Diamondbacks 2022 Season Player Reviews: Jordan Luplow

A down season raises doubts for 2023

© Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Status: Arbitration 1, $1,400,000

Note: WAR is the average of Baseball Reference and Fangraphs WAR / Jack Sommers

2022 Diamondbacks Season Reviews

Season Review

Jordan Luplow was taken in the 3rd round of the 2014 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Fresno, CA native made his debut with that organization in 2017, and got into 64 games over parts of two seasons between 2017-18, but batted just .194 with a .644 OPS. Traded to the Cleveland Indians for the 2019 season, Luplow had a breakout season, batting .276/.372/.551, .923 OPS with 15 home runs in 261 plate appearances. That season established him as a right handed platoon threat, to be used mainly against left hand pitching. 

He struggled in 2020 and 2021 with low batting average and OBP for Cleveland however, and was traded once again to the Tampa Bay Rays for their stretch run, where he performed well, posting a .796 OPS in 25 games. He was traded again November 18, 2021 to the Diamondbacks in exchange for second baseman Ronny Simon. 

Brought in to provide right handed balance to the predominantly left handed Diamondbacks lineup, Luplow suffered an oblique injury in spring training and was put on the IL to start the season. He made his Diamondbacks debut on April 25th, and went 1-11 for the rest of the month.  A two homer game on May 1st kicked off a hot streak however. From May 1 to May 11 he went 7-22 with four homers to raise his batting average to .242 and OPS to .916. That was the peak of his season unfortunately. He went 3-32 with two homers for the rest of May, dropping his season batting average to .169 and OPS to .701. The lone highlight in that stretch came on May 24th, when he smashed a pinch hit three run homer against the Royals in a come from behind 8-6 Diamondbacks victory.  

Luplow's batting average never got back over .200 for the rest of the season. By August 26th he was batting just .163 with a .261 OBP, and had become almost an automatic out. By that point he was being used sparingly, especially with the emergence of Stone Garrett, a right handed hitting outfielder that made his major league debut with a bang on August 17th. As a result, the team optioned Luplow to AAA Reno on August 27th to see if he could get his season turned around with some regular at bats. 

That seemed to work. Luplow went to Reno, and after admittedly on his part a rough couple of days accepting the reality of the demotion, he went to work starting on August 31, smashing six homers and batting .289 in 10 games. One of those games was a three homer game. 

Recalled on September 12th, Manager Torey Lovullo said that Luplow would get all of the remaining starts against left hand pitchers. Luplow struggled once again however, failing to get even one extra base hit over the remainder of the season. He ended up splitting the right hand outfield at bats with Stone Garrett, who was also struggling at that point as well. Luplow's final batting average of .176 was the worst of his career.

Defense

To his credit, Luplow never took his problems at the plate to the outfield. He played solid corner outfield defense the entire year registering +2 defensive runs saved and also rating as having the strongest outfield arm on the team according to Statcast. That showed up in the results as he registered 7 outfield assists in just over 400 innings played. 

2023 Outlook

Luplow will be entering his second year of arbitration and is estimated to receive a salary of approximately $2,000,000. When he was recalled to the team in September both he and Garrett were being evaluated to see if either could be a part of the 2023 club, providing right handed pop off the bench and balance to the all left handed hitting outfield. It's pretty clear from the results and the general manager's comments that he failed that evaluation. Mike Hazen indicated the team will be looking for more right handed hitting balance. Since they already have right handed hitting first and third basemen, switch hitters at shortstop and second base, and a returning right handed bat in Nick Ahmed, Hazen was clearly talking about the outfield. 

While Luplow's career split against left handed pitching looks decent, a closer examination reveals that he did almost all the damage in his career year of 2019. Over the last two years he has actually hit left handers very poorly. 

Jordan Luplow career vs. left handed pitchers / Baseball Reference

Luplow has become a potential non tender candidate. A decision on whether to tender him a contract for 2023 will need to be made no later than November 18th. (See Key offseason dates article). Luplow's status with the club has been brought into doubt by his down season.