Baltimore Orioles: Renato Nunez has a new approach

The Baltimore Orioles may be struggling in the standings once again, but they may have found a building block in Renato Nunez.

Well folks, the Baltimore Orioles have found themselves in last place. Sometimes you can predict baseball and it was no secret that the Orioles would be bad as they embarked on a lengthy rebuild.

Somehow, the Orioles still found themselves as much watch television when Chris Davis was struggling to find his first knock of the season. If you ask any fan or front office employee, they would rather be in competition for a title than a rebuild of any length. Losing sucks, but the process of rebuilding can be exciting.

The Orioles still have to play 162 games like everyone else and they can offer at-bats and afford to be patient with players. That’s the exciting part of a rebuild, the Orioles can find players who have yet to realize their potential who may have fallen out of favor or lost their shine to other teams. With that in mind, enter Renato Nunez.

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Nunez fits the Orioles bill to a T. He frequented the waiver wire, being designated for assignment by Oakland and Texas in 2018 before catching on with the Orioles. The Orioles were rewarded with a league average bat and neutral defense which was good for 1.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) across 261 plate appearances. Often times, players just need additional seasoning at the MLB level. Nunez took advantage of those ABs last season and is looking to capitalize again this season.

This season, Nunez is off to a good offensive start, with a .289/.343/.515 batting line that is good for a 125 OPS+ in 105 plate appearances. This is by far his best offensive showing in the big leagues to date and there are a number of interesting metrics that indicate Nunez could be breaking out. Looking at plate discipline, Nunez has basically been the same hitter as last year walking ~9% and striking out 23%. The interesting part about Nunez is how he is hitting the ball and his batted ball profile.

Starting with Statcast, Nunez is hitting the ball harder than he ever has this year, clocking an average exit velocity (aEV) of 92.5 MPH. That number is top 10% in the league and nearly 4 MPH better than his 2018 aEV. He’s mixing the excellent exit velocity numbers with a launch angle geared towards air contact at 18.4°. This mix of quality contact and also above average sprint speed has led to Nunez ranking in the upper part of the league in xBA, xSLG, and xwOBA.

The other area of improvement for Nunez has been where he hits the ball. This season, Nunez has increased his Pull% to 51.4% and reduced his Oppo% all the way down to 14.3% which is one of the lowest marks in all of baseball. Nunez very clearly has shifted his approach to maximize his pull side and for good reason.

Looking at his body of work to the opposite field, you can see that Nunez had terrible numbers to the opposite field including an anemic aEV of 83.6 and an xwOBA of .208. Compare that to the pull side where Nunez is a much better aEV of 93.3 and xwOBA of .394. While being a pull only hitter presents the risk of being shifted against, Nunez has decided that hitting the ball over the hard on the left side is a better strategy than peppering weak flairs the other way.

Baltimore Orioles

To demonstrate his overall improvements, I looked at the difference between Nunez’s air xwOBA in 2018 and 2019 and the contrast is stark. In 2018, Nunez had a middle of the road xwOBA of .555, which made him comparable to Brock Holt and Marwin Gonzalez, fine hitters but both of them provide more value defensively. Nunez is a completely different hitter this year, rocking an xwOBA of .683 which puts him in a more elite neighborhood with J.D. Martinez and the upstart Hunter Dozier.

While the season still needs to play out, Nunez strikes me as comparable to Eugenio Suarez as an unheralded prospect who got ABs with the Reds and proved himself to be an above average big leaguer. Like Nunez, Suarez increased his exit velocities and started to rake. His year to year stats are also similar where he had two seasons of contributing 0.9 WAR and then a 1.3 WAR before becoming a 4 win player in back to back years. Sometimes, it just takes guys time to learn what works best for them before they truly breakout. Will Nunez take the same path? I don’t know and neither do the Orioles, but it’s in their best interest to find out.

In order for Nunez to be valuable, he is going to have to rake since he doesn’t play a premium position. So far he has done that and is showing encouraging signs that he may be evolving as a hitter. Rebuilds are painful but it allows teams to give guys long leashes to see what they have in store. Sometimes these experiments don’t work out and the team will shuffle in another player of interest. The Orioles have so far been rewarded in the case of Nunez.

While the Baltimore Orioles are likely far enough away that Nunez won’t be a core piece of their next competitive team, he could bring back prospects from a contender. Additionally, Nunez will pave the way for another group of prospects misfit players to get an opportunity to prove themselves at the highest level.