I Left My Heart In Francisco Lindor

You remember what I said about Tommy Pham? Pepperidge farm members. And while I’m 100% correct all the times I’m not (math checks out!), I think its safe to say that the window to buy low is certainly closing for Pham, and with that statement, we’ve found the perfect segue. Not only do I get to pat myself on the back, a dedicated hobby of mine, but I also get to make the smooth transition (the smoothest, just the way your mother likes it) to talking about another player whose buy-low stage may be deteriorating as we speak. Well, technically as we type. As I type. I mean, you might be typing too, but you really should stopping and reading what I typed, internet etiquette maaaan. Digression aside, Francisco Lindor has shown a bit of life lately, and as usual, my job is to tell you how I feel about it while also providing all the sights and sounds you’ve come to expect from myself. The scenic route, as one might say. Who that person is, I have no idea, but there must be dozens of you out there. Dozens!

Francisco Lindor’s career would be best described as the flame that burns twice as fast lasts half as long, or whatever that saying is, it certainly applies to a hitter that in the span of under six years went from 12 to 15 to 33 to 38 to 32 to 8 homeruns. Granted, last season was about a third of his usual plate appearances, but upon glance, it just blatantly looks like his peak was 2018 and we’re already three years removed from that 132 wRC+ season. While still putting up decent enough numbers in what was an atypical 2020 year for everyone, his dip in batting average and slugging were worrisome and had an affect on both his value and expectations rolling into this season.

Now with the Mets, Lindor has had a bit of a struggle so far, producing a stat line eerily similar to last years in a similar time frame and in a few ways, a lot worse. With just four homeruns thus far, Lindor’s .107 ISO and .316 SLG remain an albatross, even though just 48 games have gone in the books as of this writing. However, Lindor has awakened a bit, netting eight hits in his last 20 at-bats and while obviously this may just be a couple hot weeks with a return to mediocrity immanent, it’s at least our due diligence to see what exactly is going on behind his struggles and very recent success. To the advanced stats!

So the decline in HR/FB we all know about, we’d know this without even looking at it, and while I don’t find anything dipositive about an anomalous tick-up in his line drive percentage last season, I would point out that any time a player returns closer to their usual norms, it’s most likely a good thing. Lindor one again spreading out the balls put in the play close to this career numbers definitely doesn’t hurt his case, but the slightly higher-than-normal GB% remains a concern, especially when you account for the 0.231 BABIP from above.

This breakdown is a bit iffy for me too. On one hand, it’s not terrible that his hit hard% has been stable, but not great that he hasn’t reflected more of his past numbers, say in 2019 when he was able to hit at a hard rate of 42%. Granted, the soft percentages are nominal (she never says that) so it shouldn’t be all doom and gloom, yet.

Again, not entirely sure what to do with this dataset in that he’s pulling the ball less a bit this year, but has remained kinda the same dude he ever us, at least in terms of which way he hits the ball. I think there’s also a case to be made that the past two seasons are really hard to extrapolate anything solid from because the simple fact of the matter is that we’re all dealing with less data than we usually would, and of course the good ole “small sample size” strikes again, as we all know results can fluctuate widely in baseball during random times and lengths. Hey, just like his recent hot streak!

So here’s when we get to the tables I really care about, and at the moment, at least with scope, things look sorta okay? Question mark because I like that he appears to be making a conscious effort the last three years on reducing his swings on balls outside of the zone, while still keeping his swings in the zone around career norms. And while there is a downward trend there, his SwStr% appears to be around an alright area thus far.

And building off Lindor’s swinging ways, we see the contact within those confines. So far, so good in my mind. But not so fast. While we see that he’s still making contact near his career norms, just like the table above, there is a noticeable downward trend. And of course, with his power following the same course, I’m afraid that while we can easily see that Francisco Lindor is not this bad, he’s also not going to be as good as he used to be.

As the numbers show us, we see a player who can still make contact, make adjustments at the plate, and has a stable profile in terms of plate discipline and judgement. These are the ingredients we like to see in any potential rebound and positive regression. And while these aspects are okay and probably signal that both his batting average and BABIP should at some point return to more career norms, it seems as though that his power will most likely not return to previous levels. While you probably already knew that, and so do the projects if you take a look above, it’s worth nothing that there’s still value here, just depends on what your expectations are.

If you’re thinking about a return to 2018 Francisco Lindor, well, I can affirmatively tell you that this probably won’t happen. Even if you’re not that greedy and just want a to 280-30-100-75-20, well yeah, sorry, I don’t think that will happen either. But I certainly don’t think we should be expecting another season like last year, so despite already trying to match it, I do think based on what we see here there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but keep in mind that the light might just end up being something around 250-20-70-50-15, not exactly above the blue and windy sea, but something you might want to come home too.

Yeah, but how else am I going to tie the song back into this?

Jay is a longtime Razzball everything who consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell. You can follow him @jaywrong, or read his rarely (like never) updated blog Desultory Thoughts of a Longfellow.