Solarte’s quiet regression becoming more pronounced in second half

TORONTO — For the first month or two of the season, Yangervis Solarte looked like a steal.

Of all the depth pieces added — from Grichuk to Diaz and Granderson and beyond — Solarte was going to be the one piece who stepped beyond “depth” and became an above-average starter for the Blue Jays.

Nine home runs in Solarte’s first 30 games put him halfway to his career high on May 4, and his positional versatility kept the Blue Jays infield afloat as it dealt with injuries. Then something changed, and Solarte began to regress into what he is now: A player whose -0.4 WAR ranks him dead last among Blue Jays position players.

Solarte enters Sunday’s finale in Oakland hitting .233 with a .688 OPS, and off the top, some of that can be attributed to terrible batted-ball luck. Solarte’s BABIP in 2018 sits at .237, which is abnormally low, and he’s hitting the ball harder than he did in 2017. His ground ball and fly ball rates have all stayed normal, too, so there hasn’t been a colossal shift in the types of balls that Solarte is putting in play.

If anything, he’s chasing a bit more and swinging a bit more.

May and June were passable months for Solarte, despite on-base percentages below .300, but things have really fallen apart since the beginning of July. In the 27 games since, then, Solarte has hit just .163 with a .450 OPS.

Solarte brings value in terms of defensive versatility, but being playable at multiple positions doesn’t necessarily mean that he excels at those positions. He’s been worth -11 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved) according to FanGraphs.

On the bases, Solarte rates very poorly. Statcast tracks Solarte as the 3rd-slowest third baseman in Major League Baseball with an average sprint speed of 24.9 feet-per-second. Out of 495 players measured across the league, Solarte ranks 452.

FanGraphs also measures player’s overall base running value with a stat called BsR. Solarte enters Sunday with a -6.7 BsR, which is the second-lowest in Major League Baseball behind only Justin Smoak. There isn’t much first-to-third baseball happening in the middle of the Blue Jays lineup.

Jogging out ground balls that could be run out surely doesn’t help the matter.

Toronto’s infield became a little less crowded when Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit the disabled list, but Solarte is still overlapping with Brandon Drury. Josh Donaldson will eventually be part of that, too, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. eight months from now. If fatigue is a factor, then this could all return Solarte to a role where he’s most valuable.

Solarte may not be a 150-game starter on a contender, but he’s much better than a backup. Toronto still has two years of team control left with options of $5.5 million in 2019 and $8.0 million in 2020, so it’s still likely that Solarte is part of the Blue Jays oft-stated goal of building as much depth as humanly possible.

As the 2018 season has shown, though, that depth looks much better when it can play a supporting role behind star players.

Photo by: Keith Allison