Noting the spike in home runs last year, perhaps a poster boy of the spike could be Christian Vázquez . Prior to last season, Vazquez hit 10 home runs in 291 career games. In 2019, Vazquez launched 23 home runs over his 521 plate appearances spanning 138 contests for the Red Sox. He scored 66 runs with 72 RBI and four stolen bases carrying a very enticing .276/.320/.477 slash line. For the first time in his career, Vazquez’s isolated power rose above two hundred (.201 in 2019) and his home run per fly ball percentage grew to 16 percent.

Yes, Vazquez became more aggressive raising his swinging strike percentage to 9.2 percent, up almost three points while trading contact (down 5.5 percent) and Z-Contact (in the strike zone) by six percent. Trying to discern how baseballs will react in 2020 along with the effects on player’s with outlier power seasons may be difficult. This applies to Vazquez.

According to Statcast, Vazquez recorded 387 batted ball events with 24 barrels (6.2 percent), an 88.7 MPH average exit velocity and 12.9 degree launch angle. His hard-hit rate rose to 38.5 percent. Here’s all of his batted ball events from last year:

With this in mind, Vazquez generated a 39.5 ground ball percentage, 25.1 fly ball rate and 29.7 line-drive percent. His spikes in line drives fueled his surge in batting average but his expected statistics cast some aspersion of paying full retail for a repeat. Vazquez owned a .254 expected batting average and .447 expected slugging along with a .316 expected weighted on-base average (15 points below his actual). All of this hints at migration to the mean going forward. Check out his zone profile from Statcast:

Unlike many power spikes, Vazquez did not sell out pulling the ball to record his career high in home runs. However, his discipline metric on Statcast of zone contact fell from 93.2 percent in 2018 to 85.3 percent last season, mirroring the same trend from Fangraphs above. Of more concern, in the second half, Vazquez produced a 13.4 home run per fly ball percentage and .180 isolated power with a .250/.308/.430 slash. This appears more in line with his career rates and resonates in his projection sets:

  • Christian Vázquez 2020 Steamer Projection - 107 games, 426 plate appearances, 49 runs, 13 home runs, 52 RBI, five stolen bases: .263/.312/.419
  • Christian Vázquez 2020 ATC Projection - 120 games, 453 plate appearances, 52 runs, 14 home runs, 53 RBI, four stolen bases: .261/.309/.416
  • Christian Vázquez THE BAT Projection - 115 games, 454 plate appearances, 53 runs, 12 home runs, four stolen bases; .256/.308/.399

Part of the appeal of Vazquez lies in him being the primary catcher for Boston. Note his second half decline in power and average when weighing taking him at his present price point. Bullish owners will point to his ATC projection, which could take place. However, ignoring his THE BAT projection in terms of the slash line and reduced home runs could be a mistake.

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Statistical Credits:

BaseballSavant.com

Fangraphs.com

Steamerprojections.com

ATC projections courtesy of Ariel Cohen

THE BAT projections courtesy of Derek Carty