Yordan Alvarez Has Figured Out This Baseball Stuff
What does ZiPS have for Yordan Alvarez’s translation?
Is Alvarez for real?
Do the Astros need to call up Alvarez right now?
Scattered within my weekly chat questions about cat and chili, there were quite a few questions revolving on Yordan Alvarez, who has spent the first two months of the 2019 season traumatizing minor league pitchers. So naturally, instead of answering the questions, I greedily saved the Alvarez talk for an article on the subject.
Prior to this season, Alvarez was ranked seventh in Houston’s farm system by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel on the strength of his raw power potential. Ranking seventh on the Astros says more about the team’s organizational strength than any negative about Alvarez; he’s not someone who would appear in a Fringe Five column. While with a lot of minor league outfielders, you try to see if they can stick in center as long as possible, this was never a realistic option for Alvarez, who is cut from the massive slugger template.
But if you thought he was a one-dimensional type of hitter, a Pedro Cerrano type, you’d be wrong. While it’s not believed that he’ll maintain high batting averages in the majors, I think he might hang onto better averages than many think. For one, he has an efficient, easy swing and is willing to use the entire field, making him less likely to be subject to shift abuse than some other sluggers in the majors. Just to illustrate, here’s Alvarez’s spray chart in the minors in 2019 compared to Max Kepler, a more pull-heavy left-handed hitter.
Alvarez has kept his swinging strike rate under 10% in the high minors, and in the early going, he has cut off about a quarter of his 2018 strikeout rate. His walk rate has also edged higher; Alvarez is a hitter who eats what he hunts. ZiPS uses play-by-play data to estimate a version of xBABIP that I refer to as zBABIP (you don’t win the Kewpie doll for guessing what the z stands for). Alvarez won’t keep the .424 BABIP that’s currently driving his .400 batting average in the minors, of course, but the hit data suggests he may keep quite a lot of it.
| Year | zBABIP | BABIP |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 (A) | .360 | .449 |
| 2017 (A+) | .297 | .316 |
| 2018 (AA) | .382 | .377 |
| 2018 (AAA) | .318 | .315 |
| 2019 (AAA) | .404 | .424 |
He’s hit a lot of home runs — 18 as I write this on Tuesday evening — but he’s hit nearly as many doubles, enough to result in a juicy isolated power north of .450. That he’s actually hitting minor leaguers as you would expect a .400 BABIP hitter to do (something which doesn’t even exist in the majors) largely suggests a batter that’s not being properly challenged at his level of play. Alvarez’s 31.6% line drive rate leads all qualified Triple-A hitters.
I went through all of Alvarez’s home runs to find a couple of the more interesting ones and then GIFified my two favorites. For the first one, an opposite-field shot, what strikes me is just how very casual it all appeared to be, as if he was casually smoking a cigar while knocking a 90-yarder onto the green with a pitching wedge.
For the second one, I wanted to find one in Alvarez’s wheelhouse. Back in January, Jeff Quattrociocchi wrote about estimating minor league home run distance from MiLB hit coordinates. Using this estimate, fully half of Alvarez’s 18 home runs have gone at least 400 feet, with three over the 450-foot mark. The longest one, at an estimated 467 feet, was this monster that was intercepted by the sign for a concession serving delicious beverages of an alcoholic nature.
So what does this all mean from a projection standpoint? Coming into the season, ZiPS projected Alvarez at .255/.315/.440, 107 wRC+, 1.0 WAR in 425 projected plate appearances (remember, ZiPS is agnostic on who teams choose to play in the majors). There were some real questions about Alvarez past his defense coming into the season. He still had limited time in the high minors, and thanks to a hand injury in 2018, still has not played 100 games in a minor league season. His Triple-A performance in 2018 was sub-scintillating, and ZiPS translated his two full minor-league years at .255/.308/.387 and .256/.319/.448.
For 2019, which includes adjustments for the increased offense in the minor leagues, ZiPS translates Alvarez’s 40 games in 2019 at .342/.420/.626 with 10 home runs. That’s… uh… good. That’s not a projection, of course, but a translation of a small slice of past play. But good news, I’ve got one of those projection dealies!
| Year | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | OPS+ | DR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rest of 2019 | .267 | .333 | .483 | 288 | 43 | 77 | 15 | 15 | 46 | 29 | 82 | 4 | 123 | -2 | 1.7 |
| 2020 | .272 | .343 | .508 | 445 | 74 | 121 | 25 | 26 | 87 | 49 | 117 | 5 | 133 | -3 | 2.8 |
| 2021 | .272 | .348 | .517 | 437 | 74 | 119 | 27 | 26 | 87 | 51 | 118 | 5 | 137 | -3 | 2.9 |
| 2022 | .269 | .349 | .518 | 438 | 75 | 118 | 26 | 27 | 88 | 54 | 121 | 5 | 138 | -3 | 3.0 |
| 2023 | .267 | .348 | .516 | 438 | 76 | 117 | 26 | 27 | 89 | 55 | 124 | 6 | 137 | -4 | 2.9 |
| 2024 | .267 | .353 | .524 | 431 | 77 | 115 | 25 | 28 | 90 | 58 | 124 | 6 | 140 | -4 | 3.1 |
| 2025 | .263 | .351 | .524 | 422 | 75 | 111 | 24 | 28 | 88 | 58 | 123 | 5 | 140 | -4 | 3.0 |
That’s quite a shift, and ZiPS is not alone in its exuberance. Steamer has moved up 95 points of OPS from its preseason estimation as well. Simply put, there were some questions about Alvarez coming into 2019, and he’s answered them just as well as anybody possibly could in two months. In the eyes of ZiPS, Alvarez is now an equivalent offensive prospect to Eloy Jimenez after 2018.
The Houston Astros have a lot of questions about their rotation long-term thanks to past and future departures from their World Series roster. But with Yordan Alvarez’s breakout 2019, Kyle Tucker, and still some hope for Derek Fisher, the team will be able to absorb some losses in the outfield.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Golf metaphors are always appreciated.
And Major League references. That movie was awesome.
Maybe it’s just me but a pitching wedge is way too much club for 90 yds, more a 65 percent lob wedge
Fair enough. I underhit everything because of my tendency to slice. I would wager Alvarez isn’t an experienced golfer at his age and from his background, though I could obviously be wrong; I don’t actually have any knowledge of whether there’s any golf in Cuba.
In this offensive environment, kind of surprised at the HR numbers from ZIPS. A few players on the Astros will approach mid-20s HRs by mid-July.
Holy crap! The PCL has 19 guys with an OPS over 1.000. Of those, 15 are in the high-altitude Pacific divisions. The 4 in the lower altitude American divisions are Alvarez, Austin Dean, Keston Hiura and Tyler Saladino. Alvarez’s OPS is 100 points higher then anyone else even though he doesn’t get the altitude boost of the teams out west.
Fun name on that list – Mike Yastrzemski is raking with an 1.146 OPS. It’s his 4th go at AAA and the Giants have absolutely nothing going on at the MLB level. Time to give Yaz’s grandkid a shot at the show.
Stupid random thought: if Yaz does get a promotion to the majors, doesn’t his granddad become the best major leaguer to have an offspring play in the majors? I’m just eyeballing the HOF list sorted by bWAR and I don’t really see many HOFers whose kids (or grandkids) played in the majors (though I’m not at all sure about some of the older players). Dereck Rodriguez has been up the last 2 years and Vladito just made it up. Cavan Biggio is close. Raines’ and Gwynn’s sons played for a few years each. On the pitching side – sheesh – I don’t know that I see anyone. . . .
Yogi Berra (son Dale) would have a fair argument as to best. That’s the only one which comes immediately to mind though.
Good one – forgot about Dale Berra.
A player with real power does not benefit from favorable conditions as much as a player with fringe power. You can see it in MLB with the top end sluggers – they are not hitting more HR, but the guys with average to below power benefit a lot. I am not sure how much that would help Yordan any more than the juiced balls already have.
I would like to see some scientific sabermetric analysis on who benefits more because I am not sure I buy your point. You could be right, but my intuition tells me that guys with “real power” hit just as many warning track shots that would turn into HRs under “favorable conditions” as guys with “fringe power”, and maybe more.
Not a good study….but without looking at aging curves, guys that hit 30 homers in 2014 and then played in 2017 hit a combined 44 homers less in 2017. Stanton appears to be the only one with real game power that has benefited. When I look at 2017 guys that hit 30+ homers, I see a ton of guys that had 20+ homer increases from 2014.
Stanton is a weird case for anything as he is so wildly inconsistent. If he could ever be consistent and healthy for a season he would hit 100 HR, but that isn’t ever how it plays out.
Go ahead and dismiss my point. There is zero chance of a meaningful study on it so don’t wait for it. Nobody can accurately put power tools on players and the set of warning track fly balls is too small. I am thinking you don’t watch a ton of baseball based on that reply. Guys with power don’t hit a lot of HR into the first row of seats, its why they have longer average HR distance. There are a lot of guys like say… Trea Turner who hit double digit wall scrapers. If you want a shred of evidence, then look at the team and league HR records falling constantly, while the single seasons ones have not (yet). Almost anyone can hit double digit HR now, but the top end isn’t hitting more.
what a baby
Yordan hits a lot of HRs opposite field, where he might not be able to hit them as far as the ones he really turns on. If the juiced ball is helping those opposite field LDs go a little bit further, it could absolutely benefit his power output.
how about those joey gallo ZiPS updates?
You mentioned his insane LD rate, but equally crazy is that he’s hit only 1 IFFB this season. That’s not necessarily uncharacteristic for him, as he has as many HRs this year as he has IFFBs throughout his entire minor league career. Of the 6 qualified minor leaguers with a lower IFFB%s this season, Yordan’s GB rate is over 10% lower than the next closest one. He’s just playing beautiful baseball right now.
So this is something I was hoping Dan could address in his article–how ZiPs adjusts for totally bonkers changes in offensive environments in the minor leagues. The PCL has always had a reputation as an offensive-friendly league, but AAA now is using the MLB ball, which we’ve known for a long time is a lot more lively than the AAA ball.
This is how (as Anon also notes) Kevin Cron has 21 homers already, Yordan Alvarez has 18, how Luis Urias (with his wimpy raw power grade) is slugging .775, how Keston Hiura went from 13 dingers in 500+ PAs to 11 over 150, etc.
I have no idea how to interpret AAA stats right now, so I’d be interested in hearing Dan talk about it a bit.
ZiPS automatically adjusts the translations for league levels. That’s why Alvarez goes all the way from 18-to-10 without even being in one of the crazy PCL parks!
But what about the ball? Does ZiPs automatically translate based on current offensive context, or does it need to wait? I’m sure it does something like that, I am just curious.
That’s what I meant by league levels! Not the AAA vs. MLB stuff.
Aha. Thanks!
The FG crew was too low on Alvarez coming into the year. Its OK. It happens if you are actually stepping out on limbs then you are going to be wrong sometimes. Kyle Wright doesn’t have anything to work on in 2018 etc. I am not sure that the rest of the world was as far off. He is a giant man with respectable athleticism with a reasonable approach and a simple enough swing. That should have carried more weight, but some people got hung up on other things.
I don’t see mention that YA is repeating the level, which is generally a pretty big discount to the numbers. Is ZIPS ever worth anything on minor leaguers? I am not aware of any worthwhile projection model for minor leaugers. I can’t imagine how any of the data would be accurately predictive. I noticed that you all finally stopped the predicted WAR graphs for prospects. Unfortunately for fans of sabermetrics, prospects are going to have to be scouted with eyes – the stats are just too meaningless. Ironically, John Sickels and Carson Cistulli are the only two I am aware of that have ever been able to mine anything out of the stats and neither of them claim to have a magical methodology, which is also what made them good at it – it was their judgement and experience that gave them an edge. Is Alvarez really answering questions this year or is he showing growth or were the metrics wrong? I think it was mostly the last two. If not predictive, then what is the value of analytics? That said, you have to be on board at this point. You would have a hard time finding a metric that didn’t indicate a buy. I am YA fan #1 and I don’t think he in the same class as Eloy was. Eloy was pretty much never challenged at any level whereas the sailing hasn’t been as smooth for YA. Its a good cautionary tale for how things could go upon promotion for YA, which would not represent any kind of immediate gains for HOU. Maybe he comes up and lights the league on fire and maybe not. I like that he has steadily progressed and earned his way as opposed to the more common path where a guy destroys A ball and tails off as he climbs the ladder.
The future WAR graphs were produced by Chris Mitchell as a part of KATOH and is separate from ZiPS or other projection systems. Unfortunately KATOH is no more as Mitchell is prohibited from contributing to the public baseball sphere after moving to a new position 🙁 I do remember KATOH being relatively fond of Alvarez before he took off in 2018.
I was thinking it was a good thing they were gone as I thought they were just a waste of space. Thanks for the information.
KATOH graphs were cool for Vlad Jr., since it showed, *graphically,* how much better Vlad was than other prospects. Also was really helpful in showing just how few minor league prospects really can be expected to turn into anything. I liked ’em.
In addition to Alvarez and Tucker (who has been just about as hot as Alvarez after a miserable first two weeks), the Astros also have Seth Beer, who was killing it so much in high A ball (.345/.440/.614), they moved him up to AA a week ago, where he is so intimidated by the higher level that he is 8 for 17 with an HR and 4 walks over his first five games. Yeah, the Astros outfield appears to be in good hands going forward.
Alvarez and Beer are probably more like the future 1B/DH going forward. Considering that those are the major weaknesses on the offensive side right now, I think the Astros are going to be okay.
But the Astros are going to need pitching as their staff ages and/or gets very, very expensive so while these hitters look terrific, Forrest Whitley has been absolutely dreadful in almost every start
Astros have Verlander and LMJ for 2020 and 2021. Peacock for 2020. Between Martin, Whitley, James, Urquidy, Bukauskas, and whichever SP with club control Astros acquire at the deadline, I think Astros will do at least okay in the near future in pitching.
Yeah, I had a brain fart about positions. Beer is already at 1B, and Alvarez may or may not stick in the outfield. Still, when you are the best team in baseball and your weakest spots have exciting prospects ready, it is an amazingly good spot to be in.
I think MLB teams generally don’t use the same flawed metrics that we know of for defense. I have seen plenty of teams over the past few years running out absolute trash in the OF and they see that it doesn’t have much of an impact on the game, like Schwarber. If the bat plays then it is very tolerable. Heck, we are even seeing it at SS these days. I think MLB is well aware of the problems with defensive metrics and even more so attaching weights to it. Not saying Alvarez is anything, but they will find places for them if they can hit.
The z is for zesty isn’t it, Dan?
Mighty impressive numbers from someone who’s attained a kind of “folk-hero” cachet in such a short amount of time. Thanks for the breakdown.
I wonder how many millennials googled Pedro Cerrano 🙂
Great piece…thx. What a fascinating prospect. (Didn’t he also miss some development time when he came over from Cuba?). The Athletic recently did an article on YA, as well, specifically on the wide range of rankings on prospect lists — a bunch of top 50s but also others like ESPN and Fangraphs entirely off the top 100 (if memory serves Eric/Kiley had him at 125). The article solicited comments from the various rankers and Eric L’s I thought was very curious — that if the NL brings in the DH that would make Alvarez more valuable. But…Houston is in the AL and there’s clearly a spot waiting for him as a DH or at 1B — is Alvarez actually even getting a chance to play the question? It seemed…odd.
I actually think Alvarez is more than just a DH — he’s athletic with quick feet and I think can be a decent 1B. But, even if not, with so much potential WAR in just his bat, it seems to me what needs to be addressed is why was that potential WAR so discounted? I don’t see the relevance of the DH in the NL.
I still think of the Astros as an NL team sometimes. Old habits are hard to break.
i read his WRC is 226? wow
Who’s gets the call first: Alvarez or Tucker?
I would think Alvarez since you can put him at 1B/DH. The Astros’ “problem” right now is all their OF are raking so there’s nowhere to put a guy in the field with regularity. Tucker is a decent defensive OF so you aren’t going to call up a 22 yo and stick him at 1B or DH. ALvarez, OTOH, is probably going to end up at 1B or DH