Alex Verdugo Heads to Big Apple

It’s always amusing when the Yankees and Red Sox make a trade, right?! On Tuesday, Alex Verdugo was traded from the Sox to the rival Yankees, where he’ll join a fun lineup expected to consist of a mix of hitting stars and prospecty youngsters. Let’s dive into the park factors to find out how the move might impact his performance.

Wowzers, bet you didn’t think it would be nearly a clean sweep for Fenway! Yankee Stadium only takes one metric, though it’s an important one. Lets dive deeper.

Beginning with the hit type metrics, we find that Fenway convincingly sweeps the non-home run hit types. The Green Monster and quirky dimensions make it a BABIP paradise. While it’s good for singles, it’s fantastic for both doubles and triples. On the other hand, Yankee actually suppressed each of those hit types.

Verdugo has posted a .322 BABIP at Fenway and a .310 mark on the road, which is actually a smaller gap than I expected. That’s actually a good thing as perhaps his batted ball profile is unique enough that his BABIP won’t slide as much at Yankee than the factors suggest.

Moving along to the home run factor, this is the only one in which Yankee is more favorable for left-handed hitters. The park sported the fifth highest factor in baseball, while Fenway ranked 10th worst. It’s a meaningful swing. Verdugo hasn’t been much of a home run hitter throughout his career and has failed to reach a double digit HR/FB rate the last two, but has posted a slightly lower mark at home (8%) compared to the road (9.3%). His Barrel% marks have been underwhelming, so the better home run park might not have a significant effect. That said, perhaps this is the move that could push him back into the mid-teens in HR/FB rate like he posted back in 2019 and 2020 over smaller samples.

Next up are the plate discipline metrics, strikeout and walk factors. Both of them slightly favor Fenway, as the park suppresses strikeouts and increases walks, while Yankee is neutral in the former and slightly suppresses the latter. Verdugo has actually never posted a above average walk rate in a season over a reasonable sample size. This move isn’t going to help, but it probably won’t have much of an impact on these rates.

Sliding over to the batted ball type factors, we find more of the same — Fenway increasing line drives and inflating pop-ups less so than Yankee. Verdugo has posted a pretty solid BABIP profile over his career with a low IFFB% and at or above league average LD%. The factor differences here aren’t enough to change expectations much, but the results of the changes in the profile are accounted for in the hit type factors.

Finally, we land on the Basic factor, which is overall run scoring. Remember that this includes right-handed hitters too (actually, all the non-hit type factors do), so only left-handed run scoring could differ from overall run scoring. Still, I have to admit, I was very surprised to see the significant gap between the two parks. I would guess that the vast majority of people think Yankee Stadium is a hitter’s haven thanks to its home run inflating ways. Apparently it’s not! Despite Fenway reducing home runs, it’s hit-inflating environment is more than enough to make it one of the friendlier hitter’s parks.

So overall, Verdugo is now in the best situation he’s been to enjoy a home run surge. However, his batting average might take a hit, and because he doesn’t steal many bases, he’s still not exactly shallow mixed league material.