In The Lab: What Can the Astros Expect From Joey Loperfido?

Analysis is a tricky game and any good analyst should acknowledge as many factors as possible. We saw earlier that Dana Brown said the Astros were not done. So, any full analysis of the Jesus Sanchez for Joey Loperfido trade would have to include what the Astros do beyond that. Good analysis would also involve scouting reports and what they say about Loperfido’s future. We have experts on staff that can look at that as well. So, what we can do here is look at the available statistical information and what it has for us.

Statistics have a number of dimensions. There is the surface level dimension and that is one most fans know. What have these players done? The other dimensions look at the underlying numbers to see what is likely to have in the future. So, we will look at the underlying numbers and projections (the last dimension) in order to get a more complete picture.

We should start by acknowledging what Dana Brown did not. He said this move was not about money. I’m sure from a certain perspective that is true. The Astros will likely spend as close to the CBT as possible, so in the big picture sense they will spend the same money. The key will be in how they spend the savings from this deal. They also get five years of Loperfido versus two years of Sanchez. Loperfido still has an option left. These are all factors that have to be played in. Let’s start with the basic career stat lines. We will include the basic slash numbers (AVG/OBP/SLG) and move onto some more specific ones that can be found at Fangraphs included wRC+ and wOBA. We will look at the career numbers since it affords us the ability to include as many plate appearances as possible for Loperfido.

So, they look fairly similar when we look at the raw numbers. Loperfido is two years younger than Sanchez, so I suppose there is a reasonable bet that he will grow more than Sanchez. However, that is more of a scouting question. Their profiles as hitters look fairly similar and when you look at the fielding data, it shows that Loperfido was a plus defender in left field and a neutral one in center field. Sanchez obviously spent most of his time in right field.

Of course, the surface level only tells us so much. When we look at underlying numbers we want to look at a number of different numbers. We want to look at basic numbers like strikeout rate and walk rate. We also want to look at plate discipline numbers like chase rate. We can compare that with hard hit rates and BABIP to see what might happen if everything else is equal.

Just as a reminder, the league averages for strikeout rate and walk rate tend to be around 20 percent and eight percent respectively. The league average for chase rate tends to hover around 30 percent and the league average for BABIP tends to be around .300 (.291 for Loperfido during his time). Hard hit rates tend to hover between 30 and 35 percent.

Oof. These numbers don’t look pretty for either player really. The main differences is that Sanchez makes more contact and draws more walks. Furthermore, he has more of a history of hard contact. The long and short of it is that Loperfido has lived off of good batted ball luck in his short time at the big league level. We have learned a lot about BABIP in the intervening years. When the data was fresh 20 or 30 years ago it was assumed that it was all luck and every hitter and pitcher would eventually regress to the mean. We have learned that some hitters and pitchers can control it some by either inducing soft contact (pitchers) or maximizing hard contact (hitters). Even with that, it would be a mistake to assume that Loperfido can continue producing at that level.

The good news is that this is where scouting comes into play. When we look at minor league numbers we can see that Loperfido has improved some over his earlier days in the Astros system. He had strikeout rates of 31 and 28 percent in his two AAA seasons in Houston. He had a 21 percent rate for Toronto in AAA last season. There is a reasonable bet that he could mute some of the swing and miss that we have seen from him. Additionally, he lived with a walk rate above ten percent in the minors, so it is also a reasonable bet that that he will walk more often if given extended run.

Our last leg is the projection leg. However, we will also look at their Statcast numbers for their career as well. While these numbers come from the past, they do inform projections to a certain degree. Obviously, there are a number of projections we could fall back on. We will focus our attention on ZIPS and baseball-reference.com’s just to keep things fairly simple. Usually, these wind up at around the same. We will look purely at the basic slash numbers for Statcast, ZIPS, and baseball-reference.com.

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate drops to zero. When you build up a longer track record then the gap between what you have done and what you might do also drops to zero. In the scouting world, we would say that Sanchez has a higher floor than Loperfido. In plain English, that means this his performance is a lot more predictable. He will likely live between a .700 and .730 OPS depending on batted ball luck and how he is used. If the Blue Jays limit his exposure to lefties then he might produce on the northern end of that.

Loperfido looks to be a higher ceiling player. The projections look similar to what Sanchez has produced in his career. The considerations are similar. In limited at bats, he has a ,711 OPS against righties and a .598 OPS against lefties. He seems like an ideal platoon partner even if there is no one obvious to take those at bats against lefties as we sit. We know the Astros have some roster flexibility to shift things around.

As we said in the beginning, a full look at this deal would involve seeing what the Astros do in addition to this. They saved roughly six million dollars, so presumably they would use that for something. That something will help decide if this deal works out in their favor. The best case scenario is that he is another wild card like Zach Cole that could end up surprising us. The worst case scenario is that he isn’t as good as Sanchez. Again, it will depend on any future moves to determine whether it was a net positive.