San Diego Padres: Jurickson Profar better come ready to compete in Spring Training

What happened in 2019?

His strikeout and walk rates were nearly identical from 2018 to 2019, so the only glaring difference is that BABIP.

He hit groundballs, flyballs, and line drives at nearly the same rate in those two seasons.

Profar did pull the ball almost 10 percent more of the time hitting it to the pull side almost 50 percent of the time in 2019.

But his soft, medium, and hard-hit percentages were pretty much the same from 2018 to 2019.

His outside the zone swing percentage (O-Swing %) did drop a little bit, but so did his outside the zone contact percentage (O-Contact %). And the drop for both wasn’t that drastic.

Meanwhile, his inside the zone swinging percentage (Z-Swing %) and inside the zone contact percentage (Z-Contact %) are basically identical in the two seasons.

One thing that hasn’t been talked about enough is that his defense at second base was not great last year. He posted a -10 DRS and -1 UZR in just over 1,000 innings at second base — the most at the position in a season in his career.

The best position for him — by the numbers — are actually first base and left field, which is interesting.

Profar, a switch-hitter, could also become a platoon option with Eric Hosmer at first base — as could Wil Myers.

He actually hit over .300 against left-handed pitchers last year as a right-handed hitter.

Is it Projar’s job to lose?

I definitely think going into Spring Training that the second base job is Jurickson Profar’s to lose.

They didn’t trade for him and pay him that much to not at least let him start the season as the team’s primary second baseman. So unless he gets injured or falls flat on his face this Spring, the job is his.

But he’s not getting paid enough that his leash won’t be short. If any of those others players I mentioned show out in Spring and do well when they get the chance to start the season, and Profar doesn’t perform, we’ll get a change at second rather quickly.

Another thing to keep in mind as I briefly touched on in the last slide, is that Profar can play a lot of different positions.

And really, a lot of the Padres’ players have the ability to play multiple positions.

Manager Jayce Tingler has a lot of options to make sure he keeps the hottest bats in the lineup every day.

If Hosmer is struggling and Profar and Cronenworth are hot, then you put Profar at first and Cronenworth at second.

This team has a lot of versatility going into 2020, which is great.

But going back to Profar, when you compare the numbers from 2018 to 2019 it really just does come down to luck. Again, the BABIP is really the only difference from those two seasons.

You have to safely figure that BABIP will go back up and his numbers will go back his career norms, which is a .240/.320 guy with 15-20 home runs, an OPS around. 700, and 2 WAR.

Those still aren’t numbers to get all excited about, but it’s a very solid season for someone hitting down in your lineup.