So, what’s wrong with Chase DeLauter? This has been a pretty hotly debated topic, at least online. He started the season scorching hot, putting up a 200 wRC+ in the first two series of the year. He, notably, finished his regular season debut with 2 homers, one off Andres Munoz. Since then, he’s been in a weird spot. To many, it looks like a slump. A weird slump, though.
He’s not chasing more than usual, not whiffing more than usual. None of the telltale signs of a slump. No pressing, no (repeated)
poor swing decisions. Through the home opener, where he went 3/4 against the Cubs with a homer and 3 RBI, he had a slashline of .346/.370/.923, good for a 250 wRC+. Since then? .206/.321/.324 (85 wRC+). But, he’s walking 14.8% of the time and striking out just over 6% of the time. He hasn’t homered once since the home opener, although he’s tallied 7 extra base hits (half of his total hits since then).
He’s gotten unlucky, yes. But, I’m not sure that’s telling the whole story. Over his last 50 plate appearances, his rolling xwOBA has crept below league average, sitting, now, around .300. His savant page is, still, bright red, and it shows that he’s underperforming his xwOBA, albeit only by a few points (.359 to .366).
So, what’s wrong with him? DeLauter has hit at every level, and was considered one of the safest hitting prospects the Guardians have ever produced. But, he doesn’t seem to be slumping, at least in the stereotypical way. I decided to look at something that I thought might provide some answer as to what’s going on with him. If he’s not pressing and setting himself up repeatedly in bad counts, what’s going on?
As we all know the topline of almost every story about DeLauter, throughout his professional career, has been his injury history. Since being drafted, he’s never playued more than 60 games in a minor league season. So far this year, he’s played in 27 of the Guardians’ first 30 games. So, here’s a graph of his bat speed, labeled with, at least what I think, are notable points on the graph that should be explained. Disclaimer, before you look at it, is that most players are going to have somewhat drastic bat speed fluctuations throughout the year, and usually the continued stretch of games in which a player’s bat speed is higher than usual are the ones in which the player does the best. Bat speed correlates extremely strongly with a number of metrics (wOBA, xSLGCON, Barrel%, Hard-Hit%, Average Exit Velocity), so I thought it might explain why he’s been performing more poorly recently, even when he’s walking over twice as often as he’s striking out.
Again, disclaimer, this is a small sample size. You’d, ideally, like at least 60 games of a sample to determine whether or not his bat speed correlates with the amount of playing time he’s getting. But, I don’t want to wait that long, so we’ll try to work with what we have. As you can see, the majority of the low points on the graphs correspond with games in which he’s played multiple games in a row, in which he’s mostly played the field. I’ve noticed that DH’ing doesn’t necessarily always mean he’s going to perform better (.830 OPS in RF, .782 OPS as DH), but you’d think it might help the strain off of a player’s body throughout an extremely strenuous 162 game stretch, or even a stretch in which a team plays 13 straight games in 3 different cities. He’s strangely been siginificantly better on the road (.878 OPS vs .762 OPS), but that is most likely buoyed by his torrid stretch in Seattle during opening weekend.
If you can remember last season, when there were constant rumors about DeLauter being called up over the summer, Chris Antonetti’s response seemed to always sound something like “We’re very excited about Chase, but we want to see him built up with his conditioning to be able to withstand an 162-game season”. DeLauter last year in the minors never played more than 3 games in a row, and rarely played 3 games in a row. This season? He’s played >3 days in a row *4* times. Now, the guy who (even now) is still one of your best hitters is of course going to force himself into the lineup more often than not. But, at a certain point, you have to ask yourself whether the ends justify the means. That is, if his performance keeps slipping when he’s playing multiple games in a row, is it worth it to have him in the lineup just to have him in the lineup? Wouldn’t he be more valuable with more days off, so that when he’s in the lineup, he’s actually productive? On days in which he’s played at least 3 days in a row, he’s slashing .200/.286/.320 (.606 OPS). On all other days, he’s slashing .261/.350/.551 (.901 OPS).
So, what’s the solution? The Vogt Punt Game™, as I like to call it. In every game that precedes an off day, keep him out of the lineup. Punt it. We’re all too familiar with these punt games, perhaps the most infamous of which was that horrid Sunday morning Roku game against Tarik Skubal, where he madduxed the Guardians (1 of 2 madduxes twirled against the Guardians in 2025). Don’t pinch-hit, don’t pinch-run, don’t bring him in as a defensive replacement. Leave him out of the lineup. His bat is far too important to this team, and you have to do whatever necessary to give him the best chance to succeed. Obviously it’s early, and his body isn’t used to this amount of stress. He might acclimate to the season, and he might only do that if you play him more often. Regardless, the learning curve should be far less steep than it is now. Ease him into 5/6 games a week.
There is, of course, more to this slow stretch than just the things I mentioned. Any rookie who starts their season the way that DeLauter did is bound to get adjusted to far more quickly than your average player. The zone in which he was doing the most damage (inside), is getting attacked far differently than it was before. Before his slump, he was crushing inside fastballs. Since then, the league has adjusted. They’ve stopped throwing him sinkers and cutters (.548 xwOBA, 1.014 xwOBA) inside, and have started attacking him with breaking pitches. This has, in turn, hurt his numbers on inside 4-seamers. Seeing more spin inside has gotten him off 4-seams, going from a .440 xwOBA on those pitches to a .251.
To say the least, there’s a lot going into this slump from DeLauter. The league adjusted to him — he has to adjust back. But underneath all of this, the Guardians have to put him in the best position to succeed. To be blunt, they need to bubble-wrap him. No more 3 days in a row. While the DH option is there, it doesn’t seem to be helping. He needs to have more rest to be able to be the best hitter possible.
