Breaking down Gino Groover's lack of power in the Arizona Fall League
Taking a look at some of the batted ball data from Diamondbacks prospect Gino Groover, who has just one extra-base hit in the Arizona Fall League.
Diamondbacks prospect Gino Groover is hitting fairly well in the Arizona Fall League, hitting .362 in 12 games. Despite the fact he seems to be hitting well from a batting average standpoint, there is only one extra-base hit in 53 plate appearances. That came on Wednesday on a well-placed ground ball (73.6 MPH exit velocity) hit just inside the first base bag for a double.
So the question becomes is it a case of not consistently making the type of contact necessary or is a case of bad luck? Unfortunately, there are only 7 games with Statcast batted ball data. That only covers 29 of his 53 PA, but amazingly enough the rate stats are fairly even.
In those 7 games, there are 21 batted balls that have been tracked. Here’s how they break down in terms of the typical Statcast data profile.
9 (42.9%) have an exit velocity of at least 95 MPH, what Statcast defines as a hard-hit batted ball. The MLB average is 40.4%.
9 (42.9%) are in the launch angle sweet spot range of 8-32°, the MLB average is 33.2%.
So there’s clearly a case where he’s able to hit the ball hard and hit it in the right launch angles fairly well, which explains the .362 batting average. However, I’m not too particularly worried about his ability to hit. I project a 60 grade hit tool for him long term due to his ability to not only make contact at a high rate, but also get the barrel to the ball.
So we go back to the lack of extra-base hits. Of his 22 batted balls, only two would register as barrels (9.5%). Statcast defines a barrel as a batted ball with at least a .500 expected batting average and 1.500 expected slugging percentage. On such contact, he’s 0-for-2 with two flyouts to the wall both times. Both batted balls are a bit of bad luck, run down by two very athletic center fielders in Zyhir Hope and Andrew Pintar.
In addition to some poor fortune, the one hit on Wednesday chased Pintar to the fence, he hasn’t necessarily been driving the balls hit in the air. 12 of the 21 batted balls (57.1%) are classified as a fly ball or a line drive type contact. On such contact, he has an average exit velocity of 93.1 MPH. That figure is right around the middle of the pack for major league hitters.
When he has hit the ball hard, only two of them have a launch angle higher than 16°. So it’s pretty clear he’s having trouble getting hard-hit contact at the right launch angles despite doing well in both areas exclusively in the fall league.
The problem becomes what to project of his power ceiling. Groover is a corner infielder, typically a position that teams are hoping to get more offense from, the question is first or third base. This post isn’t about Groover's ability to play the hot corner, which is still somewhat in doubt due to the fact I haven’t seen too many difficult chances, but if he has to move to first then he needs to provide more bat. Per 1350 innings played in the field, the difference between a starting 1B (-9.5) and 3B (+2) is 11.5 runs according to Baseball Reference.
In order for him to maintain the same value, the 11.5 run difference will have to be made up from other areas. Defense is unlikely to be one of them. Unless his defense is to the level of peak Paul Goldschmidt or Christian Walker, who have won 5 of the last 11 Gold Glove awards at first, the possibility of having a positive dWAR is next to impossible. So the difference will almost have to come from the bat.
It’s worth noting that the sample size is very small. 21 batted balls is hardly enough to evaluate a hitter’s true talent. Groover is known for being able to cover the strike zone and get the barrel to just about anything in the strike zone.
It will be interesting to see how the final numbers play out over the final 2 weeks of the Arizona Fall League, but the batted ball data suggests to not be too overly worried about it. He’ll likely play somewhere around 20 games and get 100 plate appearances in the fall, which is less than what he’ll play in a month in the minor league season.
Barring injuries, he’ll play 2025 in Amarillo, Reno, and possibly in Arizona at the end of the season. Amarillo and Reno are notorious hitter-friendly environments, which suggests his power numbers will look fine. However, we’ll get a better picture once he’s in Reno, where we can track and search for his batted ball data.