Through two weeks, this New York Yankee is the unluckiest hitter in baseball
In recent years, the New York Yankees have prioritized defensive prowess over offensive production at the catching position. They took a dramatic swing towards defense after finally pulling the plug on the Gary Sanchez experiment. After all, it’s incredibly hard to be a positive offensive contributor while being above-average behind the dish. Players like Adley Rutschman, William Contreras, Sean Murphy, Cal Raleigh, J.T. Realmuto, and Will Smith provide examples of some of the best two-way catchers in the game. For every one of those, there’s Jose Trevino, who is a Platinum Glove award-winning backstop with a career 71 wRC+. Trevino has been the Yankees’ starting catcher for nearly two years now, combining phenomenal defensive skills with elite knowledge of his pitching staff and baseball as a whole.
Until now, there wasn’t much of a reason to question Trevino’s job security unless he was injured, but the Yankees seem to be getting closer to a decision. Early on in the 2024 campaign, it appears that the Yankees’ organization has decided to platoon catchers, letting Trevino hit against left-handed pitching while letting upstart rookie Austin Wells hit against right-handers. While Trevino recovered from an injury last season, Wells made his MLB debut, grabbing a cup of coffee in 19 games in the Bronx. He had a .742 OPS and a 97 wRC+ in 75 plate appearances, clubbing four home runs and six doubles as well.
As he began the 2024 season with the Yankees with rookie eligibility, the 24-year-old Wells could still compete for the American League Rookie of the Year award. Baseball America ranks the former first-round draft pick as the 71st best prospect in all of Major League Baseball. He had a great Spring Training, maintaining a .941 OPS in 46 plate appearances. So far in his first seven games, he hasn’t exactly been able to translate his Grapefruit League numbers to regular season play, but his outlook becomes much more promising when you look beneath the surface.
The immediate reaction when you look up the basic statistics for Wells is not great, as he has a measly batting average (.150), OPS (.458), and wRC+ (55). There is some incredibly encouraging underlying data, however, that leads to a high probability of Wells experiencing some positive regression in the near future. Firstly, Wells is running a .167 BABIP (batting average on balls in play), telling us that he’s been getting unlucky on some of his batted balls. FanGraphs estimates that 30 percent of all balls in play fall for hits, so he’s certainly underperforming that expectation.
The Arizona alumnus has been very unlucky according to several Statcast metrics, which is an advanced MLB tracking technology. While he currently sports a .240 wOBA (weighted on-base average), he has a .462 xwOBA (expected weighted on-base average). According to MLB, xwOBA is calculated using exit velocity, launch angle and sprint speed. Wells is underperforming his xwOBA by -0.222, which is the largest difference of any player so far in 2024. Remember Wells’ .150 batting average? Well, Statcast believes he’s getting the short end of the stick there too, as he’s got a .314 xBA (expected batting average). He’s also the league’s largest underperformer in xSLG (expected slugging percentage), as he has a .656 xSLG with an actual slugging percentage of .150.
There’s a clear difference between Wells’ results and batted ball data, as all of these metrics indicate that he’s simply been very unlucky to begin the year. One change that Wells would be wise to make is pulling fly balls more frequently, especially at Yankee Stadium. The famous short porch could certainly become an attacking ground for the lefty if he can spray fly balls towards right field. While it’s early, something that has stuck with me from watching him is that he’s got natural power, but he’s been hitting fly balls all over the field, rather than optimizing the outcomes by pulling it. FanGraphs did a study last year where they calculated the importance of pulled fly balls, finding different wOBA numbers for different types of fly balls.
In just two games at Yankee Stadium in 2024, Wells has hit three warning track fly balls, but none of them were pulled. A lefty hitting fly balls the other way and straight away doesn’t work very well in general, but the difficulty is exacerbated with Yankee Stadium’s left-center alley (399 feet) and dead-center (408 feet). When he’s pulled the ball in the air, he hasn’t even gotten lucky yet either, as he had two pulled fly outs at Chase Field which typically would lead to an .812 wOBA, based on 2023 fly ball data. Being able to spray the ball all over the field is nice in certain aspects, but Wells would certainly benefit from pulling the ball in the air more often. Some of his opposite field and dead-center fly balls may even get out in the summer, as the ball typically travels further when the weather gets warmer.
Aside from his expected numbers and the issues of pulling fly balls, Wells ranks in the 89th percentile with an 16.7% barrel-rate. He also ranks in the 89th percentile in strikeout-rate (11.5%) and 95th percentile in walk-rate (19.2%). He’s shown a tremendous understanding of the strike zone, as further indicated by a 20.8% whiff-rate, which ranks in the 71st percentile. It’s a small sample, but it’s also encouraging that Wells ranks in the 93rd percentile for catcher framing, as the knock on him as a prospect was the lack of confidence in his defensive ability. With 48th percentile sprint speed, Wells looks like he has what it takes to stick behind the plate in the big leagues.
It’s a massive criteria, but since 2015, only ten hitters (400+ plate appearances) have recorded seasons with at least a .400 xwOBA, a 12% or better barrel-rate, a 25% or lower whiff-rate, and a 10% or higher walk-rate. These players include Freddie Freeman, Juan Soto, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Yordan Alvarez amongst others. Albeit a small sample, Wells would currently fit this criteria, alongside Alvarez, Trout, Tyler O’Neill, and Jackson Merrill. This isn’t to say that Wells is the same caliber of hitter as these guys, but rather showing that if he keeps this up to some extent, the numbers will assuredly work towards his favor. The Yankees need to give him the reins at catcher and let him grow, both offensively and defensively, as he exhibits the most potential for a Yankee catcher since the aforementioned Sanchez back in 2016.
All statistics, analytics, and information is courtesy of Baseball Savant, FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Stathead, Katie Sharp, Empire Sports Media, MLB Pipeline and the official MLB website.