Jose Ramirez, 3B, Cleveland Indians
The slow start
April actually wasn’t too shabby for Jose Ramirez — he slashed .267/.353/.514 with 7 home runs and 14 RBI through 119 plate appearances. It was the very beginning of his season that was incredibly brutal, though. Like a number of Indians batters, he struggled by hitting .086/.256/.171 through his first 43 plate appearances (10 games).
While that produced an anemic 21 wRC+ and .206 wOBA, he kept taking his walks — Ramirez an 18.6% walk rate and 4.7% strikeout rate during this time. He was bound to get hot, and boy has he ever.
The recovery
Ramirez’s cumulative wRC+ of 166 is among the 10 best marks in all of baseball. He’s accomplished this by posting a 133 wRC+ throughout April before upping that number to 210 in May.
The switch-hitter has been rather dependent on fly balls so far this year (his 42.1% rate would be a new single-season career high if the year ended today), but the big change has happened in his quality of contact.
The Indians’ third baseman had a 24.1% hard-hit rate during his rough start, with that number jumping up to 34.7% since he caught fire.
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