Can Devon Travis Get His Career Back On Track?
Devon Travis has teased Blue Jays fans since arriving in 2015 and hitting above .300 in each of his first 2 seasons. Unfortunately injuries have derailed his career and the past 2 seasons he has been unable to repeat his early production when healthy enough to take the field.
Through 88 games this season he has a dismal .226/.274/.369 slash line, good for a 72 wrc+. For some perspective, Ryan Goins' career slash line is .228/.274/.333. Some will point out that he had a horrendous start and has been much better since returning from the minors. While this is somewhat true, his numbers since returning from the minors are .246/.290/.400, good for an 85 wrc+.
Those ugly numbers do come with some caveats, however. His season BABIP is .250 and has been .263 since his return from the minors. His career BABIP is .317 so he has been hitting a lot more balls right to defenders compared to previous seasons. He has suffered a good amount of poor luck on balls put in play. His xBA which is his expected batting average based on exit velocity and launch angle is .266. A .250 BABIP is very low and it's a fairly safe bet to count on that number rising in the future. If you read my earlier article about BABIP you might remember how I used Russell Martin as an example and predicted he would have better BABIP luck going forward. At the time of the article he had a .208 BABIP and a .172/.326/.286 slash line. Since then he has a .311 BABIP and has hit .258/.371/.438, a batting line 25% better than league average.
With that said, Travis' poor BABIP can't all be written off as bad luck. He is hitting infield fly balls 13.2% of the time, which is a considerable increase from his previous career high of 9.9%. Those extra automatic outs will have a detrimental effect on a guy's BABIP. He is still hitting line drives at a strong 20.2% so if he can get his infield fly rate back to his career norm he should be able to raise his batting average. With better batted ball luck and a drop in infield fly rate he could see his AVG back in the .270-.290 range. However, I believe his days as a .300 hitter may be over. His BABIPs during his first 2 seasons when he hit above .300 were .347 and .358. While he's having poor luck on balls in play this season, he was likely having good fortune during his first 2 years.
Travis' 16.1% strikeout rate since returning to the majors is a positive sign. His season total of 18.4% is not far off his career best 18.1% which he did as a rookie. Despite a strikeout rate near a career low, he isn't swinging and missing less often. He is actually running a career high 8.5% swinging strike rate. It's not significantly higher than his career rate of 8.2%, but it would be nice to see a skill improvement to go with the lower strikeout rate. Instead, Travis is reducing his strikeouts by getting into fewer deep counts. His 3.64 pitches per plate appearance is easily a career low. During his first two seasons he was averaging 3.97 and 4.00 pitches per plate appearance.
Unfortunately, his tendency to end at bats quicker also means he is drawing fewer walks. Only 14.6% of his plate appearances this season have reached 3 ball counts. During his rookie season when he had a 7.6% walk rate he saw 15.9% of his plate appearances reach 3 ball counts. When looking at counts that reached 2-2, 3-1, or full count, the difference is 27% to 31%. He's not getting into as many deep counts as he used to. His 4.7% walk rate is well below the league average of 8.4%. He is seeing more balls outside of the strike zone, yet isn't drawing more walks. If he's not drawing many walks it means there's a lot of pressure on his other hitting tools to avoid being an easy out with a low OBP. The regression of his walk rate has been a concern of mine.
As a player with an above average contact rate he may benefit by seeing more deeper counts because he's less of a risk to swing and miss. A player like Teoscar Hernandez is better suited to ending plate appearances early because of his propensity to swing and miss and the damage he can do when putting the ball in play. Travis can afford to be patient in at bats. The added walks would likely more than offset the slight increase in strikeouts.
Travis is 1 home run away from a career high, but when looking at extra base hits as a percentage of his total hits he is hitting for less power than in past seasons. His career low .143 ISO reflects this. The reason for his reduced power output is because he isn't putting the ball in the air very often. His 28.1% flyball rate is a career low. He is doing damage when he puts the ball in the air with a strong 14.7% HR/FB. When he gets the ball in the air he's hitting it out of the park at a higher rate than the average big leaguer, but he just isn't hitting it in the air often.
Travis' batting line this year is ugly and there are mixed signals regarding whether or not he'll be able to rebound and get back to being a quality starting second baseman. During his 2015-2016 seasons he averaged 4.12 WAR per 600 plate appearances. Among second basemen only Jose Altuve and Jason Kipnis averaged more. It's a shame that a player whose career started out so promising has been derailed by injuries.
I don't think he will ever get back to a 4+ WAR/600 level of play. His defence has taken a step backwards this season and his base running has as well. He also isn't likely to repeat the batted ball luck he enjoyed those first two years. However, I think it is possible that he can still be a serviceable major league second baseman. His career stat line of .274/.315/.437 is probably fairly close to what we could reasonably expect from him going forward if his BABIP gets back toward .300. With that type of bat and his current defence it makes him a borderline starting calibre second baseman. With the incoming group of middle infield prospects, it might not be enough to justify a spot on the Blue Jays roster come 2020.
Travis won't have any trade value until he starts performing at a higher level so don't expect him to go anywhere any time soon. The front office will probably give him every opportunity to regain his form next season, but he could end up a non tender candidate next offseason if he doesn't start hitting again. His underlying offensive numbers are trending in the wrong direction so I can't say I'm super optimistic about his chances of rebounding, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the rest of this season and next year due to his track record, the amount of missed time, his low BABIP this year and the chance that he could reduce his infield fly rate to his career norm. He definitely has the tools be a good hitter, but adjustments are definitely needed.
