Esteury Ruiz: 2023 A's Player Outlook
The A's make trades all the time. They began the winter shipping Sean Murphy to the Atlanta Braves, and after David Forst said that they had "a couple of small moves, but nothing major," they traded Cole Irvin and A.J. Puk. That said, it's not often that they loop a third team into a deal in order to get one specific guy.
That's what happened with the Murphy trade, because it took the Milwaukee Brewers getting involved and making Esteury Ruiz available that made that specific trade happen.
The A's are high on Ruiz. Some prospect evaluators see him as nothing more than a fourth outfielder.
Regardless of which side you agree with in the battle, it's undeniable that the 24-year-old centerfielder made strides at the plate in 2022. His walk rate increased by nearly six percent, his strikeout rate went down 3.5%, and that led him to a .332 average and .447 on-base in 114 minor league games.
The skill that could set him apart, however, is his speed. Depending on where you look, he has either 70 or 80 grade speed on the 20 to 80 scout scale, so he has elite wheels. Ruiz swiped 85 bags (plus one in the big leagues) in 99 attempts in the minors last season, and with the new rules going into place in 2023, he may stand to benefit.
The new rules consist of larger bases, which will now be 18 inches on each side, up from 15 inches previously. Pitchers will also be limited to two pick-off attempts, which could lead to some fantastic jumps.
The question with Ruiz will be how will he adjust to the big leagues?
While he's not guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster, the prevailing logic is that he will be the A's centerfielder heading into the season. In 36 MLB plate appearances, split between two teams, Ruiz hit .171 with a .194 OBP. Those numbers alone aren't enough to cause panic because of the small sample size, coupled with the irregular playing time.
The worry about how he'll perform revolves around his exit velocities. His average exit velo last season in that small sample size was just 73 miles per hour, while the league average was 88.4. The lowest exit velocity from a MLB regular last season was Jose Iglesias at 83.8, followed closely by Tony Kemp at 84.4. Among players with at least 25 batted balls, Ruiz's 73 mph ranked last in all of baseball.
That's what he, and the A's, are going to have to figure out this season--how to make consistently harder contact.
For what it's worth, he did hit 16 home runs last season in the minors, so there is some pop in that bat, and you have to hit it fairly hard to get one out of any yard. Ruiz is listed at six feet, 169 pounds.
Now that we have a better understanding of the player that Ruiz has been, what do the projections say for his upcoming season?
ZIPS has him batting .237 with a .315 on-base, 10 home runs, 36 stolen bases, and a 102 wRC+ in 124 games. They also have him walking 7.3% of the time and striking out 22.4%, while finishing the year as a 2.0-win player.
To give up someone of the caliber of Sean Murphy, that projected stat line is probably disappointing to some. We also have to keep in mind that he's still a rookie, and not a finished product. You can see what the A's are hoping he'll become: a .250-ish hitter with a high OBP that can crank 10-15 bombs while stealing 40-50 bases a season and being an overall menace to opposing teams. That's all a very real possibility, but it's not going to come right away.
Esteury Ruiz is going to have a lot of eyes on him this Spring, and into the regular season. That tends to happen when you're the centerpiece of a trade involving the club's best player. But if he can get on base at a decent clip--whether that's a soft single through the defense, a walk, a bloop, it doesn't matter--then he can start to show flashes of what he can become.
The only player in A's camp that fans may be more excited to see is Japanese right-hander Shintaro Fujinami. Both players offer a lot of intrigue heading into Spring Training, and the A's overall have an interesting mix of players that could end up surprising people.
If the A's are to exceed expectation in 2023, guys like Ruiz taking a step forward could be a big reason why.