The Profar’s Puzzle: MLB Team’s Apathy Towards Jurickson is Baffling

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Do you think you know everything? You think because something is surprising, or even unprecedented, that it’s constitutionally or divinely required to be a fluke? Are you under the impression that your little FanGraphs pages and BaseballSavant profile are impenetrable, you feckless thugs?

Jurickson Profar balled out in a grandiose way, with grace and beauty, in 2024 and you’re scared of giving him the respect, and contract, he deserves.

With all the frenetic action we’ve been treated to throughout the offseason thus far, it’s a bit surprising we haven’t seen more buzz around Profar. He’s coming off a season in which he netted a Silver Slugger award and was the National League’s starting left fielder in the All-Star Game. And for the nerds, his 4.3 fWAR and 139 wRC+ marks were also the best of his career.

So why are people so hesitant to believe in this smiling gem of a human? This celestial of charisma? A beacon of unmitigated joy? There’s a few reasons, but a lot of the resistance to Profar feels eerily similar to the situation we faced recently with Cody Bellinger.

For those that don’t remember, Bellinger was coming off a stretch of being one of the worst outfielders — at least offensively — in the sport while playing for the Dodgers (a putrid 47 wRC+ in 2021, then 83 in 2022). Then in 2023, he exploded back into relevancy with a .307/.356/.525 slash line and 136 wRC+ for the Cubs. And in 2024, he was such a disappointment after signing a brand new contract that Chicago essentially salary-dumped him onto the Yankees.

And think about it: Bellinger, once upon a time, was a rookie-of-the-year winner and NL MVP. Unlike him, Profar had never shown signs of that type of ceiling, but was more known for being a former top prospect that was derailed by injuries to the point of barely being a replacement-level player. Tack that onto the fact that Profar was literally the worst qualified player in the sport before his 2024 breakout, and the fear of history repeating itself is understandable.

It’s understandable because you remember that society is plagued by cowardice.

One of these two players showed a lot more evidence of being a fluke, and it’s not Profar. His numbers weren’t the kind you can fake quite the way Bellinger did, as illustrated above, and you can dig even deeper.

Profar’s hard-hit rate was a career best by 10%, as well as his average exit velocity (91.1MPH) which was 3.6 MPH higher than his previous career high. If you combine that with Profar’s overall patience as a hitter and ability to provide quality at-bats — something he’s done throughout his entire career — and you’re looking at something pretty darn special. He even improved his contact rate with pitches he chased outside the zone by 10.6%, and 13.5% if you only count offspeed pitches.

Again, something that you can’t fake — and even on the chance you can, it’s exceedingly rare — for an entire season. How did such a thing occur? As noted by Davy Andrews for FanGraphs, Profar’s also showed signs of a change in his plate approach, widening his stance and adding a greater leg kick. He simply had a cleaner, more complete swing in 2024; he seems to have, however unlikely, figured something out.

That’s even more evidence to add to the curious case of Profar. The caution around him is understandable, but spineless. The same timidity of a young child trying to swim for the first time, or me asking for a girl’s number for the first time.

And even if you still don’t buy in to Profar’s rebrand, he’s likely still a solid bat to add to a lineup at the very worst. His “fall off” in the second half of 2024, as some troglodytes may have cited to you already, wasn’t all that profound (.870 OPS first half, .794 second half). And if you exclude his Rockies tenure (moving the goalposts just this one time, shut up), he’s averaging a 124 wRC+ and 3.3 fWAR per 650 plate appearances over the last three seasons, and a 115 wRC+ and 2.5 fWAR per 6500 PA’s over the last five seasons.

Those are signs that, contrary to popular belief, people can indeed…[lights cigar, blows smoke, tear streams down face]…change.

Sure, there are some aspects of Profar’s 2024 that aren’t a bastion of Perfect Victory. He’s still a poor defender with negative 24 Outs Above Average over his last three seasons, and his absurd production in the clutch is unlikely to repeat. The latter production is actually pretty hilarious, with a 1.147 OPS in high leverage situations being higher than Aaron Judge’s (1.084), and his 327 wRC+ (!) across 61 (!!) plate appearances was by far the highest of any qualified player in baseball.

But even still, those are rather picayune details to harp on when you consider his entire body of work. This is a player who had a higher wRC+ than many of the free agents available this offseason, including Teoscar Hernandez, Anthony Santander, Pete Alonso, and Alex Bregman. And yet, he’s being treated like a guy who doesn’t know any of the pledge brothers at a fraternity party.

Jurickson Profar’s season wasn’t just magical, it was sustainably magical. There’s far too much of an assumption about the other “sure thing” stars that this offseason is filled with, even though we know much those perceptions can change year to year. And for what is projected to be a pretty low-risk contract (three years, $48 million via The Athletic) with possible options involved, there are far worse players to take a leap of faith with then Profar.