Is Triston Casas Struggling at the Plate, or Unlucky?
A look under the hood at what's really going on for the Red Sox 1B in 2023.
A microcosm of the rookie season of Boston Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas took place during the team’s tilt on Saturday night with the San Diego Padres.
Casas was up in a key spot in the top of the 4th inning with runners on 2nd and 3rd and two outs. The Sox had a 4-1 lead, with Padres starter Joe Musgrove on the ropes. Musgrove threw Casas a 1-2 cut fastball at 92 mph up and in that Casas pulled hard to right field on a line.
With an exit velocity of 108.8 mph off the bat, this would be the hardest-hit ball by anyone on either team all game. But Fernando Tatis Jr. made an athletic, jumping play in right field to snag the liner and end the inning. A drive with an expected batting average of .790 ended in an out.
That’s how it goes in the scorebook: an out. Casas has made a lot of those in 2023 as he acclimates to his first full year in the majors. Through Sunday, May 21, his traditional slashline on the year of .180/.311/.361/.671 leaves much to be desired on the surface, as well as an 82 OPS+ and an 84 wRC+, both of which are weighted so 100 is league average.
Yet digging below the surface, Casas is doing most of the things against MLB pitching that indicate a hitter performing well but without the direct results to show for it.
First, a tell-tale sign of a hitter’s luck or lack thereof is their Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). In 2023, MLB average BABIP is .297. For the season Casas has a ridiculously low .203 BABIP. While his K% on the season is high at 26.4%, it’s not so high as to suggest he’s not making enough contact in general. He is, but they aren’t falling for hits.
That leads into his Baseball Savant percentiles. Casas is in the 85th percentile of all MLB hitters in Barrel%. In Savant parlance, a Barrel is defined as “a batted ball with the perfect combination of exit velocity and launch angle.”
Those are really the balls off the bat with the most opportunity to do damage, and Casas is in the Top 15 percent of all MLB hitters there. But, he has little to show for it.
Elsewhere, Casas is among the Top 30 percent of all MLB hitters in maximum exit velocity (73rd percentile), average exit velocity (71st) and expected weighted on-base average (71st). He’s just below that in expected slugging percentage (68th). All of this is helped by his extreme patience at the plate, where he’s in the Top 4 percent of all hitters in BB% (96th percentile).
When you throw those advanced statistics together with his BABIP, the verdict is clear: Casas has been extremely unlucky in 2023 at the plate. But this is not to say he doesn’t have things to work on.
With his extreme patience comes the extreme opportunity for strikeouts, but that’s common for any patient hitter. Where Casas certainly needs work is his swing-and-miss: he’s down in the 22nd percentile of all MLB hitters in Whiff%. This is more than understandable for a 23-year-old getting used to how MLB pitchers will attack him.
He has also had a surprising amount of trouble catching up to 4-seam fastballs (-3 Run Value per Savant) while he’s hit sliders well (+4 Run Value).
The month of May indicates the luck for Casas is starting to turn in his favor. In 56 plate appearances so far this month, he’s at .255/.357/.468/.825. His BABIP is .273, much closer to MLB average. His K% for the month is 21.4%, in line with his Worcester figure in 2022 of 21.5%.
Like Casas’s approach at the plate, Red Sox fans would be best suited for patience when it comes to Casas. Things tend to even out luck-wise through 162 games, and Casas is showing hallmarks to indicate he’s holding his own in 2023.
If you’re interested in more on the Red Sox minor league system, I’m joined each week on The Pesky Report by Derrik Maguire and Hunter Noll to talk all things Red Sox prospects. Listen and subscribe to The Pesky Report here.
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