Indians Outfielder Oscar Mercado is Struggling to Prove His Doubters Wrong

Heading into the 2020 campaign, plenty of ink was spilled on the pessimistic projections for Oscar Mercado. Despite his sparking a slumbering Cleveland Indians lineup during last year’s rookie debut, FanGraphs, Steamer and ZiPS each predicted significant drop-off in nearly every statistic this season.

Essentially, nobody was convinced Mercado could avoid a dreaded sophomore slump.

To date, the second-year outfielder has logged 43 plate appearances this season. It’s hardly a large enough sample size to make any definitive judgement, especially when it comes to his ability to duplicate last season’s success.

That said, if the goal was to prove his doubters wrong this year, Mercado is off to a rough start.

As noted last month, the reason behind Mercado’s subpar projections was the lack of quality contact he produced in 2019. His hard hit percentage was low (34.2%), as was his average exit velocity (88 mph). With only 15 barrels on 365 batted balls (4.1% barrel rate), Mercado just didn’t hit the ball well enough to sell the legitimacy of his 2019 numbers.

A few weeks into the new year, we’re seeing more of the trends which made prognosticators question the success of his rookie season.

Mercado is currently slashing .122/.163/.122. Both his wOBA (.135) and wRC+ (-24) are significantly below average. He’s logged just two walks on the season, and has a strikeout rate of 30.2%.

When Mercado is making contact, he isn’t doing so with much authority.

There’s been little change in his average exit velocity (88.7 mph) and hard hit rate (35.7%). Mercado’s average launch angle has also dropped from 14.7 to 10.9 year-over-year, and he’s yet to log a single barreled ball this season.

This isn’t to say he’s made zero hard contact. Mercado has four batted balls with an exit velocity of 100 mph or higher this year. However, with all but one of these boasting a launch angle above -12, the best result he’s been able to generate is a single.

Mercado’s struggles may be a little easier to define if they were limited to just one pitch type. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Of the 163 pitches he’s faced this year, 48% have been fastballs, while 45% were breaking balls. He’s averaging an exit velocity of 90.8 mph against the former, and 82.0 against the latter, with wOBAs well below average against each.

All in all, the concerns about Mercado’s contact quality haven’t been alleviated just yet, and it’s a big reason why he’s been unable to generate the same power he displayed last season. Power which, compared to his minor league numbers, was notably out of character for him.

With a slugging percentage of .443 and a .269 batting average, Mercado had an isolated power (ISO) of .174 in 2019. That’s 34 points above average, and significantly higher than any ISO he generated through his five years in the minors.

This notable increase from his minor league trends was yet another reason why projections outlets wanted to see Mercado prove his power increase was legit before predicting big things for him.

At the moment, he’s struggling to do so. With an identical slugging percentage and batting average (.122), Mercado’s current ISO is .000.

Once again, the sample size isn’t large enough for any prognosticator to take a victory lap here. Mercado is indeed seeing declines across the board, but he has time to get back on track at the plate.

Likewise, he’s still holding his own defensively, currently ranking in the 96th percentile when it comes to Outs Above Average.

Still, in an outfield loaded with uncertainty, Mercado entered this season labeled as Cleveland’s one sure-thing. His performance last year was more than enough to merit that designation.

However, projections outlets called his bluff heading into the 2020 campaign. To date, Mercado hasn’t been able to do much to prove them wrong.