The Toronto Blue Jays made a trade with the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, sending Teoscar Hernandez to the Pacific Northwest and getting reliever Erik Swanson and a prospect in return.
The Mariners badly needed some offense: Mitch Haniger will depart via free agency and there is not much beyond Julio Rodriguez, Ty France, Eugenio Suarez and Cal Raleigh.
Hernandez, who has hit 57 home runs over the last two seasons and had 16 in just 50 games in the 2020 season, will help supply it.
Hernandez is a good hitter against right-handed hitters, but he is a great one against southpaws.
This likely had something to do with the Mariners’ decision to bring him in.
Elite Against Lefties
He is actually tailor-made for the AL West division, one that will be full of lefties in 2023.
“Teoscar is tied for 7th highest in wRC+ against lefties since ’19 (min. 300 PA vL) at 159 and the projected ALW rotations include 9 lefties as of now: Detmers, Sandoval, Anderson, Suarez, Waldichuk, Sears, Irvin, Perez , Framber,” MLB and fantasy analyst Paul Sporer tweeted.
Teoscar is tied for 7th highest in wRC+ against lefties since ’19 (min. 300 PA vL) at 159 and the projected ALW rotations include 9 lefties as of now: Detmers, Sandoval, Anderson, Suarez, Waldichuk, Sears, Irvin, Perez, Framber https://t.co/xpBb212tFG
—Paul Sporer (@sporer) November 16, 2022
wRC+ means weighted Runs Created +, and it’s a tool that allows us to evaluate offensive performance while including external factors such as era, ballpark, and others in the analysis.
It’s adjusted to 100 being the league average.
Anything over 100 is considered above-average offensive performance.
For reference, Hernandez had a 129 wRC+ last season as a whole, which is great.
It puts his 159 mark against lefties since 2019 in perspective: while he is good against righties and has been during his whole career, he is actually a monster against lefties.
As Sporer noted, Hernandez’s new division is full of lefties, so his offensive numbers could be even better in 2023.
