Yeah, I understand that this makes it seem like that Connor Joe has Connor Joe-like eyes, which if you remove the low-hanging pun, is what the title amounts to. But I submit that this is still technically true since if someone is going to have Connor Joe like eyes, it’ll be Connor Joe. I rest my case. But since I have to have a bit more content than a title and a sentence, I guess I’ll start a new case. And no, I have no clue why I’m continuing the judicial metaphor, but the question has standing. While Connor Joe started hot-hot-hot, much of his production thus far has been quite pedestrian. As someone who’s allergic to cardio, I have nothing against pedestrians, but with Joe going as a top-50 (even higher) outfielder before the season started, I’d think everyone would like to see a bit more than five homeruns and 14 RBIs with a third of the season already in the rear-view mirror. So where did he go? Let’s find out, search party for Connor Joe!
A former first-rounder, Joe was drafted 39th overall back in 2014 and in the next 300 minor league games, remained inexorably mediocre after a strong start. Partly due to major back issues back in 2014, he did walk 50 times in 80 games in 2015 in Low-A and continued to grow that part of his game with a .351 OBP in High-A a year later, but just slugged .392 at the age of 24. True, the plate discipline and walks were there, but as a corner infielder, did very little else to merit MLB playing time. Fast forward to 2019, Joe, at the age of 25 finally found a bit of his power, hitting 15 home runs with .503 SLG for the Dodgers Triple-A affiliate. Though he didn’t finally get his call to the Majors until two years later with the Rockies, he had certainly made strides, conservative as they were. But he responded well and in just 63 games, generating a triple-slash of .285/.379/.469, all with the benefit of hitting in Coors Field for half of his games.
So it wasn’t crazy to think that this former prospect couldn’t grow into something more. Building off his existing skill set, this expectation wasn’t a wild one, but here we are with Joe projected to only hit five more homeruns the rest of the season (Steamer). Not that great, and definitely nowhere near the 20-25+ his profile should be generating. And speaking of profile, let’s talk about that a bit…
Let’s take care of what I’m concerned most about, and that’s his power, the generation of it, or I guess lack thereof. It’s not a large dataset, just a little over a total of 100 games, but there has been a noticeable drop between seasons, both in his exit velocity (88.2->84.3) and his Barrel% (9.9->5.9). There’s no way to sugarcoat this, this is simply not good news. If there’s anything that curbs my worry, I would at least note that his maxEV right now is sitting at 107.6, which isn’t too far off from last season’s high of 113.3, but it’s abundantly clear that he’s not hitting the ball in the same way he did back in 2021.
While his FB% has dropped from 38.3% down to 33.1%, I find it very peculiar that his plate discipline is showing more contact. This could mean a couple things at first glance, maybe he’s pressing or changing his approach in response to his perceived struggles. Expanding his zone perhaps, hitting balls that aren’t quite in his comfort zone. Another theory could be that pitchers in general are just approaching Joe differently. Take for instance that his O-Swing% has risen along with his O-Contact%, but Joe has still managed nearly the same Swing% with the Zone% going up slightly.
It’s a lot of words ending with the percentage sign, but basically, it looks like Connor Joe is going through what I would describe as an adjustment period. Not to get too pedantic, but sports is all about adjustments, once the pitcher adapts, it’s now the hitter’s turn to adapt or not and thus the cycle of adjustment continues. Science baby! What supports this thought beyond science? Well, it just so happens that this year in comparison to last, Joe is seeing less fastballs, more cutters, less sinkers and slightly more sliders, curves, and changeups.
While it’s easy to kinda relegate Connor Joe to a lost cause, he simply is just an empty stats hitter. There’s still some use for that type of hitter, but certainly is not what the measured expectations had for him in 2023, however, I’m still in a wait-and-see approach. At this point in the season, if Connor Joe is still on your team, there’s probably a reason and if he’s not and once was, the change probably happened a while ago.
And even though he hasn’t really wowed anyone since getting drafted in the first round so many years ago, he knows how to handle himself at the plate and just needs a few things to go right for him to fulfill something useful. He’s certainly not going to hurt your ratio stats, so that combined with the sort of janky advanced metrics makes me want to wait out the noise just a bit more.
So maybe Connor-eyed Joe didn’t go anywhere. Maybe it’s the Connor-eyed Joe’s we made along the way.
Makes about as much sense as the title, so mission accomplished, but not the Iraq kind. The other kind. Maybe.
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 on Twitter @jaywrong.
