You can already imagine it on a shelf at your local book store: Better Late Than Never: The Jurickson Profar Story.
The last time I wrote about Profar was in late December, when the topic at hand was whether the Texas Rangers might find a team willing to trade for him as a reclamation project. The young shortstop was a former top prospect, sure, but at that point he was also:
- A player with disappointing results in the majors.
- A player coming off two consecutive lost years due to right shoulder problems.
- A player who had no clear fit on the Rangers' major league roster.
A trade was never likely, though, for reasons that Rangers general manager Jon Daniels was upfront about in a recent interview.
“Our feeling was, we’ve invested a lot of time in getting him healthy, so let’s see what we have," Daniels told Jorge L. Ortiz of USA Today. "Teams are looking at him like, ‘We have a chance to get a really good player at a discount.’ It didn’t make sense for us."
Flash-forward a few months, and the payoff from the Rangers' roll of the dice on Profar is one reason among many they have the American League's best record.
After starting 2016 with a strong showing at Triple-A Round Rock, the 23-year-old out of Curacao is hitting .343 and pitching in all over the diamond through 17 major league games. In so doing, he's looked a lot like the player everyone said he would be one day.
You don't need to take your DeLorean that far back in time to find when Profar was everyone's favorite prospect. He was the No. 1 prospect in baseball going into 2013 for Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, with the consensus being that he was as complete a prospect as anyone could hope for.
Of his bat, BP's Jason Parks praised the switch-hitting Profar for a "preternatural bat-to-ball ability" as well as "excellent pitch recognition skills/strike zone judgment." None of this rang true, as Profar hit just .231 through his first 94 major league games. But in 2016, we can say, "Ah, there it is."
Profar's 16.4 strikeout percentage is safely below the major league average of 21.2 percent. He entered Monday with just one hit against four breaking balls, according to Brooks Baseball, but he was hitting .333 against fastballs and .429 against off-speed.
From the left side of the plate, where he's logged most of his at-bats, Profar has also shown an ability to hit pitches on both the inside and outside part of the strike zone:
Mind you, one obvious elephant in the room is the small sample size. And there are two more.
The fact that Profar only has a .370 on-base percentage to go with his .343 batting average highlights that he's been more aggressive than advertised. That's making him reliant on batting average on balls in play, and there's visual evidence (here, here and here) that his .393 BABIP is too good to be true.
A regression may only go so far, however. Profar's batted ball profile reveals he's not suppressing his BABIP by hitting a bunch of balls in the air and also that he's making good use of the whole field. And as Baseball Savant can show, his exit velocity is on the up and up:
If Profar continues on this path, the extra hard contact will only help him maintain a high BABIP. With only two home runs to his name now, it would also lead to more power. That was something else he was supposed to have, as some used to see him as a potential double-digit home run hitter.
In the meantime, all Profar has to do on the other side of the ball is keep doing what he's been doing.
Baseball America once described Profar as an "electrifying" defender due to his combination of soft hands, wide range and strong arm. With Elvis Andrus at shortstop and Rougned Odor at second base, how the Rangers would find a home for these talents was a good question at the start of the year.
Their solution, as it turns out, has been to find multiple homes for Profar's talents. He's spelled Odor at second, Adrian Beltre at third and even Mitch Moreland at first. And though the defensive metrics claim Profar's defense has been merely passable, the video tells a different story.
For instance, here's Profar the second baseman ranging into the hole to rob Francisco Lindor:
And here's Profar the first baseman making the kind of stretch that few first basemen/regular humans are capable of:
The fact that Profar has been able to do good work with the glove despite not playing a single inning at shortstop is a good sign for the Rangers. It shows he has the talent to expand his horizons beyond his natural position, which is something he may need to keep doing if he wants to stay in the lineup.
With Moreland and Prince Fielder both having poor seasons, it's conceivable Profar could be used as an everyday first baseman. And to borrow an idea from Cliff Corcoran of Sports Illustrated, Profar logging some time in the outfield could prepare him to fill Ian Desmond's shoes in center field if free agency takes him elsewhere this winter.
That's presumably not what the Rangers had in mind when Profar had the look of a future superstar at shortstop a few years ago, but that does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Regardless of his position, they had every reason to hope that Profar would one day be an impact player on both sides of the ball. It took some patience, but he's finally showing them he can be just that.
Basically, Better Late Than Never: The Jurickson Profar Story. Reserve your copy today.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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