The San Diego Padres love the production they've gotten from Ramon Laureano, even if ABS cost him a couple of inches.
One of the wonders of the new ABS challenge system that’s changing the game in MLB is that certain players have gotten shorter after being carefully measured by the system to provide a precise strike zone. San Diego Padres outfielder Ramon Laureano is one of those players, and he’s gone from 5’11” to 5’9” as a result.
That makes him the Padres’ shortest hitter. But it hasn’t stopped Laureano from being San Diego’s best hitter early on, and he helped hold the fort early until Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill started to hit.
“It’s interesting to see how that is a little bit lower,” Laureano said when he was asked about his new strike zone by Dennis Lin of The Athletic. “Big stick still bigger, though. That’s good.”
Laureano hit .273 with four home runs after coming over from the Orioles in a deadline deal, and he’s now the leadoff man as a result of his early heroics. He continues to impress his hitters, even the stars like Fernando Tatis Jr. who have a higher standard.
“He’s just a gamer,” said Tatis, who is one of two former shortstops in the Padres outfield. “He’s a really good baseball player.”
Laureano is 31, and one of the knocks on him until now has been his defense. Last season he was rated at a -9 in baseball’s catch-all Outs Above Average defensive category, but Laureano has been working hard to change that number.
“I was, like, 95-plus percentile (going) back, and (coming) in, that’s when I was bad,” he said. “But that’s because I was playing deeper.”
Laureano is now at +2 after working with outfield coach David Macias, who has moved him in to a shallower position, and that number ties him with seven other outfielders, including Tatis.
“With Macias, we’ve been doing tracking every day, all that stuff — and how can we get more Outs Above Average,” Laureano said. “We’ve been able to do that, thank God, this year.”
Forget the metrics for a moment, though. The eye test happened in Pittsburgh, when Laureano made a pair of sliding do-or-die catches that were genuine highlight reel material. His offense has remained steadily excellent since he became the leadoff man on April 5, as he’s homered in back-to-back games and supplied four multi-hit performances.
Manager Craig Stammen knows how tough the leadoff job can be, and he likes the fact that Laureano has taken teh same aggressive approach he took when he was hitting lower in the order.
“Every time we’ve put somebody in the leadoff (spot), they’ve kind of gone in a slump, and he just didn’t go in a slump,” first-year manager Craig Stammen said recently. “We saw a lot of good at-bats from him, and him being in that spot didn’t affect his at-bats. He was taking them the same way whether he was batting first, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth — you know, when I was dumb putting him lower in the lineup.
“He also brings a little bit of an attitude, a little bit of an ankle-biter kind of guy that the guys love in the dugout and in the clubhouse.”