With the reminder, never pay for a career year, assessing Yuli Gurriel in 2020 will be intriguing. Last year, Gurriel recorded career highs in home runs (31) and RBI (104) over 144 games and 612 plate appearances. Gurriel’s been a source of batting average insulation and he slashed .298/.343/.541 in 2019. His spike in isolated power (.243) accompanied his career best 15.6 percent home run per fly ball rate.

However, along with all the speculative regression for Houston hitters, Gurriel’s outlier in power production cannot be overlooked. He reduced his swinging strike percentage slightly and kept his Z-Contact (in the strike zone) at 92.1 percent. His spray chart shows how Minute Maid Park enables his power with a short porch in left field:

According to Statcast, Gurriel recorded 505 batted ball events with 19 barrels (3.8 percent), an 89.3 MPH average exit velocity and 14.5-degree launch angle. Taking note of the low barrel rate, Gurriel ranked 181st in total barrels...