Gleeman: Where does Jose Ramirez go from here?
From SABR member Aaron Gleeman at Baseball Prospectus on June 18, 2019:
Jose Ramirez was one of baseball’s truly elite players in each of the previous two seasons, hitting a combined .294/.380/.567 with good, versatile infield defense for a pair of first-place Indians teams. He finished third in the AL MVP voting in both seasons, and in either league from 2017-2018 only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts totaled more WARP than his 12.4. PECOTA projected Ramirez for another great season in 2019, predicting he’d hit .299/.379/.520 and rank as the fifth-best all-around player in baseball with 5.5 WARP.
Ramirez is hitting .203/.298/.301 and his 0.7 WARP ranks 149th in baseball.
I tend to think Ramirez will bounce back, at least mostly. His lowly .225 batting average on balls in play will surely rise, and a 42/34 K/BB ratio suggests that his control of the strike zone remains a strength. There are some negative trends within his performance, including more strikeouts and fewer hard-hit balls, but nothing that would explain a sudden collapse of this magnitude, particularly by a 26-year-old. Compared to last season, Ramirez has lost 340 points of OPS and is on pace for 5.0 fewer WARP.
Read the full article here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/50780/banjo-hitter-where-does-jose-ramirez-go-from-here/
Originally published: June 20, 2019. Last Updated: June 20, 2019.