4 years agoThere was little doubt about how much pop was in Rowdy Tellez's bat. He was billed as a typical slugging first baseman, and he lived up to that billing in the shortened 2020 season. While his barrel rate that was elite in 2019 did regress some, down to 8.4%, he still did hit the ball plenty hard, as he set a new career-best in that department at 45.3%, and in the 81st percentile of all hitters last season. What held Tellez back previously was that he didn't do much else besides hit the ball hard. Up until 2020, Tellez's high strikeout rate was really holding him back. After strikeout rates approaching 30% in 2018 and 2019, Tellez did do much better, nearly halving that rate to just 15.7%. Tellez never had much of a strikeout issue in the minor leagues, so this improvement could just be due to him seeing more pitches in the Majors and getting better acclimated to them. Tellez still did chase a bit more than league-average, but the real improvement came in whiffs. His whiff rate in 2019 was among the worst in the game, but in 2020, he cut this rate down by eight percent down to 23.2%, a rate that is actually better than average. This allows Tellez to put more of his high-quality contact in play, and overall, get better results. The fly in the ointment for Tellez in 2021 is his playing time situation. The Blue Jays bulked up their lineup with the additions of George Springer and Marcus Semien this offseason. This makes Tellez only fit in the DH role, and prone to a bench spot in the event his bat goes cold for any period of time.--mwallach