pitching that nicely; in his last season, he batted .215 with simply six extra-base hits in Low-A. But he additionally received hit by 38 pitches in 293 plate appearances, which implies he retired after posting a .405 OBP.

Ruiz is hitting simply .265, and he’s not strolling, so how is his OBP all the way in which up at .341?

Because he’s been hit by 9 pitches in simply 130 plate appearances. For comparability: Last 12 months, the Mets set a brand new all-time file by being hit by 112 pitches over the course of the season. And for the file, they weren’t precisely thrilled with being hit in 1.8% of their plate appearances in 2022.

Ruiz is getting plunked nearly 4 occasions as often because the Mets did final 12 months. In phrases of HBP charge, he’s just below a proportion level behind Ron Hunt’s 50-HBP season in 1971. There are 49 certified hitters, together with Rafael Devers, George Springer, and Manny Machado, who’re strolling much less often than Ruiz is getting hit.

So is that this sustainable or is it only a curiosity, a statistical blip after 5 weeks of play that we’ll overlook about by Flag Day?

I don’t know if Ruiz goes to get plunked 40-odd occasions this 12 months, however he’s undoubtedly doing every thing he can to put on a pitch. Ruiz stands proper on the plate, the toes of his proper foot only a couple inches from the within chalk of the batter’s field, and he stands pretty far again within the field. That offers pitches an additional foot or two to hold out of the zone and hit him.

Of the 9 occasions Ruiz has been hit this season, only one was the Brandon Guyer Special: A back-foot breaking ball that actually hit him within the legs. And Ruiz, like Guyer in his prime, didn’t elevate a finger in an try to avoid wasting himself from coming to hurt. As my Little League coach used to say, we’ve received ice.

Two of these HBPs have come on bunt makes an attempt, wherein Ruiz is hanging his torso out over, or no less than close to, the plate. Here’s one price watching as a result of it illustrates the risks of going Full Don Baylor, and likewise as a result of it’s an excuse to incorporate Shohei Ohtani within the submit:

The remaining six have hit Ruiz on the higher physique. For 5 of these, Ruiz took the pitch on the elbow, the place he wears a large Barry Bonds-looking pad to guard himself. On April 7, Ruiz wasn’t sporting the Robocop elbow guard, and Jason Adam got here inside and hit Ruiz within the ribs, however in any other case, he’s been placing his arm in simply the suitable place to draw baseballs. Behold, a consultant instance:

This is textbook. Not even a glimmer of a flinch; Ruiz simply units up along with his entrance elbow close to the zone, lowers it even additional by dropping deeper right into a crouch as he prepares to swing, and simply lets the mountain come to Mohammed. This is the Ted Williams swing of getting hit by a pitch. It’s beautiful.

Now, is that this an excellent offensive method for a participant upon whom the A’s have thrust a lot in the way in which of expectations? I’d say no. But you probably have a greater method to submit an above-average OBP with out both hitting or drawing walks, I’m all ears.

The A’s are being actively sabotaged by possession off the sphere, they usually’re getting crushed on it. But nobody ought to accuse them of missing ingenuity. Ruiz, no less than, is getting on base irrespective of the associated fee.