Not too long ago, we were observing how locked in Wilson Ramos was at the plate for the New York Mets. Fast-forward to a month later and his offensive stats quite a bit different, and not in a good way.
Among qualified hitters, Ramos’ 60 wRC+ is one of the 20 lowest, while his -0.5 fWAR is among the 10 worst. The comparisons don’t get any better when we specifically look at catchers, either — he’s easily the worst in both of those categories by a rather wide margin.
One of the things that immediately jumps out with regard to Ramos’ struggles is a lack of power. He’s not an elite home-run hitter, but this is a guy who has slugged at least 11 dingers in seven of his last eight seasons, along with posting an ISO above .180 in each of the last three. Through 122 plate appearances with the Mets, the backstop has just four extra-base hits (three doubles, one homer) and a .055 ISO.
Too Many Ground Balls
It’s not hard to find a potential culprit when it comes to Ramos’ disappearing power — his ground-ball rate is just obscenely high right now. His 63.2% ground-ball rate is easily the worst in baseball by a comfy margin when looking at qualified hitters. And while his hard-hit rate on ground balls is once again around a single-season career-high level, it’s only 29.1%, which he’s paired with a 27.3% soft-hit rate.
On the other end of the spectrum, Ramos’ 17.2% fly-ball rate is also the worst in baseball by a handful of percentage points. Due to the fact that he’s putting the ball in the air less frequently than ever before, it’s important for him to maximize the pitches he does elevate. His 46.7% hard-hit rate for this batted-ball event is in line with career norms (45.1% career rate), but his 20.0% soft-hit rate is much worse (14.4% career rate).
He’s also produced a 13.3% infield-fly rate, which is on pace to be a career-worst mark for a single season.
But That’s Not Incredibly Out of Character
This rise in ground balls is concerning, but Ramos has always been a ground-ball-heavy kind of hitter. Here’s a look at how his batted-ball profile compares from year to year since 2016, his breakout campaign in which he hit a career-high 22 homers.
| Year | LD% | GB% | FB% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 20.4% | 54.3% | 25.3% | 35.4% |
| 2017 | 17.7% | 52.0% | 30.3% | 33.1% |
| 2018 | 20.4% | 54.9% | 24.7% | 39.1% |
| 2019 | 19.5% | 63.2% | 17.2% | 35.6% |
This noticeable rise in grounders actually started in the second half last season. After posting a 52.6% ground-ball rate with a 42.2% hard-hit rate prior to the All-Star break, those numbers both worsened to 62.5% and 29.2%, respectively, after the midsummer classic. Ramos posted a better wRC+ in the second half (136) than he did in the first half (130) because of a jump in BABIP (.335 to .408).
But the power still wasn’t there. Ramos collected 28 extra-base hits in the first half, splitting that evenly with 14 doubles and 14 homers. In the second half, he collected just 10 total extra-base hits (eight doubles, one triple, and one homer).
Ramos isn’t going to be among the league leaders in dingers, However, for a guy who has shown some consistent pop throughout his career, it’s a bit concerning that he’s slugged just two home runs over his last 223 plate appearances.
Those Fastballs, Though
The Mets’ veteran catcher has seen more fastballs this year than he did in 2018, and the results haven’t been pretty. Four-seamers and sinkers have been two of the most frequently used pitches against Ramos in 2019. He’s posted wRC+ numbers of just 72 and 48, respectively, against them. For context, he posted a 179 wRC+ against four-seamers and a 107 wRC+ against sinkers last season.
This is also where he’s seen the most dramatic rises in ground-ball rate. When facing four-seamers, Ramos is putting balls on the ground at a 60.0% clip, which is nearly 10 percentage points higher than what he did last season. When looking specifically at sinkers, that ground-ball rate goes all the way up to 83.3%, which is approximately a 16-percentage-point increase from last year’s season-long total.
When Ramos gets himself right at the plate, we probably won’t see a huge decrease in ground balls over an extended period of time because that’s not the kind of big-league hitter he is. If he’s going to get back to normal, though, he needs to get more aggressive in the strike zone against fastballs. That’ll allow him to do as much damage as possible considering the circumstances.
With all the injury issues New York has had with its backstops over the years, already having Ramos suit up for 34 games this early in the year is an accomplishment. Now they just need to help him get that bat jumpstarted and back to normal to reap the benefits of him consistently getting on the field.
