Deconstructing Didi Gregorius
by Chris Doyle
As is often the case this early in the season, a look atop the leaderboards can make your head spin. This time last year we were marveling at Aaron Judge’s power display and wondering if it was for real.
Fast forward 12 months and it’s another Bronx Bomber stealing the spotlight out of nowhere.
Didi Gregorius has been mauling the baseball. Through 26 games, he leads the majors in home runs (10), RBI (30), ISO (.444), SLG (.800), wOBA (.500) and wRC+ (219). That’s video game stuff.
The difference between Gregorius and Judge is that when we look at their track records and the types of skills they possess, we could have conceivably said that Judge had the chance to be a big time power hitter.
But Gregorius? Is this something we should have seen coming? Certainly BABS did not, as evidenced by his lack of a power asset, something he’s actually never been given during his career. Let’s dive a little deeper.
Minor Leagues
From 2008 to 2014 while in the Reds’ and Diamondbacks’ systems, Gregorius managed to hit a grand total of 25 home runs, and never hit more than seven in a single season. He certainly wasn’t known for his pop.
Gregorius also wasn’t an elite hitter, although he did bat over .300 at a few stops on the way to the big leagues.
The one thing you could say about him was that he started hitting the ball in the air more, a vital component of becoming someone who hits for power consistently. In fact, from 2010 to 2014, he never posted a GB/FB rate above 1.23. In 2016 and 2017, it didn’t go below 1.76.
Still, we can agree that there wasn’t much in his minor league profile that screamed elite power hitter.
Major Leagues
When Gregorius arrived in Arizona, he was essentially the same player. He hit some fly balls, but his hard hit rates were pedestrian (23% and 28% in 2013 and 2014, respectively) and his slugging percentage sat below .400.
Nothing changed in his first season as a Yankee in 2015, but in 2016 he clubbed 20 home runs and then followed that up with another 25 in just 136 games in 2017.
The critics pointed to the fact he played half his games in Yankee Stadium, but he only hit one more HR at home than on the road the past two seasons.
Finally, we come to the present. How has Gregorius managed to power up to Bonds-ian levels? He’s not hitting the ball harder or farther than most. He’s hitting it just well enough, and it all starts with his approach.
One thing that jumps out is his strikeout-to-walk ratio. Gregorius is taking the free pass one-and-a-half times as often as he strikes out, which is elite (only five others fall into this category, including Bryce Harper). Is it sustainable? His career walk rate is 6%, so there’s always a chance his current 16% mark falls back to earth.
His 11% strikeout rate is low even for him (14% for his career), but it’s well supported. Simply put, what Gregorius has managed to do is be more selective and absolutely not miss when he chooses to swing. In 2016 and 2017, he swung at 40% of pitches outside the strike zone; so far in 2018 he’s only chasing 30% of the time. And when he gets a pitch to hit in the zone, he’s connecting 93% of the time. Combine that with a 50% fly ball rate (up from 44% in 2017), a 39% hard hit rate (it’s 24% for his career) and a 49% pull rate and you’ve created a perfect storm for dingers.
(In fact, the only other player with a minimum 50% fly ball rate, 39% or better hard hit rate and a 48% or higher pull rate is Mookie Betts. That’s some elite company.)
With all that said, we can be pretty confident Gregorius won’t sustain his current 60-HR pace this season. Judge and Giancarlo Stanton couldn’t do that last season, and as pure power hitters, they don’t need to make perfect contact to hit one out of the park. Gregorius averages just 376 feet per home run which places him outside the top-200; basically everything has broken right for him so far in terms of his batted ball profile.
However, if the alterations he made in his approach are real, we could be witnessing a very true breakout at age 28. Gregorius is waiting for his pitch and hitting it hard, something that seems so simple but few are able to excel at doing.
And who knows: it may not be too long before Gregorius owners can pencil in the letter “p” in the power category on their BABS sheets.
Its certainly starting out that this is the year that Didi may be that player that wins leagues. We’ll have to see what the next 5 months bring. I think a $30 plus season seems doable at this point in time. The thing that I find a bit interesting is that both Baseball HQ and BABS have hinted at his speed potential in the past. BABS has shown both an SB and an s in the past years. Imagine if you tossed that into the mix. I really dont think the Yankees have much interest in stealing bases this year however. I have no clue where he will end the season, but the one thing I feel very confident in is that all winter in 2018 and 2019 drafts, he will probably be on everyones (maybe even BABS) overvalued lists.
As a side note, about two weeks ago, there was an interesting debate at Sirius between a host and the listening audience, with the host emphasizing that skills wise Corey Seager was a significantly better player than Didi. There was a lot of back and forth that went on regarding skills vs. results and it was pretty good listening material.