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AdministrativeSky236's avatar

Triolo tribe checking in!

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Frank Maraschino's avatar

There are a few reasons I think Triolo has been shorted, most of which have been covered in the comments. Historically he’s had a relatively low xBH and SLG and that’s a turnoff for a lot of people, even if a player has a good hit tool and gets on base a good amount.

Triolo doesn’t yet have enough PA’s to be qualified per Baseball Savant, but his comparative stat %s are still visible. Triolo’s underlying hitting metrics like EV, Barrel %, and Hard Hit % are relatively low (though, interestingly, his Sweet Spot % is very high).

I think this leads the sabermetrically doctrinaire in particular to dismiss Triolo as a slap hitter benefiting from luck and to bang away on his relatively high BABIP as being unsustainable and due for regression.

In my experience quant types especially will reserve condemnation of a guy with a high BABIP (or a low BABIP, for that matter) if that guy smacks the shit out of a baseball.

FanGraphs has been borderline obsessed with Ke’Bryan Hayes even when he was not getting base hits, because he smacks the shit out of a baseball.

I like Triolo a lot. He’s a talented, very smart, very driven, very hard-working ballplayer. I think his power will improve as will his SO %.

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