What to Dú without Andújar
There’s no overstating what Miguel Andújar brought to the Yankees offense during the 2018 season. Being a regular in the lineup, his bat-to-ball skills, and flare for the dramatic not only made him a key player on a 100-win ball club, but a favorite amongst the fans. We all knew that the defense wasn’t ready yet, but during stretches where the Yankees missed Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, and Gary Sanchez — Miguel Andújar remained, and came through in a huge way.
Many fans, including myself, felt it would be best for the team to move on from Andújar this winter. Not out of spite for the player, but rather, to capitalize on the value of a player with so much upside, while replacing him with one of the elite players in the game (Machado). The court of public opinion has never had a real seat at the table with the Yankees, and as that truth persisted throughout the winter, it became apparent that the Yankees were invested in 41. They felt there was enough to work with in Andújar to take their plus hitter, and turn him into a serviceable defender — with the hopes of keeping him as one of the young pillars of the organization for years to come.
Most of what I just wrote is still possible. Andújar didn’t die, and his injury isn’t career endind; so while surgery might end his season, some optimism remains in light of the fact that this is just a minor tear of the labrum. The Machado ship has sailed, and progress on the front of Andújar’s development has been brought to a virtual halt — but the Yankees still have a player they can include in their future plans.
All that said, losing Miguel Andújar won’t impact the class of THIS Yankees club as much as you might want to believe. In fact, the Yankees are going to be improving in the short term at third, by inserting DJ LeMahieu on an everyday basis.
There’s plenty of evidence to support this claim, but we’ll start with the most obvious improvement DJLM brings — defense.
It didn’t take a stat geek to see after just a few innings in the field that LeMahieu was a superior defender to Andújar. DJLM carries his hardware at second base, but he had no problem shifting around the horn in game 2 of the season, something he hasn’t done in a long time.
Alas, I love the stat geeks. So for all you out there who love to quantify, in his largest sample size at third base (2013-100.2 IP), he scored a 7.1 UZR/150. In 2019, Miguel Andújar’s UZR/150 was -24.5. UZR stands for Ultimate Zone Rating, and accounts for fielding range, arm strength, double plays turned, and error runs. The numbers speak for themselves here.
The offense gets a little trickier. For all the slack Andújar gets on his defense, he is an impressive offensive player, with the stats to prove it. Like I mentioned earlier, his bat-to-ball skills are impressive, with an xBA of .285 that ranks in the 85th percentile of Major League Baseball. He slugged .527 in 606 AB’s in 2018, with 27 HRs and 47 2Bs, while striking out just 97 times (this may still seem like a lot, but isn’t in today’s MLB).
In truth, the two hitters profile very similarly. What separates them is also simple: LeMahieu is just a little better in most categories. This isn’t really a knock on Andújar, LeMahieu has been one of the best everyday hitters in baseball over the course of his career, and Andújar has just one big league season under his belt, but let’s take a look…
What I found the most intriguing here, is that for Yankees fans, Miguel Andújar was the scrappy hitter who always put the ball in play and wasn’t looking to hit homers — which he was. Whats funny is that DJLM does that better than Andújar does. I mean, he practically makes Miggy looks like your commonplace pull slugger. LeMahieu hits less fly balls, more line drives, swings-and-misses less, chases balls outside the strike zone less, and makes more contact on pitches inside the strike zone. DJLM is also more proficient at using all fields, and in 2018, ranked in the 88th and 78th percentiles in Exit Velocity and Hard Hit % respectively (both better than Andújar).
I want to be clear. I’m not dancing on graves here. Having Andújar and LeMahieu would make this team better and deeper. What important to take away here is that DJLM is not Chase Headley, and instead, will likely upgrade the production the Yankees would have expected from Andújar at third. Is an infield with DJLM, Tulo and Gleyber better than one with Miggy, Gleyber and DJLM? No, but once Didi comes back, and Gleyber can slide back to second base, this infield can be one of the most productive units in baseball.
