Jared Triolo looking to continue hitting ways in the majors
Triolo looks to build off strong rookie campaign by doing what he's done his entire minor league career
While the attention rightfully goes towards his defense, there are few to have hit the way Jared Triolo has since he entered the Pirates system back in 2019.
In fact, only three players have hit more than Triolo has since 2019, the year he was drafted.
Two are no longer in the system, and the other is Matt Fraizer, who was drafted the same year as Triolo. The other two, Mason Martin and Cal Mitchell, had an added advantage - they were already in the system so they played the entire 2019 season in the minors.
The other caveat, if you add the 54 hits that Triolo got in the majors, he easily passes Martin for first place.
If you go back to 2019, Triolo is one of 13 players in the Pirates system to play at least 100 games and average at least a hit per game. The 72nd overall pick in 2019 has 366 hits in 353 minor league games in his career.
It was more of the same when he made it to the majors, as he continued his hit-per-game played pace, with 54 in 54 contests.
While there were more swing and miss and strikeouts than what his track record usually suggests, the bigger question will be if Triolo can maintain his higher-than-average BABIP (.440) that he put up in the majors.
He’s consistently had a higher-than-normal BABIP throughout his career, although never that high. In Triple-A, before he got called up, it was .411 in 226 plate appearances.
At stops where he had 200 plate appearances or more, 2019 was the only year it was under .300 (.290), and has a career BABIP of .346.
Triolo is in the midst of a position battle with Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales, and Ji-Hwan Bae for the starting second base job. His versatility would be more of a fit as a ‘super-utility’ type of player, but no matter where it is, he’s shown an ability to continually reach base safely.
After a successful introduction to the majors last year, Triolo will look for an encore to a rookie campaign that saw him post a wRC+ of 118. No matter the role he has on defense, Triolo has proven to produce wherever he has gone with the bat.
Seeing as the Pirates finished 22nd in runs last year, the offense will need as much help as possible, and if he can do it while playing multiple positions, his value will keep climbing.
Triolo tribe checking in!
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 %.