2019 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Austin Hedges

After hitting 18 home runs in 120 games back in 2017, Austin Hedges was a popular late round source of power behind the plate for fantasy owners. It was widely known that Hedges would be a negative in terms of batting average, but he displayed that he could potentially be a 20 home run bat behind the plate, which at that point, in the later rounds of drafts, you could do much worse than Hedges as your second catcher. Hedges didn’t quite live up to the power potential in 2018, but his 21.6 AB/HR last season was comparable to his 2017 mark (21.5). An elbow ailment cost him some time, limiting him to just 91 games played last year.

At this point, even though Hedges is just 26 years old, has just 275 major league games under his belt and has yet to hit his theoretical prime, we have an idea of what kind of player he his. Hedges is an above-average defender with one of the league’s best pop times but is an average offense option behind the dish. For his career, Hedges is a .210 hitter with a .637 OPS and a strikeout rate just under 28 percent.

Hedges made small improvement in his strikeout and walk rates in 2018, but some underlying peripherals suggest that we have seen the best of what Hedges has to offer offensively. His barrel rate (6.5 percent), average exit velocity (85.5 mph) and launch angle (15.9 degrees) are right on par with his career marks. While he did manage to hit a career-best .231 last year his .280 BABIP greatly enhanced that mark. However, there’s no fooling Statcast, as his expected batting average based on his batting profile came to a paltry .207, which is right in line with his career xBA of .202.

One summer day in 2018, July 19^th to be exact, the Padres traded for prospect Francisco Mejia , officially putting Hedges on notice. Mejia has said that he would like to catch, and given the talent at other positions in the San Diego lineup, catcher is the best place for Mejia to enter the lineup. Once the trade went through in July, Hedges’ season turned around, and from July 20^th on, Hedges was much better offensively.

Hedges hasn’t done enough to make himself the catcher of the future and Mejia has every opportunity to be that guy. The fantasy community certainly sees Mejia being the catcher in San Diego, at least for a good chunk of the year. At time of writing, Hedges ADP is 58 picks after Mejia! Furthermore, THE BAT projects Mejia to appear in 16 more games than Hedges this season. See their projections below:

The early thought was that Hedges could be a stopgap until Mejia got the call and took over the gig full time. However, the clock on that may be sped up, as Mejia has done everything and then some to earn the gig this spring. Through eight games in Spring Training, Hedges is hitting .200 with one home run and five strikeouts in 15 at-bats. Conversely, Mejia is hitting .455 with three home runs and nine RBI through his first nine games. Hedges does have the defensive prowess over Mejia, but in the early parts of spring, Mejia has been solid defensively.

With all that in mind, it might even be an understatement to say that drafting Hedges is a risky proposition here in 2019. His playing time isn’t as secure as recent years and he’s a major batting average drain, even for a catcher.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistical Credits:

fangraphs.com
thebaseballcube.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com