Gordo: Has Jarren Duran arrived?
Adam Duvall's broken wrist once felt like it ended the Red Sox season before it really got started. Instead, it's led to something few imagined possible.
If April told us anything, it's that this Red Sox team will fight. They finished April 15-14, winning six of the nine series' they played. That can be attributed in large part to their resilience, both in terms of playing from behind (the Red Sox lead Major League Baseball with 10 comeback victories), and their next man up mentality when key contributors go down.
The Red Sox have battled injuries to all areas of their roster, losing multiple key members of their lineup, rotation, and bullpen. For many teams, this would be devastating. Hell, for the 2022 Red Sox, some mid-summer injuries threw the season off the rails. But with the 2023 Red Sox, all the injuries have done is allow for budding impact players to showcase their stuff at the big league level.
You could look at injuries to Joely Rodriguez and Wyatt Mills giving Josh Winckowski the chance to showcase his stuff in the bullpen. You could look at injuries to Brayan Bello, Garrett Whitlock, and James Paxton giving Kutter Crawford the chance to shine both out of the rotation and the bullpen. But I want to look at the offensive side of the ball.
Without the devastating injury to Adam Duvall, where is Jarren Duran today? Probably putting up numbers in Worcester. He's been a game-changer since his first big league start of the season. He leads the team with nine doubles despite playing in just 13 of the team's 29 games. He's rocking a 1.061 OPS with a .396 batting average, and it's not luck.
His barrel percentage is up from a 7.7% in 2022 all the way to 13.2%. His average exit velocity is up from 89.3 MPH to 91.7 MPH. His .271 expected batting average won't allow for his .396 batting average to sustain itself, but it's way up from his .219 expected batting average from a year ago. His strikeout percentage is down 5.7%, after he already reduced it by 7.4% last year.
Perhaps the most staggering change, however, is his average launch angle is up from 7.6 degrees all the way to 16.2 degrees. Duran is lifting the ball, and pairing that with his 52.6% hard hit rate (up from 38% a year ago) is creating loads of extra base hits.
Duran's center field defense has long been a concern. No play stood out more last year than the botched fly ball turned inside-the-park grand slam. But it's been a different story for Duran this year. He looks comfortable, gets better jumps, and takes better routes. What's encouraging is that the analytics show improvement, matching the eye test.
He may not be a gold glove outfielder anytime soon, but Duran is holding his own out there. That's not something we saw from him in either of his two previous big league stints.
Duran worked hard on his craft on both sides of the ball in the off-season, but not to be forgotten is the change in mental approach Duran has worked to make. While Duran was known for being a free-spirited firecracker in the minors, he appeared timid in the bigs, talking about how he tried his best not to bother vets when he got called up in 2021 and 2022. It was clear his lack of comfort in the majors contributed to his lack of success.
This year, his approach is different. He feels like one of the group, a real member of the team. Give Duran a lot of credit for getting to that point mentally, but give a lot of credit to the leaders on this team for helping him get to that point. Duran certainly did when asked what the biggest difference has been for him since he got called up;
“Just my teammates. Being more open to talking to guys and not feeling like I’m bothering them and then being very open,” Duran said in a postgame interview with Jahmai Webster on NESN. “Like (Justin Turner) and (Alex Verdugo) and (Kiké Hernández) really helping me out, telling me to keep working, keep working hard. Even when I mess up, they tell me, ‘Hey man, it’s baseball, it happens.’ So just having those guys backing me up feels really good.”
It's hard to not be excited about what Jarren Duran has showcased thus far in 2023. He's taken noticeable strides in all aspects of his game. But it's understandable that some fans still have some pause. Last June, Duran hit .333 with an .864 OPS in 12 starts and it felt like he had arrived. But the league adjusted in July and held him to a .184 batting average and .527 OPS in 22 starts. Pair his brutal offensive July with some glaring defensive miscues and his season went down the drain.
The league will adjust to Duran at some point, and it will be on him to adjust back. He's going to struggle. His season will be defined by how he responds. But for the time being, all you can do is watch along in awe of what Duran has been able to accomplish in 2023.
Follow Gordo on Twitter @BOSSportsGordo.
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