What in the Sam Hilliard? Rockies, Braves Make Offseason’s First Trade

The Rockies and Braves wasted little time in kicking off the offseason trade market. On Sunday, just one day after the World Series came to a thrilling conclusion, the clubs made a one-for-one swap: Sam Hilliard for Dylan Spain. And while the move’s significance paled in comparison to the the major transaction of the day, Edwin Díaz’s extension with the Mets, there is more to it than meets the eye.

For many Braves fans, their biggest concern might be how the team chooses to fill the Dansby Swanson-shaped hole at shortstop. Currently, our depth charts have rookie standout Vaughn Grissom soaking up 74% of the innings at short. But though he fared quite well with the bat in his major league audition, to the tune of a 121 wRC+, the 21-year-old graded out as a net negative at second base this year. His mark of -5 Outs Above Average (OAA) at the position, typically thought to be the easier of the middle infield spots to defend, does not portend success at short.

The larger question mark for the Braves might be in left field, though. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Michael Harris II are locked into right and center, but there is no clear choice for the club in left. As Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario floundered, Atlanta’s left fielders this year cost the team 0.8 WAR, tied with the lowly Rangers for the worst mark in the league. Hilliard can play all three outfield spots but has played the most in left and grades out best there in terms of OAA, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR). He provides the Braves with meaningful depth at their weakest position, well worth the cost of a 24-year-old relief prospect in Spain, who spent the year amassing a 5.30 ERA in High-A.

The Rockies, meanwhile, are engulfed in a seemingly endless rebuild and jumped at the opportunity to unload the 28-year-old Hilliard, who is out of options. But they may have moved too quickly. Despite his age, Hilliard still comes with up to five additional years of team control and a solid Triple-A track record. Through 930 career plate appearances at the highest level of the minors, he has mashed 62 homers en route to a .264/.344/.574 slash and a 115 wRC+. That last figure is a bit deflated thanks to the hitter-friendly nature of the PCL, but it’s hard to ignore a .310 ISO. He’s also chipped in 32 steals and been caught just seven times.

Through 639 major league PAs, Hilliard hasn’t hit nearly as well; his slash of .212/.294/.423 despite playing at Coors Field has been good for just a 77 wRC+. But his defense has been solid, as he’s come in above average in DRS and UZR and right around average in OAA. He’s also been caught just once in 16 stolen base attempts, boosting his baserunning runs above average to seven. His speed and defensive versatility make him a contender for the Braves’ fourth outfielder spot and, as a lefty, for the occasional spell of righties Ozuna and William Contreras in left field and at DH, respectively.

But Hilliard’s bat also has some upside that the shift ban just might unearth. I was interested in looking at his performance in the context of traditional shift data, which I helped aggregate in my time as a video scout at Sports Info Solutions. There are three types of traditional shifts: when three infielders play on the pull side; when at least two infielders are playing significantly out of position toward the pull side; and when one infielder is playing 10 or more feet into the outfield (typically the second baseman). When it came to 2022 Sam Hilliard, teams usually played him with three infielders on the right side; sometimes the second fielder on the right side, typically the second baseman, played in the outfield:

This year, Hilliard hit 103 balls in play against traditional shifts. There were 269 other players who hit at least 100 balls in play against traditional shifts. For those players, I examined the ratio of traditional shifts to no-shift fielding alignments against them on balls in play. I excluded non-traditional shifts, such as corners in, because they are rare and do not serve to take away hits from the pull side like traditional shifts. Out of those 269 players, Hilliard ranked 27th, with an average of 20.6 traditional shifts per every no-shift against him. In other words, he was in the 90th percentile in terms of how often his balls in play were traditionally shifted. That makes sense: He hit 53 fair grounders this year, and 27 of them were pulled. Only five went to the opposite field.

Hilliard’s hard-hit rate of 34.0% against the traditional shift ranked 25th of the 270 hitters from above. Given the massive shifting and the hard-hit balls that they gobbled up, it makes sense that he underperformed his xwOBA on pulled grounders. And given the hole on the left side and the space up the middle, he was bound to overperform his xwOBA on all other grounders. Knowing this, he tried to adjust, lowering the proportion of his grounders that were pulled every year he was in the majors:

But this may have had an unfortunate side effect: lowering his pull rate on all other balls in play as well.

This culminated in an especially large drop in pull rate this year — one that likely sunk his overall line due to his success on pulled fly balls throughout his career:

With the shift ban, Hilliard will no longer have to try to push his grounders the other way, and in doing so, it’s likely that fewer of his fly balls will end up hit to the left side as well. With a higher wOBA on pulled grounders and more pulled flyballs coming his way, he seems like a worthy low-cost gamble for the Braves. Had the Rockies held onto him just a bit longer, he may have improved and brought back a decent trade deadline haul for them. As it stands, they chose to cut their losses and take what they could get.