First baseman Ronald Guzman has been optioned to Triple-A Nashville, the Rangers announced Tuesday. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by right-hander Pedro Payano, who’ll start tonight’s game for Texas. Logan Forsythe is getting the nod at first base for Texas tonight.
It’s undoubtedly a dejecting outcome not only for Guzman himself but also for the organization, as the team had hoped that Guzman would blossom into an everyday player after getting an extended MLB audition as a 23-year-old in 2018. Last season, Guzman’s bat was below average, but he held his own with a .235/.306/.416 batting line and 16 round-trippers in 428 plate appearances.
This year, however, Guzman’s production has gone backward, as he’s batted just .193/.282/.396 in 227 plate appearances. That said, there’s also some reason to be optimistic about a rebound. Guzman isn’t striking out at a higher clip than he did in ’18 — though his 28 percent clip is still a bit high — and his walk rate has actually improved from 7.7 percent to 11.0 percent.
Statcast indicates that his hard-hit rate has improved a bit, and Guzman has already nearly matched his 2018 total of “barreled” balls in just over half as many plate appearances as he received last year. He’s lugging around an ugly .285 weighted on-base average, but based on the quality of the contact he’s made, Statcast feels he’s been decidedly unlucky (.324 xwOBA). That, to be clear, doesn’t indicate that Guzman should be a force at the plate, but perhaps his struggles aren’t likely to continue at this great a rate.
The Rangers and Guzman will hope that a reset in a lower-pressure setting will restore his confidence and give him a needed mental break. He’s currently mired in an awful 2-for-30 slide in the month of July and hasn’t had a multi-hit game since June 25. Guzman still has a long way to go before he comes close to living up to the potential that prompted Baseball Prospectus to rank him as the game’s No 94 prospect prior to the 2018 season, but he’s yet to celebrate his 25th birthday, so there’s still plenty of time for him to turn things around.
Taking a step back, the Guzman dilemma isn’t an entirely unfamiliar problem for the Rangers. They’ve seen several young hitters — e.g. Rougned Odor, Nomar Mazara, Willie Calhoun — all struggle to varying extents, either immediately upon debuting or sputtering out after some early promise. It’s a particularly glaring issue, as one can’t help but wonder where the Rangers would be in the standings if that group of players had played up to their abilities thus far. Instead, the quartet of Guzman, Odor, Mazara and Calhoun have performed at sub-replacement level in 2019. And the Rangers, who’ve now dropped eight games in a row, look more like potential sellers than the likely buyers they appeared to be coming out of the All-Star break.
Major league body, minor league work ethic.
Please address how you know anything about Ronald Guzman’s work ethic…
funny way to spell Rougned Odor…
Ronald Guzman is a good defensive 1B (in TEX games I watched). However, unless the INF is “great hit-scatter arm”, 1B is an offense first position. Perhaps TEX should keep Joey Gallo at 1B and concentrate on filling other positions.
Gallo at first seems to make the most sense. A guy his size is ideal, plus it saves wear and tear on his body over the long term. You can’t have a guy (Guzman) playing first and hitting below .200.
His bat profiles fine at first and I think he will move there at some point but his arm graded a 65 and it shows on some of his defensive plays this year. I think they have to take Josh Hamilton as a great example to follow as far as once his youth/athleticism slows they gotta pull the trigger and move him.
Finally!
Bad Odor next, I hope!!??
Guzman not hitting but defense has saved runs from the throws that Elvis and Stinky have made… hard to justify 1sr base with no hitting but man his defense is stellar.
Option Mazara next. Can’t option Odor or I’d suggest him.
I think it depends on what goes on at this deadline. I can see two sides to this with one being to send him down so he can get some results in a lower pressure situation while building up confidence and the other to leave him here as the season is pretty much lost and why not have him with the coaches at this level and against better competition. Seemed like he was close to breaking out of the slump and turning the corner but thus just another mirage he sends with his super streaky hitting. He is the ultimate tease. If it was my decision to make I would send him down though and put Pence out there. Defense may actually be better with Pence which is saying something. That or even give Calhoun some extended playing time and see what he can do with it. I don’t think Calhoun is one of the guys that does good not playing and jumping around the field and between AAA and Arlington. Give him 1 month where he plays everyday and see what happens.
Guzman is a tremendous athlete at first base, but the bat is way below average. Something has to be done to correct some batting mechanics. For instance, he does not utilize the length of his powerful arms. He seems to be a “short swinger.” Gallo on the other hand uses all of his “long arms” with torque! Unfortunately for Gallo – he can’t see pitches thus the big K’s. Guzman can be fixed in AAA or AA, and as for Mazara – another big guy – I think a change in scenery would be a career boost for him. He is better than that .0250 batting average he carries every year, and has better potential to hit more than 20 home runs per year.