What’s the Matter With Alejandro Kirk?

The 2022 Blue Jays gained 92 video games and completed second within the American League in runs scored, and Alejandro Kirk had so much to do with that. Hitting .285/.372/.415 and enjoying higher protection behind the plate than most anticipated when he was a prospect, he shaped a dynamite catching chimera with Danny Jansen and Gabriel Moreno, who was despatched to Arizona this offseason. The resultant pairing of Kirk and Jansen projected to provide the Blue Jays the very best catching state of affairs in baseball in 2023. But whereas the remainder of the highest catchers within the majors have labored out about as anticipated, Toronto’s haven’t, combining to hit a good however disappointing .232/.311/.384. As the youthful and far much less skilled of the 2, with extra time to develop as an offensive participant, Kirk’s struggles concern me extra.

It’s straightforward to neglect how rapidly Kirk rocketed via the minors lately. After enjoying principally in High-A Dunedin in 2019, the Blue Jays had been sufficient in his expertise to place him on the taxi squad firstly of September 2020, even getting him into 9 video games, seven as a catcher. The following season, he solely performed a few weeks at Triple-A Buffalo earlier than turning into a everlasting main leaguer. While a promotion that aggressive does occur every so often, there’s no state of affairs that I can bear in mind by which a crew promoted a catcher who wasn’t a particularly polished defender that rapidly. He hit .242/.328/.436 — a strong triple-slash for any catcher, however thrilling for a participant with such little high-level expertise. Perhaps as importantly, whereas Kirk didn’t idiot anybody into pondering he was the subsequent Yadier Molina with the glove, he performed much better defensively than the DH-pretending-to-be-a-catcher archetype that gamers like Zack Collins fall into. But Kirk’s .234/.353/.324 line up to now will not be what individuals anticipated within the follow-up season, and whereas the ensuing wRC+ of 96 is much better than trainwreck standing, it’s additionally removed from the stardom he displayed final 12 months.

When you see a dropoff like that, particularly in a reasonably quick stretch of video games, you often see a BABIP blip together with it. But whereas Kirk has dropped about 40 factors of BABIP since final 12 months, his hit profile helps a reasonably low BABIP. In reality, ZiPS thinks that he’s “earned” a .249 BABIP primarily based on how he’s hit this 12 months, decrease than his precise BABIP of .261. The plate self-discipline stats additionally present no pink flags; he nonetheless makes good contact and isn’t all of the sudden providing extra usually at worse pitches.

The icky a part of Kirk’s seasonal line includes the lack of energy, and sadly, the drop in each his exit velocity and loft is actual; 4 miles per hour and 7 levels of launch angle will not be small deviations. For the Statcast period, I took each participant who put 75 pitches into play in consecutive years, ranked their dips in exit velocity and launch angle (out of two,389 gamers), and located these with the largest dropoffs, utilizing the typical of their ranks (we’re attempting to get a normal concept, so a quite simple technique is okay). Here are the outcomes:

Kirk ranks extremely when it comes to dropoff in these stats, so it’s not stunning to see his energy evaporate. It’s additionally not one thing that bodes effectively. ZiPS and different projection techniques cope with these points in a extra scientifically sound vogue than this, however there are plenty of fading gamers on this record. The ones that did enhance general in seasons after the two-year window, resembling Díaz and Acuña Jr., managed to reverse this course of. I went down the highest 50 gamers on this record and located that this held true as effectively. And Kirk truly confirmed some dropoff from 2021 to ’22 regardless of his glorious efficiency, suggesting that the seeds of a future challenge had already been sown.

One perpetrator right here is that he’s merely topping onerous pitches down within the zone, whereas final 12 months he was getting simply sufficient loft to squeeze a bunch of hits out of them; he hit .452 on low fastballs and lifted nearly all of them with a optimistic launch angle. This season, solely three of 13 low fastballs haven’t been pushed into the bottom, and Kirk has misplaced about eight levels of launch angle on common in comparison with final 12 months. It’s not simply luck both: he’s hitting them with much less velocity, leading to an xBA of .231 in comparison with .336 final 12 months.

The exit velocity challenge is vital for Kirk as a result of he’s not a quick participant and hits plenty of grounders; he’s not going to be legging out many delicate infield hits, so he must hit the ball onerous. Groundball BABIP may be very delicate to exit velocity, as in contrast to fly balls, there’s no candy spot the place a delicate hit turns into an impossible-to-field bloop.

And if you happen to test the Statcast leaderboard when it comes to year-to-year change, Kirk is close to the highest of the record when it comes to most elevated topped contact fee.

The excellent news is that the total mannequin of ZiPS is conscious of those hit tendencies and nonetheless thinks Kirk goes to be alright over the lengthy haul, although his issues proper now have elevated the draw back danger, pushing his projections down from the three.5–4.0 WAR vary they had been in earlier than the season:

These varieties of modifications aren’t good, however they’re additionally not demise sentences for careers and might be reversed. Kirk, even whereas struggling, nonetheless retains plenty of the traits that made him such a great hitter final 12 months. The key to bettering his baseball sport proper now could also be engaged on his golf sport and re-embracing the fashionable development of turning low pitches into lengthy drives reasonably than worm-burners.