What’s the Matter With Alejandro Kirk?

The 2022 Blue Jays gained 92 video games and completed second within the American League in runs scored, and Alejandro Kirk had so much to do with that. Hitting .285/.372/.415 and taking part in higher protection behind the plate than most anticipated when he was a prospect, he fashioned a dynamite catching chimera with Danny Jansen and Gabriel Moreno, who was despatched to Arizona this offseason. The resultant pairing of Kirk and Jansen projected to provide the Blue Jays the best catching situation in baseball in 2023. However whereas the remainder of the highest catchers within the majors have labored out about as anticipated, Toronto’s haven’t, combining to hit a good however disappointing .232/.311/.384. Because the youthful and far much less skilled of the 2, with extra time to develop as an offensive participant, Kirk’s struggles concern me extra.

It’s straightforward to neglect how rapidly Kirk rocketed by the minors lately. After taking part in largely in Excessive-A Dunedin in 2019, the Blue Jays have been sufficient in his expertise to place him on the taxi squad at first of September 2020, even getting him into 9 video games, seven as a catcher. The next season, he solely performed a few weeks at Triple-A Buffalo earlier than changing into a everlasting main leaguer. Whereas a promotion that aggressive does occur every so often, there’s no state of affairs that I can bear in mind by which a crew promoted a catcher who wasn’t a particularly polished defender that rapidly. He hit .242/.328/.436 — a stable triple-slash for any catcher, however thrilling for a participant with such little high-level expertise. Maybe as importantly, whereas Kirk didn’t idiot anybody into considering he was the subsequent Yadier Molina with the glove, he performed much better defensively than the DH-pretending-to-be-a-catcher archetype that gamers like Zack Collins fall into. However Kirk’s .234/.353/.324 line thus far shouldn’t be what individuals anticipated within the follow-up season, and whereas the ensuing wRC+ of 96 is much better than trainwreck standing, it’s additionally removed from the stardom he displayed final 12 months.

While you see a dropoff like that, particularly in a reasonably brief stretch of video games, you incessantly see a BABIP blip together with it. However whereas Kirk has dropped about 40 factors of BABIP since final 12 months, his hit profile helps a reasonably low BABIP. In truth, ZiPS thinks that he’s “earned” a .249 BABIP primarily based on how he’s hit this 12 months, decrease than his precise BABIP of .261. The plate self-discipline stats additionally present no purple flags; he nonetheless makes good contact and isn’t immediately providing extra usually at worse pitches.

The icky a part of Kirk’s seasonal line entails the lack of energy, and sadly, the drop in each his exit velocity and loft is actual; 4 miles per hour and 7 levels of launch angle are usually not small deviations. For the Statcast period, I took each participant who put 75 pitches into play in consecutive years, ranked their dips in exit velocity and launch angle (out of two,389 gamers), and located these with the most important dropoffs, utilizing the common of their ranks (we’re attempting to get a normal concept, so a quite simple technique is okay). Listed below are the outcomes:

Kirk ranks extremely when it comes to dropoff in these stats, so it’s not stunning to see his energy evaporate. It’s additionally not one thing that bodes properly. ZiPS and different projection methods take care of these points in a extra scientifically sound style than this, however there are a number of fading gamers on this listing. Those that did enhance general in seasons after the two-year window, equivalent to Díaz and Acuña Jr., managed to reverse this course of. I went down the highest 50 gamers on this listing and located that this held true as properly. And Kirk really confirmed some dropoff from 2021 to ’22 regardless of his glorious efficiency, suggesting that the seeds of a future concern had already been sown.

One wrongdoer right here is that he’s merely topping laborious pitches down within the zone, whereas final 12 months he was getting simply sufficient loft to squeeze a bunch of hits out of them; he hit .452 on low fastballs and lifted nearly all of them with a constructive launch angle. This season, solely three of 13 low fastballs haven’t been pushed into the bottom, and Kirk has misplaced about eight levels of launch angle on common in comparison with final 12 months. It’s not simply luck both: he’s hitting them with much less velocity, leading to an xBA of .231 in comparison with .336 final 12 months.

The exit velocity concern is vital for Kirk as a result of he’s not a quick participant and hits a number of grounders; he’s not going to be legging out many smooth infield hits, so he must hit the ball laborious. Groundball BABIP may be very delicate to exit velocity, as in contrast to fly balls, there’s no candy spot the place a smooth hit turns into an impossible-to-field bloop.

And in case you test the Statcast leaderboard when it comes to year-to-year change, Kirk is close to the highest of the listing when it comes to most increased topped contact rate.

The excellent news is that the complete mannequin of ZiPS is conscious of those hit tendencies and nonetheless thinks Kirk goes to be alright over the lengthy haul, although his issues proper now have elevated the draw back threat, pushing his projections down from the three.5–4.0 WAR vary they have been in earlier than the season:

Some of these modifications aren’t good, however they’re additionally not loss of life sentences for careers and could be reversed. Kirk, even whereas struggling, nonetheless retains a number of the traits that made him such a great hitter final 12 months. The important thing to bettering his baseball recreation proper now could also be engaged on his golf recreation and re-embracing the fashionable development of turning low pitches into lengthy drives slightly than worm-burners.