Royals Deep Dives: The Conundrum of batting leadoff. – Farm to Fountains

Welcome back to another installment of the deep-dive series. This time, the subject of our dive is third baseman Maikel Garcia, whose play has become the focus of Royals fans recently. That play has begged the question of whether he is worthy of batting leadoff for the Royals.

As always, we begin with the basic numbers. Maikel is currently slashing .239/.290/.353 for an OPS of .643 on the season. Obviously, that isn’t ideal as the primary leadoff man for the Royals, but it isn’t the full tale of the tape. For part of the tale, we need to dive a little deeper into his plate discipline numbers.

Those numbers show that almost everything is up a tick from last year. Garcia is swinging a little more but making more contact overall. The biggest change in that data set is the first strike rate. Last season, it was 64.5%; however, this year, it is 69.6%, which is a major concern when you add in his count splits.

Garcia’s splits when starting 0-1 or 1-0 are in stark contrast, as expected in baseball. When Garcia takes ball one, he has an OPS of .834; when he takes or swings at strike one, he has an OPS of .516. Okay, that is an obvious thing to point out, but when he is in a 0-1, almost 70% of the time, we see .516 OPS Maikel Garcia.

Another really concerning split for Garcia is his bases-empty numbers. He hits .192/.246/.290 for an OPS of .537, which is really bad given that he leads off. While he isn’t doing great on the on-base front, is he at least making pitchers work in his at-bats? Well, yes and no. As stated earlier, he is swinging and making contact more often than not. However, his P/PA (pitches per plate appearances) this year is 3.699, a decline from last season.

A lot of the numbers don’t help Garcia’s case as the leadoff man for the Royals. If we compare his numbers to those of other leadoff hitters, he is the worst of the bunch. Using this leaderboard, we see he is middle of the pack in some numbers but in the back for most. So, is Maikel Garcia still worth batting leadoff?

The short answer is yes, he is still worth batting leadoff. This is mainly due to a couple of factors. He doesn’t chase, whiff, or strike out, and he hits the ball hard and often. Per his Baseball Savant percentiles, all of those numbers are in the 70th percentile or higher. One thing that stands out in those percentiles is his .266 xBA. That 27-point difference between his actual BA and his xBA is substantial. His zone numbers for these are also interesting for this comparison.

That is all what-ifs, though; however, one big reason Garcia is struggling is his results hitting fastballs. In the year, he is hitting .214 on fastballs. For context, he hit .290 on them last season. Going a touch deeper on that in run values, he has a value of negative-3 on 4-seamers and negative-5 on cutters. On both of those pitches, he is hitting .226 and .077. Another note on 4-seamers for Garcia is also the fact that he hits them hard 61.8% of the time, and the expected numbers state he should be crushing them.

While these cover the whole season, recently, Garcia has been on the struggle bus. His rolling charts are dropping off a cliff, and this slump has coincided with the Royals’ slumping as well. While Garcia isn’t directly the issue for that, it isn’t mutually exclusive, either.

While Garcia’s hitting hasn’t been ideal, he is still providing enough value to generate an fWAR of 1.2. His fielding is still great, with a 2.5 uZR and 3OAA, and he is providing a lot of value on the basepaths. His 4.6 BsR is a career high, and he hasn’t been caught stealing this year while swiping 17 bags.

These numbers show that Garcia hasn’t been the ideal leadoff hitter on paper, but some underlying numbers explain that he can be good. Currently, Garcia is in a heavy slump and probably needs to reset a bit. In his stead, the Royals could experiment with the leadoff spot. The obvious choice is putting Nick Loftin there, but maybe putting Vinnie Pasquantino in the leadoff role would work best while Garcia fixes some things.

Photo credit: Charlie Riedel / ASSOCIATED PRESS