Went through a lot of different stats before landing on an Abraham Toro sleeper, and, brucely, I’m not sure if he’s a sleeper. There’s a lot of things I like about him, so here we are, but there are a few causes for concern. Wanna first show you a grand slam he hit.
ABRAHAM TORO GRAND SLAM TO TAKE THE LEAD?? pic.twitter.com/XigDK9kwv9
— ROOT SPORTS™ | NW (@ROOTSPORTS_NW) September 1, 2021
That’s a big swing. That gets me excited. Abraham Toro’s stats from last year were 11/6/.239 in only 335 ABs. He hit 11 homers as a lefty. Yes, all his homers. That swing you’re seeing above is a home run swing. Look at him from the right side:
Hustlin’ for the 1st.
Abraham Toro’s 1st @MLB hit. #TakeItBack pic.twitter.com/CyEK9F9qvM
— Houston Astros (@astros) August 24, 2019
Suppose it doesn’t matter a ton, but he’s clearly an average-first hitter from the right side and a more upper cutty hitter from the left. If they come together to make a great hitter, it surely doesn’t matter and don’t call me Bob Shirley. The problem with his splits is he wasn’t hitting for much average vs. lefties as a righty. .250/.336/.296 as a righty and .233/.304/.410 as a lefty. Of course, it matters what Abraham Toro will do vs. what he just did, but this worries me. As they never say at Friendly’s, I’m not bananas for these splits. So, what can we expect from Abraham Toro for 2022 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Psyche! Before we get into the Abraham Toro sleeper post, just wanted to announce that I’ve begun to roll out my 2022 fantasy baseball rankings on our Patreon. It’s an early Xmas miracle! Like Gregg Jefferies running for President so his rookie cards are worth something. Anyway II, the Abraham Toro sleeper:
There’s a lot else here besides Abraham Toro having no power from the right side. First of all, who cares? Like I said above, Toro can just hit all his homers as a lefty and hit for average as a righty. Also, maybe this is a goofy anomaly from last year. He actually had a higher fly ball rate as a righty. The problem is he also had a higher line drive rate as a lefty too. Maybe he should just stop hitting as a righty. Again, it might not matter. There’s more righties to face, in general. If Toro hits 24/.280 vs. righties, then all he has to do is not hit .175 vs. lefties, which he can do.
He’s also from the Astros’ School of Michael Brantlies, where they make every hitter into some form of a Michael Brantley. In 153 career MLB games, Abraham Toro has a 17.1% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. That’s translated to almost nothing as far as average, but if that was one season, we’d say, “Nothing’s fishy about Toro, he’s a high-priced fatty tune-up away from hitting .290 if he stops getting unlucky.” The career .240 BABIP is a bit driven by contact and a 14.8% line drive rate, but he regularly had a 25+% line drive rate in the minors. What happened? Meh, who knows, doesn’t matter. He turns 25 years old in December and can easily still breakout. 14% line drive rate would put him in the bottom five in the league, but 25+% would put him in the top five. All Toro’s gotta do is not be a bull in the china shop when it comes to knocks. As that second clip above shows, he’s not slow. He shouldn’t have a .240 BABIP. Steamer projects him for a .275 BABIP, and I’d contend (for the featherweight title) that that is low too. He has .310 BABIP written all over him (weird tattoo, to be honest). A .310 average will get him near a .280. Spending so much time on this average question because he’s a 24/10 player. If he’s hitting .230, I can understand the hesitation, but hitting .260? Well, not to freak anyone out, but 23/10/.264 is what Mookie Betts did last year. For 2022, I’ll give Abraham Toro projections of 69/23/78/.261/10 in 521 ABs with a chance for more.
