The glove continues to ascend, the bat continues to descend
It was a tale of two sides of the ball for Guardians’ second baseman Andres Gimenez in 2024, as he again turned in a lackluster season as a hitter and a platinum-glove winning performance as a fielder.
Over the past three seasons, Gimenez has gone from 141 wRC+ (2022), to 97 wRC+ (2023), to 84 wRC+ (2024), and from 12/16 Outs Above Average/Defensive Runs Saved (2022), to 18/23 OAA/DRS (2023), to 20/19 (DRS/OAA). Gimenez continues to be an absolute weapon at second base easily clearing his closest competitor in DRS since 2022 by 22 defensive runs saved and in OAA by 9 outs above average. Yet, among qualified hitters at second base, he is 18th in wRC+ since the beginning of 2023 at 90. He is still an above average major league player with 6.6 fWAR (2.5 fWAR in a season being the average for a ML starter), but he’s flirting with that line of mediocrity because of how bad his bat has been.
So, what’s the problem? We can spend the offseason doing some deep dives on this question, but for a quick summary, Gimenez’s strikeout rate has lowered along with his walk rate from his marks in 2022 of 20.1/6.1 K/BB% to 16.7/4.6 K/BB% in 2023-2024. He was also hit by 25 pitches in 2022 but has averaged “only” 17.5 plunks over the past two seasons. His increase in number of stolen bases (30 in each of the past two seasons compared to 20 in 2022) hasn’t quite been enough to outweigh the reduction in number of times he has been on base.
His 37% hard-hit rate via StatCast in 2022 has declined by 10 percentage points over the past two years, and his barrel rate, in particular, took a dive in 2024 going from 6% in 2022-2023 to 2.8%. In 2024, his groundball rate increased by about 5% over the previous two seasons and his flyball rate dropped by about 6% in the same time comparisons.
Gimenez’s plate discipline numbers look similar over all three seasons, interestingly enough, with the main notable factor being that he has seen an 8% decline in the number of fastballs he sees (from 2022) and about a 5% increase in number of sliders, a pitch against which he has struggled significantly over the past two seasons.
I think it’s unlikely that we will see another 2022 or 2024 seasons from Gimenez. I think he is very likely the hitter we saw in 2023 who hit right around league average. A slight increase in BABIP, a bit more luck in being able to be hit by pitches and a resumption to his 2022-2023 average launch angle of 12 (compared to 8.6 in 2024) should account for his 2024 decline at the plate. In the cages this offseason, Gimenez needs to be seeing a lot of sliders to help with his recognition of the pitch and ability to hit it, and on putting a little more lift into his swing. Attempting to lift the ball and to ambush more of the 63% first pitches he sees for strikes may increase his strikeout rate, but the Guardians would gladly make that trade to find the .050 of ISO he lost in 2024.
Gimenez JUST turned 26 years old and player peak is 27 years old. He still has the ability to add a little more muscle and to find a way to put the barrel on the ball more often. And, the good news is, if he can be even his 2023 self and maintain his defensive prowess, he is a 4 fWAR player. IF the team moves Gimenez to shortstop to make way for Bazzana (where his numbers in the big leagues in limited opportunites looked even better than they have at second, for what it’s worth), a league average season at the plate and a similar defensive performance as he has turned in at second base (both assumptions, I know) would put him at around 4.5 fWAR (as exhibited by Dansby Swanson in 2023). THAT player is someone the Guardians would not at all mind owing the roughly $87 million left on his contract. For the player he was in 2024, however… it’s definitely more of a stretch.
Will the Guardians’ move Gimenez from second base? I’m sure there will be a healthy debate about that in the comments beneath this article. There are more defensive chances at second base but the degree of difficulty on defensive chances at shortstop is greater. It’s understandable why the team hasn’t asked Gimenez to move because when you have a defensive god at one position, why would you mess with that? However, I do think the calculus changes with Travis Bazzana, number one pick from 2024’s MLB draft, in house. Bazzana’s best position is going to be second-base. Maybe the team asks him to move to centerfield. Sure, that could happen. But, wouldn’t it make more sense to leave your most talented minor-league asset as his natural position and move your best fielder back to his natural position? Going by what simply makes the most natural sense, I suspect we will see Gimenez move to shortstop either this offseason, midseason next year, or following this offseason. I am not moved by Brayan Rocchio’s excellent defensive season at shortstop or playoff heroics in terms of this conversation. Rocchio looks like he will have a long and successful major league career, and I hope it’s here, but I think he would be a good second baseman, as well, if moved and I don’t think he will stand in Bazzana’s way.
That’s where I stand on the subject; now we will see what the Guardians think. In the meantime, I have to say that I really enjoyed watching Andres Gimenez play baseball in 2024. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that he is the BEST relay throw guy in baseball. He’s just so good at everything defensively.
I was telling my friend Matt that people saying they don’t enjoy watching Juan Soto bat remind me of people who say the Grand Canyon is “just a hole in the ground.” Soto is a masterpiece, a wonder of the world, a work of art at the plate; just as much so is Andres Gimenez in the field. I think, if the Guardians play in the starting pitcher free agent market, we may see them employ the strategy of “find a groundball heavy pitcher who isn’t valued as highly as other guys with higher strikeout rates and save money while getting high value because those groundballs are gonna get eaten up by our middle infield especially Andres” and that is a big deal to a club always trying to find value at the margins. I’m sure we’ll see speculation about Gimenez getting traded because that happens with any valuable Cleveland player, but I expect to see him in a Guardians uniform for years to come.
With that said, here’s a little trip down memory lane for some of Gimenez’s best moments of 2024: