Irrelevant to potential MVP candidate? how Jurickson Profar is finding success with the Padres
The 82–80, 2023 San Diego Padres finished the season outside of the playoff picture, putting together a disappointing season considering their abundance of high-end talent. Among their stars was 25-year-old, 3x all-star, and world series champion Juan Soto. With one year remaining on his deal, Padres general manager A.J. Preller sent Soto to the New York Yankees with fellow everyday outfield Trent Grisham. Despite the unusual feeling of being on the selling side of a blockbuster trade, the Padres were still looking to be competitive in a strong National League West, but down two main stays in their outfield, the Padres needed to find bodies to play beside franchise cornerstone Fernado Tatis Jr. To fill the gaps in the outfield Mike Schildt and the Padres moved 20-year-old shortstop prospect Jackson Merrill to the outfield in spring training. Preller inked a one-year deal finishing the outfield with old friend Jurickson Profar, keeping him in San Diego after a 14-game stint in 2023. The 31-year-old, with ten years of major league service time, played 14 games with the Padres last year after being released by the Rockies in August of 2023.
Profar, who put together an 81 ops+ in 2023 between his time with the Rockies and the Padres (100 being league average), struggled immensely during the season. His performance felt like a far cry from an everyday left fielder for a World Series contending roster that the Padres wanted to be. Profar spent a three-year stint in San Deigo between 2020 and 2022, seeing decent results. The best came in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, where he had seven home runs, 25 RBIs, and 114ops+ in 56 games. Profar and the Rockies did not agree on their deal until March 21st, so he began the season without the benefit of spring training, which showed. Profar is not a power hitter, although he can provide occasional pop, with his career high in homers being 20. His best tool as a hitter is his eye at the plate. Profar can draw walks, doesn’t swing and miss a lot, and is good at laying off pitches out of the zone. When Profar came to the Rockies, they planned to put him in the leadoff spot, as he has good on-base tools while having 20 HR upside, the archetype for an excellent leadoff hitter in today’s MLB. His first month with the Rockies was not good, which is understandable considering the circumstances, putting up a .219/.300/.344 slash line. The best month in a Rockies uniform for Profar came in May, where he put up an above-average batting average, on base, and slug for a .269/.343/.452 slash line. However, May seemed to be a one-off for Profar, getting released in August of that same year for his poor play. Amidst his offensive struggles, he never lost his best tools. Profar’s chase, k, whiff, and walk rates all landed in good territory. Although he couldn’t make contact, he was still swinging at good pitches and laying off bad ones.
2023 saw his batting average against fastballs increase, and breaking balls didn’t see any significant changes. His swing-and-miss rate on the fastball and breaking balls was consistent with his last year in San Diego.
However, his expected slugging dropped to the bottom 10% of qualified major league hitters at .394. If you remove strikeouts, walks, and hit-by-pitches, Profar’s expected weighted on-base average for all balls in play was in the bottom 9% of all qualified hitters. So why did his production see such a drop? Right-handed pitchers and offspeed pitches. In 2023, Profar had a 0.156 batting average against offspeed, down from 0.263 in his last year with the Padres. His chase rate on offspeed was consistent, but on the offspeed pitches out of the zone that did swing at, he was missing 23% more than he did the year before. Against right-handed pitching, he would swing and miss on balls 31.1% more than he did in his final year with the Padres in 2022. Against left-handed pitchers, 2023 saw a massive increase in hard-hit rate against all pitch types. This is a great thing to see for a guy with an exceptional eye. The problem is that against righties, along with his expected batting average, his hard-hit rate was significantly down against all pitch types, with offspeed pitches down 14.1%.
Profar still had the tools to be an effective Major League bat and is a well-liked guy in the locker room. Outside of his time in Colorado, he can also play multiple positions well. But he needed to figure out his splits against righties to get the opportunity to play every day. When the Rockies released him in August of 2023, the Padres decided to take a flyer on Profar. He showed he was worth taking a risk on. In the 14 games he played with the Padres in 2023, he put together a solid .295/.367/.409, a vast improvement from the .236/.316/.364 he ended with in Colorado. The slug could have been better, but for an on-base type of guy, an above-average batting average and on-base percentage make a valuable piece for any batting order. He put together a small resurgence with San Diego, earning himself a deal in 2024, but not even the Padres were expecting the level of play Profar has provided so far this year.
Eighty games into the Padres season, among all major league hitters, Profar finds himself third in batting average with a .320, third in on-base percentage with .415, and tenth in OPS with a 0.898. His slugging has increased significantly, with a 0.484 slug for ten homers on the year. He hit nine in all of 2023. His 48 RBIs are good enough for a 17th place tie. So, let’s look at the numbers and see what has changed for Profar this year. Last year, right-handed pitching was tanking his production, especially picking up anything offspeed. Considering that, in 2023, he saw significantly more at-bats against righties, and had to address this if he wanted to be a productive hitter again. This year his expected batting average against right-handed offspeed pitches is up to 0.34 from last year’s abysmal 0.190. The expected slugging also saw a significant increase, as seen in the massive jump from 2023 to 2024 in the graphs below from Baseball Savant.
Profar is currently tied for ninth in walks, 26th in at-bats per strikeout, and 33rd in pitches per at-bat. His whiff rate, strikeout rate, and walk rate are all still elite, increasing slightly from a year prior. His chase rate is excellent, but what is making him such a dangerous hitter this year is that on the offspeed pitches he is chasing out of the zone, Profar is whiffing 26.9 percent less than he was in the year prior and 32.5 percent less against offspeed from righties. Profar has not only been making significantly better contact, but he has also been extending counts, making opposing pitchers work harder.
If the season ended today, Profar would deserve MVP votes. However, being in the star-studded Padres roster alongside guys like Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Dylan Cease, Xander Bogaerts, Yu Darvish, and Luis Arreaz will guarantee he gets fewer votes than he deserves. So far, the 2024 Padres have been off to a sub-par start playing .500 ball, but holding on to a wild-card spot in a very tight National League. The stars in San Diego have not been playing up to expectations, and the guy who deserves the most praise for keeping the Padres in the race is, without a doubt, Jurickson Profar. While he won’t win an MVP, if he can keep form while the big guys figure things out, the Padres will be a very exciting team down the stretch.
