The New York Mets have a few roster needs to handle this winter in advance of Opening Day in March. Even with Yasmani Grandal back on the free-agent market (before the Chicago White Sox signed him) and Brodie Van Wagenen’s reported interest in Robinson Chirinos, the general manager recently gave his current starting backstop, Wilson Ramos, a vote of confidence moving forward.
The 32-year-old catcher is preparing for his second season in Queens and has been working hard to improve his game. While the attention is mostly behind the dish — likely so Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom feel comfortable pitching to him regularly — there are always things to work on in the batter’s box. Ramos is no different in this case after taking a peek at his 2019 numbers.
When compared to the Mets’ 2018 offensive production from the catcher position, what Ramos did this past year was a substantial upgrade despite it being a step below what the organization was hoping for. However, if we look back at Ramos’ offense from 2016 and 2018 (recent years with 100-plus games played), the 105 wRC+ he posted in 2019 was clearly not on the same level (123 in ’16, 132 in ’18). And sure, he has a history of knee problems, is getting older and will be entering his age-32 campaign in a few months, but the upcoming season will also be an important one for The Buffalo’s immediate future. While it’ll be the last guaranteed season of his two-year, $19 million contract, New York holds a $10 million club option for 2021 if they feel inclined to exercise it.
One area of Ramos’ offensive game that could improve to help him return to those aforementioned levels resides in his batted-ball profile. More specifically, I’m talking about the 62.4% ground-ball rate he ended up with. Among 135 qualified hitters this past season, that ground-ball rate from Ramos was the highest in baseball. The next-closest was Eric Hosmer of the San Diego Padres with a 56.0% rate. For a guy like the veteran backstop — one with those knee problems and not much in the way of speed on the base paths — that high of a ground-ball rate limits his overall potential for success at the plate. It’s actually impressive that his wRC+ finished slightly above average with all things considered.
Ramos has been heavy on the ground balls throughout his big-league career, so this percentage being high isn’t exactly a shock. Since 2013, the backstop hasn’t finished a season with a ground-ball rate below 52.0%, with four instances climbing up above 55.0%. Even in those career seasons mentioned earlier — 2016 and 2018 — he posted rates of 54.3% and 54.9%, respectively. So it’s not as if Ramos can’t find significant success with the bat without a high ground-ball rate. That number just crept a little too high in 2019.
This development led to his second-lowest single-season line-drive rate (18.4%) since 2013 and a career-low 19.2% fly-ball rate. Combine that with a significant drop in hard-hit rate (39.1% in ’18 to 31.9% in ’19) and it’s not surprising that Ramos watched his wRC+ take a bit of a nosedive, along with his fWAR (2.2 in ’18 to 1.4 ’19).
Ramos ground-ball rate was also pretty consistent on a couple different levels. It was virtually the same between the first half (62.3%) and second half (62.5%), cresting below 60.0% for just a two-month span in July (53.8%) and August (56.2%). Among pitches he saw at least 130 times (four-seamer, sinker, slider, curveball, changeup), he failed to post a grounder rate lower than 55.4% in any instance.
A good spot to start when it comes to bouncing back a bit on offense in 2020 for Ramos would be improving his performance against the most common pitch he faced: four-seam fastballs. He posted a 199 wRC+ against that pitch in 2016 and followed with an equally-strong 181 wRC+ in 2018 before dipping down to 123 in 2019. While that’s obviously not horrible, there was a more significant difference in his power numbers against four-seamers. If we continue looking at these three seasons in particular, his ISO has gone from .317 to .300 to .138.
Considering his circumstances, is an offensive rebound of sorts on the horizon for Ramos? Since Grandal is already off the market and BVW has seemingly given his incumbent backstop some solid ground to step on for the time being, let’s hope so.
