What is Geraldo Perdomo?

When the Rattlers signed Geraldo Perdomo for four years in the past offseason, I understand why they wanted to keep him. In a sport full of chaos and clumsiness, Pedumo's teammates said he was happy to be with it. He is “saying hello to your wife and children” even if he is not very good at finding your wife and children in the stands.

But as far as on-site production is concerned, I have questions. Perdomo is the average hitter in 2023 and 2024 and is also a capable defensive shortstop. He would take a walk, but he wouldn't fight for too much power. He is an amazing rabbit, but if color flags are so high on the player’s list of positive attributes, you start to worry that he can’t do too much other things with the bat. Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly and Josh Naylor in contract year, are the Rattlesnakes’ stable players really the people they need? Especially Jordan Lawlar is on the verge of regular MLB status?

I'm a fool, doubting Pedumo. He played .306/.402/.488 to 49 games. He has set a new career-high career in the war (2.8, fifth in all positions) and tied for his previous career-high with a six-man home run. Perdomo also walked more than he hit. He was perfect in 11 stolen base attempts, his contact quality was through the roof.

So, what about Geraldo Perdomo?

Perdomo has always had good contact skills and a good discipline of plates, but he is also one of those completely different cyclists depending on which side of the plate he hits:

From the left, he always put the ball in the air and took a more power approach. From the right, it's more grounded. This year, he cut the speed of the ground ball and most importantly – replacing all of this ground with a line drive. If the batsman raises his line drive rate from 18% to 28%, then it wouldn't be surprised if his WRC+ also rose by about 50 points.

Perdomo also struggled harder to swing the bats, especially from the right, his average bat speed rose from 67.4 mph to 69.4 mph, while his fast swing rate (swing at 75 mph or higher) rose from 1.5% to 13.9%.

Pedumo isn't exactly Joey Gallo, but at 6-foot-2 and 203 pounds, he's a big and strong guy. A man like wielding a bat like this should obviously lead to a surge in offense, especially if his already savvy strike zone judgment and contact skills are not affected.

So this is a matter. While Perdomo's right-side swing attribute looks great compared to last year's work, he still doesn't hit the ball at all:

Perdomo's tough rate is in the 18th percentile of the year. His bat speed is eighth percent. This is still in the community of punching and judgment.

Then how about him?

For beginners, it helps when you walk 14.7% of the time and only 11.8% of the time. Perdomo is very selective. Of the 164 qualified bats this year, he has the seventh lowest overall swing rate, leading Kyle Schwarber. His pursuit rate is the third in baseball. He also ranks in the top ten in the league in terms of regional and overall contact rates.

At the same time, his out-of-region contact rate was only 65.7%, which is the highest 33. Paradoxically, it's better for him. Unless you are Luis Arraez, you're connecting on 95.1% of swings outside the area this year and somehow hit .404 on those swings, then you won't end up doing a lot outside the area anyway.

Basically, if Juan Soto had never been to the gym, Perdomo would be like this year. He was an extreme strike, which meant he had barely ever chased the court outside the area, and he had barely made a strike through the court that lacked swings.

These seem to be two of the attributes you want most from a batsman, right? So you want the strike murderer list to be just a list of hitters. let's see. Perdomo is one of eight batsmen to be 90% or higher with WHIFF rate and chase rate this year. They are here:

These qualities proved to be very relevant to being named Alex, but with great batsmen. Apparently, seven of the eight names here are running over 100 WRC+ tags, but many of these guys weren't good last year. For example, Urías is currently hitting .266 after failing to reach 0.200 in the past two seasons. Freke, Middles and Friedel are Strange A batsman is more important than anything else.

What they have in common is low bat speed. Just like Perdomo.

Perdomo made me question the belief that the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit the ball with a ball. I guess this isn't actually that difficult. The trick is to hit the ball in the right position while waving the bat as quickly as possible. This is very, very difficult.

For most people, this is a trade-off between bat speed and bat control. The grid at the top of the baseball Savant's bat tracking rankings actually illustrates the bargain very well. You can see who tear the racket at maximum speed (Oneil Cruz, Aaron Judge), who is waving the bats more slowly in order to put the ball in the best position (Arraez, Jacob Wilson, Mookie Betts).

If you go to Perdomo's baseball Savant page and look at the summary section, you'll find that there is an indicator of contact quality that not only started last year, but is above average compared to the league: Launching Angle Sweet Sweet Plot percentage. This is the percentage of hitting the ball that appears at a launch angle of eight to 32 degrees.

Perdomo's highest point rate was 37.0%, the highest in his career, up 8.1 percentage points from last season. But this is not entirely an unknown territory for him. In 2023, Perdomo has a best point rate of 35.4%, and his WRC+ is 98, not 145. His base numbers (including .275 Xwoba) are even worse. The difference is that Perdomo is now at a much lower bat speed than average, but in 2023, his bat speed is definitely at the bottom, with only 65.7 mph. Obviously, this is slow, and if you balance the ball, it's OK.

This year, Perdomo hits enough to make his money worthy of getting from a solid touch. Additionally, his strikeout and walking numbers range from outstanding to extraordinary, enough to make a powerless average batsman a well-rounded offensive player and elite base partner.

For its value, the Rattlers team popped up the Bat Tracking Rankings. They are squared in the league first (measured the percentage of potential exit Velo transferred to the ball when touched), followed by the ideal attack angle percentage. Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte have been elites who combine bat speed with productive swings, but a bunch of rattlesnake batsmen – Pedumo, Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

The last time the Rattlers made the playoffs, Perdomo hit the bottom of the order and made the biggest impact through Bunting: five sacrifices and singles in 17 games. If Arizona returns there in October this year, his orders will be higher and willing to give up.