The top of the Indians rotation has been incredibly consistent so far this year with Carlos Santana leading off every game this year followed by Francisco Lindor, Edwin Encarnacion at clean up and Jose Ramirez batting fifth. This is one of a few models of consistency by Terry Francona this year, including the order of the rotation which has remained the same four times through rather than skipping the back end every time and off day appears. It’s a small sample size, but Francona has also appeared to want Ramirez to play a single position defensively as he didn’t move him back to second on Sunday when Jason Kipnis had the day off.
In order to keep this line-up in order and make sure that the recently injured players have sufficient time off, it means that when Michael Brantley, the regular three hitter, or Kipnis, the regular six hitter, have a day off, a replacement needs to be found rather than simply moving everyone up a spot. With Brantley hitting in the three hole, the position generally held for any team’s greatest overall hitter, that means that the when he gets a day off, the best possible hitter to replace him would be the seventh best in the Indians every day line-up. This has been accurate to this point as each time Brantley has had a day off it was against a left handed pitcher and his replacement has been Brandon Guyer.
While Guyer is only a platoon bat and not suited to hit third on a daily basis for any team, his numbers in 2016 against lefties were among the best in baseball, literally 4th in wRC+, just ahead of Paul Goldschmidt, Kris Bryant and Mike Trout. Anyone who is better than those three in any offensive facet should bat wherever he wants. If Guyer was repeating his .336/.464/.557 batting line against left handed pitchers, he’d very realistically be the best #3 hitter the Indians could find. If a right handed pitcher matched up against him, they could simply bring the default #3 into the situation by pinch hitting Brantley.
Instead, Guyer has surprisingly been one of the worst hitters in the Indians offense. Fresh off a two year, $5M extension, Guyer has hit .160/.222/.280 this season, batting just .174/.208/.304 against left handers. Compared to Guyer, Yan Gomes has been Babe Ruth against lefties. Only Abraham Almonte (who is notoriously terrible against lefties), Michael Martinez and Roberto Perez have been worse and an 0 for 4 Sunday against the Sox and lefty Derek Holland didn’t help.
Rather than immediately panic and say Guyer should be removed, we should first look to see if Guyer is just unlucky or if he is likely to come out of this slump any day now. To start, Guyer has been swinging less than previous seasons, about 10% less. He’s been swinging at balls outside of the zone less often as well, just 17.4% compared to a 32.4% career rate. On balls within the strike zone, he’s made contact with 93.3% compared to 86% in his career. These are all great signs, the problem is that he hasn’t been driving the ball like he used to. While he’s not striking out, he’s making weak contact to the opposite field. Instead of a very steady career hard hit rate of 28.4%, he’s hitting just 17.6% with authority.
Not surprisingly, he has pulled the ball less than 30% of the time compared to a career rate above 40%. He isn’t hitting ground balls, but while his line drive rate is slightly up, hit fly ball rate is extremely high, something that would be good if he was hitting the ball harder. Instead, it has lead to three infield flies already (an incredibly high number for a platoon bat this early in the year) and a lot of easy outs. For those wondering, his BABIP is .188, an extremely low number, but one that reflects his quality of contact as much or more than his luck.
Essentially, assuming Guyer isn’t hiding an injury, we should expect Guyer to improve just because he has been so reliable in the past. Especially since it’s so early in the season, this could simply be a sample size trick. A stretch like this in June might go unnoticed, but in April it’s obvious. If he comes back soon, it would absolutely be worth keeping the line-up regular and taking advantage of his platoon advantage against lefties. If he doesn’t, however some creativity could be necessary.
Of course, this entire discussion may be unnecessary. There have only been four games this year where Guyer played over Brantley and they were games 3, 6, 10 and 18. All were against left handed pitchers, but more importantly, they have been further and further apart. If the days off had been evenly spaced out, we might expect Guyer to continue batting third every 4.5 games, but it was more than a week between the last two and the Indians have faced eight left handed starters this year, meaning Brantley has started against five. He has hit .316/.381/.316 against them, so his days off have not been because he isn’t capable of hitting lefties, just that he is better against righties (.300/.356/.447 compared to .275/.334/.372) so if he’s going to get a day off it should come against a left hander. If the future holds Brantley getting a day off every 10 days against a lefty, playing Guyer shouldn’t be a problem.
There is, however, one other solution that would be more in line to how Kipnis getting a day off doesn’t disrupt the entire lineup because he is hitting 6th. The number three hitter should be a team’s best overall hitter and, while Brantley may deserve that distinction due to his veteran presence, he isn’t the Indians best hitter. The Indians best hitter is either Francisco Lindor or Jose Ramirez and with Lindor batting second, Ramirez would be a pretty impressive #3. He has five home runs already this season, is hitting over .300 for the second year in a row and slugging near .600. While Brantley’s OBP is slightly higher than Ramirez’s, the added power threat could make Ramirez the better option. Of course, on nearly any team in baseball Lindor, Ramirez, Brantley, Encarnacion or Santana could hit third and the team would be pretty set, so this isn’t incredibly important.
A compromise could be to bump up Ramirez to 3 only on days when Brantley sits. This wouldn’t disrupt the entire batting order (Guyer could bat 5th) and it would get the Indians top offensive player a few more at bats throughout the season. For the short run, this would likely be the best answer as it would keep Guyer out of pivotal situations while keeping him in the line-up.
For the long run, this may not even be the regular line-up. While it made sense prior to Kipnis’ return, Ramirez playing second every day also made sense. With Kipnis back and playing sporadically, it makes sense to move Ramirez back to third, but keep the line-up the same. If Kipnis hits like he has in past seasons, there’s an argument that he should be moved into the top three, possibly utilizing an order like Santana-Kipnis-Lindor-Ramirez-Encarnacion-Brantley to begin. If that were to happen, it would create a new standard that wouldn’t be an issue with an occasional day off. The consistency provided by the same line-up and rotation is a great comfort to the players and, if the Indians can continue to win without making changes, it should help keep things smooth down the line. Chances are, however, that Brantley and Kipnis will continue to play more and more regularly until they are in the lineup nearly every day and Guyer will start to produce more like he used to. If he doesn’t, having six hitters who could bat third is a lot better than not having any and the Indians will certainly make due one way or the other.
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