Esteury Ruiz Could Make A's Baseball Fun in 2023

Acquired in the Sean Murphy deal over the off-season, Esteury Ruiz had himself an eye-opening spring

When the A's acquired Esteury Ruiz as arguably the main piece of the Sean Murphy three-team swap, analysts weren't sold on Ruiz, even though his minor league stats were stellar. The reason they were concerned is that his exit velocities weren't just bad, they were awful. 

In the minors last season, Ruiz played in 114 games and hit .332 with a .447 OBP, slugged 16 homers, and swiped 85 bags. That stat line, if replicated, would make Ruiz a star. In the Majors, however, he hit just .171 with a .194 on-base, stole one bag, and was caught twice in 17 games (36 plate appearances). 

Those early struggles in the majors, coupled with an average exit velocity of 73, and a max exit velo of 100.2 provided plenty of fodder for skeptics. That 100.2 ranked 645th out of 685 players that hit at least one ball in 2022. 

Part of the reason that his exit velocity was so low could be the small sample size, coupled with a bunt attempt here or there. One of his six hits was a bunt single against the Mets. With him only getting 36 plate appearances, it's hard to build any sort of definitive case one way or another about Ruiz's game translating to the Majors. 

On Monday night, with veteran MLB starter Ross Stripling on the mound for the San Francisco Giants, Ruiz hit his second home run of the spring, and it had an exit velocity of 109.4. One swing of the bat like that in the regular season would have seen him ranked more than 300 spots higher, and in the 54th percentile in max exit velocity a season ago. 

In fact, all three of the balls he hit on Monday night were well above his average exit velocity from a year ago. He hit a sac-fly in the second that left the bat at 86.2, grounded into a force-out at 92.1, and then he hit that home run. That's an average exit velocity of 95.9 mph for the night, and more than 20 mph higher than his total from a year ago. He also had a fly out on Sunday in Oakland that left the bat at 100 mph.

Obviously this is another small sample size that we're working with, but we haven't had access to spring game's Statcast data for much of the spring. 

Exit velocities don't seem to be an issue. One thing that could give him some trouble is his launch angle, however. Sunday's fly out, and Monday's home run each left the bat at a 38 degree launch angle, while the sac-fly had a 34 degree angle. Those launches are a little too steep to be optimal, unless Ruiz keeps crushing the baseball. 

Over at Baseball Savant, they have a handy tool that you can play around with to see what the league stats are for different exit velocity/launch angle combos. If he hit one 95 mph with a 38 degree launch angle, then that's most likely an out. In the photo below you'll see that those balls have an expected batting average of just .073 and a home run rate of just 4.8%. 

The same launch angle, hit five miles per hour harder, provides better results. 

A .224 average with a 20.9% chance of a home run is an improvement, but it's still a little reliant on where the game is being played and where the ball was hit at that ballpark. 

Sitting with a 100 mph exit velocity, but lowering the launch angle to 25 degrees produces results more often than not. 

That's a .620 average with a 28.4% chance for a home run. Still not the best in terms of unlocking his power, but with his speed, any ball hit to the outfield like this should result in extra bases. If Esteury Ruiz is an extra-base hitting machine, that's just one less bag that he has to steal in order to score. 

This spring Ruiz ended up going 15-for-46 (.326) with a .411 on-base, two homers, two doubles, six steals, and just one caught stealing. Most importantly, he walked seven times but only struck out on four occasions. 

There will be some ups and downs for Ruiz in his first full season in the big leagues, but at just 24 years old, Ruiz has the tools to make A's baseball exciting in 2023.