Ronald Guzman Ruined the Yankees
Poor Stanley Hudson. Aficionados of The Office (US version) remember him as a humorless workaday grunt with too many ex-wives and a bad heart. All he wanted was to earn a living and be left alone, despite working in the craziest of environments. In many ways, he typifies the American labor experience: a lifetime of work for too little reward. But there is a very specific carrot at the end of the stick that makes everything okay for Stanley, just for one day.
I wake up every morning in a bed that’s too small, drive my daughter to a school that’s too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on Pretzel Day? Well, I like Pretzel Day.
-Stanley Hudson, The Office
No baseball player strives for a Stanley Hudson comp, but that’s exactly what we’re doing for Rangers first baseman Ronald Guzman. He didn’t have a bad rookie year necessarily, but it was disappointing nonetheless.
Guzman against the Yankees (and everyone else)
After a .372 on base percentage in triple-A in 2017, he found himself towards the front of most Rangers top prospect lists. He became the Rangers’ primary first baseman in short order in 2018, but failed to deliver on the hype. He slashed just .235/.306/.416 with a 28.3% strikeout rate.
Guzman’s 88 wRC+ over 428 plate appearances was well below the league average of 105 for first basemen. However, he did have a Pretzel Day. Here’s how he fared in five games against the Yankees:
- May 21: one home run and one hit-by-pitch in four plate appearances
- May 22: one home run, one single, and one walk in four plate appearances
- May 23: one home run and one single in four plate appearances
- August 10: three home runs in five plate appearances
- August 11: two walks in four plate appearances
In total, Guzman went 8-17 with six home runs, three walks, and a hit-by-pitch. That’s a 2.101 OPS against a team that won 100 games! His 419 wRC+ versus the Bronx Bombers was the best by one batter against one team in all of baseball this year (minimum 20 plate appearances).
The Yankees’ inability to keep Guzman in the ballpark is particularly astounding given how awful he was against the rest of the league. Except for these five games, he hit just .224/.292/.332. That .624 OPS would be the second lowest in baseball by a first baseman (minimum 400 plate appearances) behind only Chris Davis‘ .539. (If Guzman is Stanley Hudson, Davis is Toby Flenderson.)
Bregman and Trout as Jim and Pam
The next best hitters in baseball against any one team are a lot more understandable. Alex Bregman blasted the Blue Jays for a 400 wRC+, going 12-23 with four homers, six doubles, a walk, and even a stolen base. Mike Trout‘s performance against the White Sox might be even more impressive. In 33 plate appearances, he collected 12 hits, ten walks, and a pair of hit-by-pitches for a .600/.727/.1.300 slash line and 393 wRC+. He also went 4-4 on stolen base attempts. In either order, Trout and Bregman are the Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly of our story.
The Blue Jays and White Sox couldn’t get Bregman and Trout out for a very good reason: no one in baseball can get them out with any level of regularity. In fact, both players also posted the best wRC+ against a second team as well. Bregman amassed a league-best 370 wRC+ against the Twins. Trout’s 291 wRC+ torture of the Mariners was especially profound because his 82 plate appearances were the more than he accumulated against any other team.
Considering his performance against the rest of baseball, Guzman’s dominance over the Yankees makes a lot less sense. Perhaps they have a really misinformed scouting report, or just happened to hang a few breaking balls coincidentally. Maybe the wind was blowing out on August 10 at Yankee Stadium. In addition to Guzman’s three blasts, Adrian Beltre, Brett Gardner, and Austin Romine all homered that day. Whatever the reason, every time he faced the Yankees, they seemed to “give him a cookie,” as the saying goes. Although in this case maybe we should say, “gave him a pretzel.”
-Daniel R. Epstein
