Boston Red Sox infielder Bobby Dalbec has had awful luck in 2021
To say that Bobby Dalbec has struggled in 2021 would be a massive understatement. The Boston Red Sox infielder came into the season with pretty high expectations after a monster 2020, and has been, for lack of a better term, terrible.
In 2020, Dalbec played in 23 games and slashed .263/.359/.600/.959 with eight home runs. Sure, he struck out a lot, but he got on base and hit enough bombs that it didn’t really matter that much. In 2021, he’s still striking out a ton, but he’s not getting on base or hitting for any power.
Entering the day, Dalbec was hitting .183/.239/.293/.531 with one homer. He’s striking out in 35.2% of his at bats and walking in just 5.7%. He’s playing solid defense at first base, especially for someone who is still learning the position, but his offense has been awful, to the point where some may argue that he needs some time in the minors to work on some things.
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I strongly disagree with anyone suggesting Bobby D needs some time in Worcester. He’s had bad results, of course, but his underlying numbers suggest that his lack of production is due to a lack of luck rather than a lack of talent.
Dalbec is hitting .197, but his xBA (what Statcast thinks his average should be, based on batted-ball data) is .263. His xSLG is .494, a full .201 higher than his actual slugging percentage.
In 2020, Dalbec had an average exit-velocity of 89.9. In 2021, that number sits at 88.5. Those numbers are pretty close. Bobby has a lower soft-hit percentage in 2021 than he did in 2020, a higher xBA, he’s hitting way more line-drives, and way fewer popups. Essentially, Dalbec has been hitting the ball at least close to as well in 2021 as he did in 2020.
The results simply have not been there because Dalbec has gotten extremely unlucky. His BABIP in 2020 was an unsustainable .394. In 2021, it’s just .280. The strongest indicator of his bad luck, however, has been Dalbec’s HR/FB. HR/FB measures the percent of a player’s fly balls that carry over the wall. In 2020, 44.4% of Bobby’s fly balls went for dingers. In 2021, only 5.9% of his fly balls are home runs. 44.4% is a crazy high number, but 5.9% is insanely low. For a player with Dalbec’s natural power ability, that number is bound to see some positive regression.
Once Dalbec starts to get a bit luckier with regards to his balls-in-play, he should see a big rise in his batting average and OBP, and a huge increase in his slugging percentage and OPS. His numbers are bad, but it is not due to anything he needs to work on.
Sending Dalbec to the minors is not the answer, especially when the offense is looking fantastic even with his struggles. Give Bobby some time to work it out at the Major League level, and soon enough we’ll see the player we saw and got so excited about in 2020.