Astros’ Jose Abreu Is Contender For April Least Valuable Player

Jose Abreu made an early move in last winter’s free agent market, leaving the Chicago White Sox for the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, signing a three-year, $58.5 million deal. I thought it was a master stroke for the club at the time. One month into Year 1 of the contract, the Astros have received little return.

Now it’s still April, and there is an awful lot of baseball left to be played in 2023. It can be argued, however, that Abreu has been one of the poorest performers in the game thus far. His (0.4) fWAR ranks near the bottom of both leagues, and he has accumulated more plate appearances than any other position player with negative WAR through Tuesday’s games. It’s been pretty bleak.

Looking at the surface level numbers doesn’t get us very far, though. We need to drill down to the batted ball level to see if there are budding issues within this small sample size.

Throughout his career, Jose Abreu has been a hitter first and a power hitter second. And that’s just the way you like it. He has posted reasonable K and BB rates, hit the ball hard in the air, on a line and on the ground, and has not been an extreme grounder puller worthy of infield overshifts.

Just last year, he was better than his raw numbers, worthy of a 145 “Tru” Production+ mark, even better than his actual 137 wRC+. This, in a year when he posted a career low homer total of 15. While his average fly ball exit speed reached a six-year low, both his average liner and grounder exit speeds were over a full standard deviation above average, as usual. Ditto his overall average exit speed of 92.2 mph. And for the sixth time in seven years, he hit a representative number of grounders the other way to keep infielders honest.

This year, he’s batting a puny .250-.286-.290 overall. What does the batted ball data say? Plenty of not-so-good things.

The frequency data is mediocre at best. His 4.0% pop up rate is just below his 2018 career high. His 29.3% fly ball rate is right in line with career norms, but not far above his 28.7% career low. His 18.7% liner rate is just above his 2017 career low of 18.2%. His 48.0% grounder rate is a career high.

Now that frequency profile might strike some as wholly unattractive. Abreu missed the launch angle train, you see. But it’s always worked for him in the past due to very strong authority and directional profiles.

The big problem with his 2023 profile isn’t the number of grounders he’s hitting, it’s the grounder authority. His career LOW average grounder exit speed entering this season was 88.7 mph, way above league average. This year, he’s way down at 81.5 mph, far below league average. Plus, he’s pulling the ball more than ever, qualifying as an extreme grounder puller. With the shift ban, that wouldn’t seem to be a big deal. But Abreu appears to be trying to pull the baseball more, and it’s affected him for the worse.

His overall 86.3 mph average exit speed is by far a career low. Typically, his average exit speed is over a full standard deviation above league average – this year, it’s over a full standard deviation below.

Toss in a career high 23.8% K rate and career low 3.8% BB rate and you have Abreu’s current predicament. Is he done? That would be a very premature assessment based on his lengthy track record. But he’s gotten away from the things that have made him who he was, and has become more like lots of the flotsam that surrounds him in today’s MLB.

Based on his current batted ball profile, Abreu “should be” hitting .231-.260-.376, for an 80 “Tru” Production+. Not as bad as his current mainstream numbers, but still pretty bad – the typical power-before-hit numbers of today’s #6-7 hitter. And for someone who brings zero baserunning or defensive value to the table, that’s a concern.

At this stage in his career, there are some more common traits that Abreu should try to adopt – a little more launch angle, some targeted pulling in the air, for example – but he first needs to get back to being the TYPE of hitter he’s always been – hitting the ball hard where it’s pitched, in the air, on a line and on the ground. It other words, get back to being Jose Abreu.