2020 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Lourdes Gurriel, Jr.

Yuli Gurriel got the hype first, but perhaps Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is the Gurriel we should really be looking at here in 2020. While somewhat underrated, the guy is a pure hitter at the game’s highest level. In 84 games last season, he slashed .277/.327/.541 with 20 home runs, 52 runs scored, 50 RBI and six stolen bases. His .264 ISO would have ranked within the top 20 in baseball last season, and would have been just a hair behind notable power bats Juan Soto and Max Muncy . In the minors, he wasn’t necessarily a big power guy, in terms of home run totals, so are the power numbers at the big league level a product of juiced baseballs, or is it for real?

Spoiler alert: He can be a 20+ home run guy on a regular basis.

His at-bats per HR mark improved, as you’ll see below, but it’s explainable, and encouraging.

Courtesy of ESPN

Now, take a look at the graphic below, and you’ll see how the home run spike occurred.

The ground balls are down and fly balls are up. That’s a recipe for success. Additionally, while the soft contact went up a bit, that hard contact rate jumped, which is exceptional. Furthermore, we need some validation via Statcast, and boy, did we get that or not!

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

Look at that jump! When you look just at his average exit velocity, it actually dropped compared to 2019. However, on just line drives and fly balls, it skyrocketed, and we freakin’ love that! Even with some regression to the norm, although I’ll argue that we don’t know what “the norm” is yet for Gurriel, he’ll be just fine in 2020, health willing.

Something I think that really helped was a shift in his approach. He was rather pull heavy in 2018, and while he still was pull dominant in 2019, there was a concentrated effort to drive the ball to the middle of the field. It shows in the numbers, as well as in his spray chart for each season.

 Courtesy of Fangraphs

It worked, too. In 2018, he had just four extra-base hits to the middle of the field, and in 2019, that mark jumped to 12. For the visual folk out there, here are the spray charts for Gurriel from 2018 and 2019.

Sure, he swung-and-missed more, quite a bit more actually, despite chasing less. His contact rate also dropped considerably, indicating perhaps his strikeout rate in 2020 will be closer to 2019’s mark of 25.1 percent, rather than the 22.4 percent mark from 2018.

Between 2018 and 2019, Gurriel has appeared in 149 games, which is more or less a full season and what are we looking at? Well, 31 home runs, 82 runs scored, 85 RBI, seven stolen bases and a .279/.320/.499 slash line. Not bad. Not bad at all. His numbers across these 149 games are comparable to Javier Báez , with a tad less speed. Baez is an early round pick, Gurriel is not. Why? Well….

Injuries are a big knock on Gurriel. Since July of 2018, he’s spent time on the disabled and injured list for a concussion, ankle sprain, quad strain, and appendectomy. Ouch. Gurriel can hit some tape measure home runs, but pretty soon, his list of injuries is getting lengthy as well. If injuries weren’t in the picture, I can almost guarantee that he would be drafted WAAAAYYYYY before his current average draft position (ADP), which is currently in the mid-150s.

There’s a lot of talent in the Toronto lineup, and he should be hitting right in the heart of the order, right after other talented youngsters in Bo Bichette , Cavan Biggio , and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Those guys figure to get on base a good bit, which should give Gurriel plenty of chances to drive in runs for the majority of 2020. Aside from potentially having positional flexibility, depending on your league’s settings, is Gurriel’s upside this year, assuming he can stay healthy. He could push for 30 home runs, 10 stolen bases, 75 runs scored and 85 RBI. That might be an aggressive projection, given his injury history and inability to stay off the injured list the past few season, but there’s no denying the talent and ability to rack up said numbers with a positive run of health.

Here’s kind of the thing with Gurriel in 2020. He’s not going to dominate any categorically statistically, but he gives you a little bit across the board. He’s a jack-of-all-trades guy in fantasy. As the saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

Statistical Credits:
baseballsavant.mlb.com
fangraphs.com
nfc.shgn.com/adp/baseball