Todd Frazier, the two-time All Star who was once one of the biggest thorns in the side of the Pirates’ playoff teams from 2013-2015, is now himself a Pirate. Well, unofficially a Pirate, at the moment. He inked a minor-league deal with a spring invite this weekend, so he still has to play his way onto the roster, but it’s safe to say the odds are very high he heads north with the club come the end of March.
He isn’t the player he once was – hence the non-guaranteed deal with the team who had the worst record in baseball last year and could very well repeat – but he’s more than just a name. Frazier brings a lot of intangibles to his new club. He is a veteran voice in the clubhouse. He has a good reputation as a teammate. Plus, he is an experienced third baseman who can keep an eye on Ke’Bryan Hayes as the Pirates’ top prospect navigates his first full season in the majors.
That’s not to say he only brings intangibles. The Pirates needed another player on the roster who can play first base. He provides the bench with some right-handed pop. Sure, there’s the argument that the spot should go to someone like Will Craig instead, but a team can’t just be younger players and prospects. There does need to be some veteran voices.
But remember that part I mentioned back in the lede about how this is just a minor-league deal? There’s a good reason for that. As a hitter, Frazier slumped like he had never slumped before in 2020:
FanGraphs
Frazier’s .684 OPS was the worst of his career, but it was just the second time in his 10 seasons in the majors that he had posted below league-average results. (Though to be fair, he has not had the same level of success since the Reds traded him after the 2015 season). The man who once hit 35 and 40 home runs in back-to-back seasons went deep just four times in 2020. In the first nine years of his career, he averaged a home run once ever 22.1 plate appearances. Last year, it took him almost twice as many trips to the plate to go yard, doing so just once every 43 plate appearances.
The batted ball data isn’t that encouraging either. Here is where Baseball Savant tracked the quality of his contact:
Baseball Savant
Frazier has been able to outperform his peripherals throughout most of his career – good home run totals can make up for a middling OBP and high strikeout rate – but the peripherals were never this bad. In 2018, his average exit velocity (89.6 mph) ranked in the top-third in baseball. Last season, it dropped to an average of 87.8 mph, which is now in the bottom-third. Yes, 2018 was the other year Frazier posted below average results, but the better batted ball data suggested that 2019 could be a rebound year for him. It was.
Looking at how Frazier hit the ball last year, there’s a pretty easy trend to spot. He’s hitting fastballs as hard as he ever has. The problem is he isn’t squaring up the offspeed and breaking stuff:
For reference, last year, the average exit velocity league-wide on fastballs was 89.5 mph, 86.1 mph against breaking pitches and 95.4 mph against offspeed pitches.
Results wise, Frazier had fairly average numbers against fastballs (.270 batting average, .438 slugging), but the fact that he was still tagging them is encouraging. If the season had been longer than 60 games, then it stands to reason he could have started to post better results against fastballs and boosted his season stats to roughly what they had been the past few years.
That is, assuming, he would have swung at more fastballs. One more chart, this time breaking down how often Frazier swung at each type of pitch:
In summary, Frazier hit fastballs the best, but swung at them the least. A 42.8% swing rate against heaters is in line with what he had done the past few years, but he went after more offspeed and breaking pitches too, including more out of the zone. As a result, his walk rate dropped to 6.4%, the worst it had been since his first promotion to the majors in 2011. Some of this can probably be chalked up to the small 2020 sample size, or maybe it could be chalked up to him pressing a bit to try to get his season stats up, knowing every at-bat is even more valuable. Either way, this was a hamper for him last year.
So what does Frazier bring to the Pirates’ offense? He would probably be better off getting most of his at-bats against southpaws going forward so he sees fewer breaking pitches. Just focus on the fastball, offspeed combo. He’s posted some great results against lefties the last two years, recording a .913 OPS in 2019 and .842 in 2020. Of course that greatly outpaced his batted ball projections, but as previously stated, Frazier has a knack for outperforming his estimated stats.
The Pirates should be hesitant to make it a true platoon with Colin Moran at first, though. Moran didn’t hit lefties well last year, but the consistency of being an everyday player helped him turn in a fine season at the plate overall. Yes, he’ll need days off, and those should definitely come against left-handed starters. But between Hayes at third and Moran at first, it looks like Frazier is going to be a bench player. That’s going to be new for him.
Frazier’s best days are behind him, but there is still some good baseball left in the tank. We could dive into how a deadened ball could impact his home run rate, or how PNC Park is cruel to right-handed power hitters, but Frazier still excels at one thing offensively. He can still hit the fastball. If he can cut back on the bad swings against the secondary stuff and just go fastball hunting, then he could have a 2019-style bounce back, albeit in a more limited capacity.