What’s Going on with Yordan Alvarez?
The brilliant Astros rookie DH Yordan Alvarez is a near-lock to win the AL Rookie of the Year next month, but he has labored through the playoffs with just a .171/.227/.244 and a lone RBI in 44 PA. After posting a .313/.412/.655 line with 27 HR and 78 RBI in 369 regular season plate appearances, he was expected to a key part of the deep Houston lineup.
Instead, he has started to move down in the lineup (5th in the first 7 games; 6th or 7th in 4 since) and will likely be an easy sit for the Astros for the games in Washington. He may have sat anyway, but if he was raking, it would’ve at least been a tough decision. So what have the Rays and Yankees done to slow the electric rookie?
His own approach has waned as he’s swinging more often and missing a lot more often when he does with his swing rate up eight points to 51% and swinging strike rate up five points to 16%. His 26% strikeout rate from the regular season was more than tolerable when paired with his elite power (.342 ISO) and walk rate (14%). In October, he’s been striking out at a 43% clip with just a 7% walk rate. He feasted on fastballs in the regular season (1.129 OPS, 19% K, 16% BB), but the opposition’s approach with heaters has been instrumental in slowing him down.
He has a paltry .095/.208/.095 line against the 113 heaters he’s faced this postseason with the high heat proving particularly difficult. He has seen fastballs in the upper third much more in this short sample, up 13 points to 53%, and he’s just 1-for-8 on plate appearances ending with a high heater, but it’s the outside heaters that are really troubling him.
He hasn’t seen that many more fastballs on the outer third of the plate (up just 3 points to 42%), but he has really struggled with the ones he is seeing. We are parsing an already-small sample here, but he has struck out on four of the eight PA ending on such a pitch – all looking. To my eye, Alvarez is stuck in between pitches at times and falls back on his heels in various appearances, almost passively hoping for a walk.
Another big change has been his performance against sliders. He torched the pitch throughout the season to the tune of a 1.176 OPS and 9 HR in his 75 PA ending on them. He did strike out 36% of the time, too, but the production was undeniable. He’s faced just 25 sliders in October, but they’ve ended nine of his 44 total PA. He has a couple hits, but he’s also fanned in five of them thanks to a gaudy 28% swinging strike rate. Righties and lefties alike are simply burying sliders and getting Alvarez to chase. He saw 60% of his regular season sliders in the lower half of the zone, but it’s up to 92% in the playoffs.
Again, I’m chopping up 44 PA which means we’re definitely dealing with noise, but he’s clearly struggling right now and if he can’t get going in the World Series, it could really hurt the Astros. As we push toward first pitch tonight in Houston, look for how the Nationals approach the 22-year old lefty slugger, particularly with fastballs and sliders.
If he can’t turn around his fortunes on high heat and layoff some of the buried sliders, it could be more of the same. I do wonder if another rough series would start to push his 2020 fantasy price down, which currently sits in the 2nd-3rd round range, despite his UT-only status.
I think it is just a 22 yo rookie pressing a bit in his first playoffs. I do expect some regression next year (maybe a small soph slump when pitchers have the first reports on how to get him out) and see him more as a 275-285 hitter rather than 300+ hitter but this playoffs don’t represent his true talent.
275/355/520 with 35 bombs next year is probably realistic.
Sure, I wasn’t trying to imply he was a fluke in the reg. season or that this was the beginning of the end. Honestly, I was just running errands today and marinating on what’s been going on with him so I basically mentally wrote half of this while out and bout and decided to turn it into a quick post to share with y’all.
There certainly was some fluke to his numbers this season. We should certainly entertain the idea that it could be on the high end of the spectrum. To respond to Dom, that would be massive regression – he was on a 50 HR pace and that would represent a 40 pt drop in BA. I am the guy that was saying the YA ranking were bunk all the time. I don’t think there is a bigger YA champion on the Internet than myself and I entertain the idea of regression. I think he very well could be one of the best hitters in baseball next season, but you have to do it for a few consecutive years in my book for the skepticism to go away. The only thing I worry about is his size. I think it is hard to stay healthy when you are built like that.
uh, he’s swinging at everything.
He taking bad strikes is what I think is more accurate. It looks like a lack of confidence to me.
The pitching he’s facing, especially the lefties, is considerably better than what he saw during the season. They know exactly what they want to do, and they’re doing it. Remember how bad Judge was against excellent pitching during the playoffs in his rookie year? Now he’s vastly improved.
He’s at a third more PA than his career high (in 2017) and double last year. I think part of it is him pressing and part is just exhaustion.
Actually, he has really sucked only against the Yankees. He hit over .300 in 20+ PA against The Rays but with 7K and only 1 BB. In 8 PA against WA he is at .500 with 2 BB. I have observed a definite difference in the Series regarding confidence and approach.
Its way too of a sample to matter. There is in all likelihood nothing going on with Yordan Alvarez. You can’t hit .350 with an OPS of 1.100 all year. When you stop doing that for a period it isn’t necessarily representative of anything. As a self-proclaimed YA expert, I think he looks just fine. I have actually been impressed that he has tried to maintain a steady approach despite his first struggles of the year under a huge spotlight. Game 6 of the ALCS was actually the only time where I thought he looked genuinely bad. I don’t think it is anyone figuring him out as much as what he was doing not being sustainable. I don’t expect him to win 10 straight MVPs which is what he would do if he built on 2019. He has hit some real missiles that were not HR, but hit a lot better than a lot of balls that result in 4 total bases. Specifically, the ball where Altuve got hosed at home as a result of him not even attempting to touch the base – lost in that shuffle was a rocket hit by YA. Its been that kind of a post-season for him. If we could sim this post-season ten times I think it only goes this bad once.
I don’t think he has clearly struggled and I have watched the games. The numbers say he has, but I think he has taken a lot of great swings. Many guys have had more success with worse swings. Swings are what we really care about, but computers can’t evaluate that which is where the knowledgeable humans come in. I would say that he looks to be a bit short in confidence and looks a little lost as he has stared at a lot of good pitches and put himself in some bad spots count-wise… but the swings and approach look great as always… with the exception of game 6. Interestingly that was the game where they hit for YA – I may not have been the only one to notice that he was looking genuinely wrong that game.
The good news it that YA has looked brilliant so far in the WS. I think that says a lot about him. I was wondering how he would respond getting hit for and also wondering if he would allow the struggles to spiral, but he looks great in the WS so far. Sure in some world of advanced metrics he is just hitting singles, but I think just about every ball has been pissed on to use a baseball term. One of his outs was the ultra-rare situation where a guy in an overshift took away a line drive – nothing wrong with that swing.
I would not be surprised if he plays a major role in the remaining games of the WS. If HOU is going to battle back, they will need YA. That brings up an interesting point – is he going to play in the NL park? If they take him out of the lineup they are going to lose their hottest bat so far in the WS. He is hitting a legit .500 and it really should be .667. This why it was foolish of HOU to not play him in the field during all those meaningless games during the regular season. He is just a kid and punting that defensive development was not wise. Don’t forget that he was moved from 1B to OF to increase his chances to play the field – somehow it has cost him time in the field. I imagine he can play a fine 1B – I have never heard that he can’t. All we are talking about is LF but they didn’t trust him there or even give him a chance so they may just sit him a lot. The defensive metrics are worthless here as he has made all the routine plays and nothing else reasonable has been hit to him – its not clear what he is on defense. When you have terrible data and 9 games worth of it, the fact he made an error makes it look like he is likely a lot worse than he is. I think they should find out what he is but even I am skeptical that they should find out in the WS – otherwise known as the Bellinger model where you figure out how bad he is at a position he doesn’t play in the most important games of the year. It killed LAD this year and they always seem to end up on the wrong end of close games which checks out to me. The playoffs are not the time for experimentation if winning is the goal so I really thing HOU put themselves in a bad spot here. The fact that he was banished to DH is going to make him that much worse out there if they try it. Kyle Schwarber plays every day in LF and it doesn’t cost CHC games. Defensively, LF is way, way, way less valuable than sabermetrics thinks it is. I would send him out there to keep his bat in the lineup especially considering his handedness and the rest of the lineup bt it is a shaky decision. Josh Reddick can sit – he has looked completely washed up with the bat so far – maybe he is hurt. I really want to make a point of criticizing HOU and their decision not to develop YA defensively and there is no better place for it than here. They created this very unenviable situation. Regardless, YA is swinging the bat well so far in the WS – I think he looks to have regained his confidence and he never really altered his approach. I really love that he takes such a consistent, nice swing at the ball. Rather than sell out for power he realized that he is an absolute specimen of a human – Miguel Sano should learn a thing from this.