The Case Against another Contract for Jose Iglesias

---

Anyone in Reds Country who eats breakfast in a small diner or listens to the team’s radio and television broadcast already knows the case for signing shortstop Jose Iglesias to another contract.

Iglesias has hit well this year, especially in clutch situations. His batting average is near .300. He leads the known (meaning the part with TrackMan radar) universe in hits with an 0-2 count. He’s terrific on defense. The Reds don’t have an alternative.

In those diners, after a certain amount of coffee has been consumed at the next table, you’ll overhear — does it even count as overhearing if a guy at one table is shouting it at a guy at another table? — that Jose Iglesias is the “heart and soul” of the team.

A consensus seems to be forming that the Reds front office has to pony up for an extension contract to Iglesias. But before checks get signed, let’s dig a little bit and see if there’s another side.

Background

In 2008 at the age of 18, Jose Iglesias defected from Cuba to play baseball in the United States. Iglesias played for the Boston Red Sox, debuting briefly in 2011, and the Detroit Tigers. In 2013, he finished second in A.L. Rookie of the Year voting and made the All-Star team as a back-up in 2015.

Iglesias missed the entire 2014 season with stress fractures in both shins. (It was during that lost season the Tigers played a 22-year-old rookie shortstop named Eugenio Suarez to sub for Iglesias in 85 games. Suarez batted .242/.316/.336 with 4 home runs. The following off-season, Suarez and pitching prospect Jonathan Crawford were traded to Cincinnati for Alfredo Simon to clear Reds payroll.)

In 2018, his final season in Detroit, Iglesias and the Tigers agreed to a $6.275 million contract, avoiding arbitration. It was also that summer Iglesias became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Iglesias finished the 2018 season on the DL with an abdominal strain. The Tigers decided not to offer him a contract in his final year of arbitration so Iglesias became a free agent. In late February 2019, the Reds signed Iglesias to a minor league contract and agreed to pay him $2.5 million if he made the big league roster out of Goodyear. Iglesias was to be a backup at shortstop for Jose Peraza.

Jose Igleasis, who will turn 30 in January, becomes a free agent again at the end of 2019.

Basics

Jose Iglesias has hit .295/.324/.423 this year. That’s an wRC+ of 89. That means he’s 11% below average in run production.

Batting Average: Iglesias’ batting average of .295 is excellent. It ranks #39 of 277 major league players with at least 250 plate appearances. About 20 points of it is due to luck/defense because his xBA is .274. xBA is the batting average the hitter would have assuming neutral luck and defense. .274 xBA is still good. League average xBA is .247.  It ranks #61 out of 277 hitters with at least 250 plate appearances.

Walks: Iglesias is one of the worst players in baseball at drawing walks. His rate of 3.6% walk-rate puts him #270 out of #277 batters. He went from June 11 to July 27 without a walk. You can say “well, just walks” but walks produce runs by advancing runners already on base and by putting runners on base to be driven in. A walk isn’t worth as much as a single (unless bases are empty), but it’s sure worth much more than making an out. In 2019, walks have a run expectancy of .690 while singles have one of .869. Walks matter in run production, we know how much, and that weight factors into wOBA and xwOBA.

Power: Iglesias has an isolated power (ISO) of .128. League average is .184 and .177 for shortstops. Iglesias has increased his ISO over the past few seasons. He had 2 home runs in 454 plate appearances in 2015. Much of that is league run environment. His .128 ISO is 68% of league average in 2019, while his .120 ISO was 72% of league average in 2018. Either way, he’s well below average in power.

Defense: Iglesias remains an excellent shortstop. Based on available defensive metrics (DRS, UZR/150) his performance in the field remains rock solid and elite.

Overall value: FanGraphs (1.6 WAR) and Baseball-Reference (1.7 WAR) are close to agreement on Iglesias’ WAR value. That puts him as the #23 rated shortstop out of 25 who are qualified hitters. Freddy Galvis is #18.

Problems

Swing discipline: Jose Iglesias is a real swinger. His “chase rate” (swings at pitches outside the strike zone) has increased from 38% to 46% this season. That’s almost half the pitches out of the zone. That’s the 5th worst rate out of 277 major league hitters. You cannot sustain good offensive production swinging at so many pitches outside the strike zone. Iglesias has increased his swing-rate overall from 47% to 55%. He’s swinging at more pitches inside the zone as well. Many batters raise their swing rate later in their career to compensate for declining bat speed. This is a huge red flag for Iglesias.

Soft hitting: A filter set at 200 balls in play produces 234 major league batters, which is about 8 per team. Iglesias hits with an average exit velocity of 84.6 mph, which ranks him #224 out of those 234. He’s lower than Jose Peraza in this category. In balls hit at an exit velocity of 95 mph or above, Iglesias is at 25.7% — about a quarter — and that ranks at #218 out of 234. He’s #227 in average batted ball distance and #217 in average home run distance.

Overall run production: League average wOBA — basically hits plus walks weighted for run production — is .325. Jose Iglesias has a wOBA of .317. So he’s below average, but not a lot below. If you adjust for defense and luck (xwOBA), he drops to .291. Iglesias has benefitted from where his balls have landed and how the defense has played him.

What About His 0-2 Hits?

Here’s where we get to lousy media narratives. Jose Iglesias has 23 hits with an 0-2 count. 19 singles and 4 doubles. This phenomenon is portrayed in certain places as a Jose Iglesias superpower and gets amplified in area restaurants.

I call this a media narrative because I doubt a single fan would have kept track of or noticed how many hits Jose Iglesias has on an 0-2 count if it were not repeated by the local radio and television broadcast every night. It’s a meaningless, misleading stats that seems to reveal something important but is really the opposite. Yet it’s catnip to broadcasters.

Peraza’s batting line when his plate appearances get resolved one way or another on 0-2 counts is .359/.358/.422. That’s an astonishing accomplishment considering the entire league is batting .254/.323/.437 overall on all counts.

But a second, or even a half-second, of reflection would reveal it signifies absolutely nothing.

If Iglesias possesses a particular **repeatable** skill, why does he only use it on 0-2 counts?

Remember, he’s hitting a below average .295/.324/.423 overall this year.

Further, if it’s a superpower, it’s one that Iglesias kept hidden until this season. Here is his 0-2 count production from recent seasons:

• .359/.358/.422 (2019)
• .206/.206/.270 (2018)
• .188/.188/.234 (2017)
• .167/.182/.272 (2016)

The reason Iglesias has so many more hits with an 0-2 count than any other batter is that he SWINGS at pretty much every 0-2 pitch he sees. Most batters, for good reason, expect a waste pitch on an 0-2 count and take it. This chart shows swing percentages for the league on an 0-2 count:

Notice the variety of swing rates inside and outside the strike zone. Many sub-zones are below 20% as you get further away from the plate. Here is the same chart for Jose Iglesias on 0-2 pitches:

The bright red zones are 100% swing rates. The black boxes mean no pitches yet in that zone. Note that almost every box is bright red. Even boxes more than a foot outside the zone are 100% swing areas for Iglesias. It’s no wonder he has so many hits on 0-2 counts. While other batters are trying to work their way into a better count, Iglesias is hacking. He doesn’t have a single plate appearance where an 0-2 count turns into a walk.

Iglesias has a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .479 on 0-2 counts. His career BABIP for all hits is .304. That’s not a repeatable, sustainable skill to rely on going forward.  It’s obvious that Iglesias has simply had a run of amazingly good luck on 0-2 counts this year. Only a fool would see his hit number and use that as a basis for arguing to keep Iglesias around for future years.

Conclusion

Jose Iglesias has had a solid season. He stepped in at SS when Jose Peraza struggled at the start of 2019 and continues to give the Reds excellent defense. Maybe plus defense and a decent batting average are enough to warrant a callback.

But there are plenty of red flags for Iglesias: skyrocketing chase and swing rate, extremely soft hitting, crossing the 30-year threshold and lack of superpower.

Any decision on a future contract should be framed by these principles:

(1) Don’t fall in love with things that are right in front of you;

(2) Don’t overpay for production that is unlikely to be repeated, or a case that falls apart on close inspection;

(3) Don’t assume the only available shortstops are in the organization or free agents;

(4) Don’t overpay for middle infielders in their 30s, the aging curve is steep.

Coming off a 2018 season that was better overall than his 2019, the Tigers wouldn’t pay Iglesias the $9 million or so the shortstop would have been awarded in his final year of arbitration. As a free agent, no club would sign Iglesias as a major league player. Most teams have established shortstops. As it was, Iglesias had to take a large pay cut to play for the Reds.

Iglesias isn’t going to give the Reds a hometown discount a month away from free agency. The decision whether to offer another contract to Jose Iglesias ultimately depends on the terms. Another soft free agent market and he might sign for a short period (1-2 years?) and low enough salary ($6 million?) that it makes sense for the Reds to consider it.

Instead, the Reds should look to fix their shortstop problem long term with a trade.

[Featured image: https://twitter.com/Reds/status/1152717551597740033]