Possible future Cardinal contributor has a very clear weakness. Whether he can change that (or wants to) will determine his MLB success.
For a team that is interested in giving young players a shot, the Cardinals don’t really have many objectives this offseason. The rotation is mostly set, depending on who ends up getting traded. The bullpen isn’t something you put a lot of resources into in a reset year. And the position players are also mostly set with one exception: they really need another right-handed outfielder.
Ryan Vilade will probably not be the last right-handed outfielder the Cardinals acquire this offseason. But as things stand, they haven’t yet and another opportunity may not present itself. Even with one more right-handed outfielder acquisition, Vilade has a very good shot of making the MLB roster at some point next season. He has a minor league deal, so he does have to be added to the 40 man, but you churn through a lot of outfielders in a given season.
So let’s meet the man.
Vilade grew up in Texas and attended Frisco High School for his first three years in high school. Between his junior and senior season, two things happened. The first is that he played in the Under Armour All-American Baseball Game at Wrigley and won the Home Run derby with 18 homers. That power has not remotely translated to his professional career for whatever reason. The second thing is that his dad took a job as an assistant coach for the Oklahoma State baseball team and he followed his dad to Stillwater High School, also known as the high school where all the Holidays played, including Matt.
He would have also followed Matt Holliday to Oklahoma State, except like Jackson, the MLB draft and the money offered enticed him to jumpstart his professional career. He was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2017 MLB Draft, signing for $1.4 million. He was drafted as a power-hitting shortstop, which he immediately displayed in the Pioneer League, which now operates as an MLB Partner independent league. He had a .188 ISO and 5 homers in 146 PAs, en route to a 132 wRC+. He is neither a shortstop nor a power hitter now, so things did not go as planned.
He started the 2018 season in Low A, and had 5 homers again… in 533 PAs. Nonetheless, good K/BB rates led to a 110 wRC+ and a promotion to High A for the 2019 season. At the time, his season was still seen positively. He started slow (43 wRC+ in April) and was just 19. Defensively, he committed 34 errors at short and was looking pretty rough.
He had a very respectable 128 wRC+ at just 20-years-old in High A. He also started getting waned off playing SS this season. He played 46 games at 3B, when he had only played SS up to this point. The errors racked up at both positions with a combined 37 errors. There is not much mystery why he plays the outfield now. Something I haven’t mentioned yet that really took hold in High A is that he can steal bases. He stole 24 bases to just 7 caught stealing in High A.
Except stealing bases is unfortunately not one of his skills. That was the only time he had a good success rate. He has stolen 17 bases (in Low A), 20 bases (in AA), and had two more double digit SB seasons. But he usually has pretty poor success rates. Last year he only got caught 7 times, but he’s right on that border. I don’t think a 74% success rate is actually good anymore with the pitch clock and bigger bases.
COVID happened and I believe the rules were designed in such a way that any interesting prospect who could make the MLB had to be in AAA, which is why Zack Thompson and Matthew Liberatore skipped all the way to AAA, and Vilade was no exception. Coming into the AAA season, Baseball Prospectus said “Vilade went from a promising offensive-leaning shortstop to a promising offensive-leaning third baseman last spring. If he leans any more he’ll be in foul territory, so he should knock it off.”
Except the Rockies abandoned Vilade in the infield and moved him to the OF. He played all three spots and a few games at 1B. Offensively, he performed like somebody who skipped AA with an 87 wRC+ in 117 games. He actually had good K/BB numbers, just he really had very little power. Or as BP put it: ‘Playing in a league that welcomes, encourages and typically displays power, Ryan Vilade rejected the premise.” He got 7 PAs at the MLB level late in the 2021 season, because he had to be added to the 40 man at the end of the year and why not. He failed to get a hit, but did walk.
He entered 2022 as the Rockies #3 prospect in a weak system (he was just a 45 FV). He only played in 99 games, and his .336 BABIP turned into a .291 BABIP, so he actually had a worse season in AAA. Having spent 7 seasons in the minors and no longer worthy of a 40 man spot, Vilade was DFA’d by the Rockies when roster crunch time came and was claimed by the Pirates. With the Pirates, he still had that pesky power problem, but his .367 BABIP allowed him to almost be average with a 96 wRC+. They also re-introduced him to 3B, and he played 16 games there.
Vilade elected free agency at the end of the year and signed with the Tigers for the 2024 season. Unbelievably, he was still just 25 this past season. Vilade had no real defined role with the Tigers and ended up becoming a super utility option. He played 14 games at 1B, 15 games at 2B, and 6 games at 3B, and a lot more in the outfield. Three different organizations either thought or were desperate enough to put him in CF if that means anything. Hell he played 3 MLB games in CF for the Tigers, and didn’t start any of them.
Oh I buried the lead. He finally got his first MLB hit last season. His power showed up last year, kind of. He had a .171 ISO and 13 homers in 108 games at the AAA level, which is not impressive given the run environment, but could work with good K/BB ratios and a good BABIP. So he had a 105 wRC+. He bombed pretty hard in limited opportunities at the MLB level. In 49 PAs, he had a 26 wRC+ and .247 xwOBA.
This is at the very least a very interesting profile. He still has an option year, because the Pirates DFA’d him before the 2023 season started, so he was never actually optioned to the minors that year. I read an interview he had with Fangraphs and it was from 2022, but I wonder if his mindset his changed.
“If I had to give a scouting report on myself, I would say that I drive the ball the other way really well. That’s my strength. One thing that I continue to work on is pulling ball in the air. I can do that well with off-speed; it’s the fastball that I go [opposite field] with. That doesn’t really bother me, because I feel like pulling the fastball is something that you just react to. But yeah, staying the other way and reacting off-speed. That’s kind of who I am.”
His interview is honestly catnip for old school, traditional baseball fans, but I’m not totally sure it’s a hitting strategy that works in the major leagues. He said he wasn’t worried about power, because he hit .280 to .300 all year (he finished at .284), except he was playing in a run environment that led to an 87 wRC+. He really does sound like a coach’s son, but like… kind of an old school coach’s son.
I sound like I’m disparaging this more than I mean to, just you know, in modern day baseball, going the other way being your strength as a hitter usually means you’re a bad hitter unfortunately. He hit it the opposite way at the MLB level 34% of the time last season. He also hit it on the ground 54% of the time. If he qualified, he would have placed 2nd in highest percentage of balls hit the opposite way. He hit an even higher percentage of balls the opposite way in AAA. It does not seem like his mindset has changed.
There are two positive parts of his Statcast profile though. He had very good bat speed at 74.3 mph. He swung the bat over 75 mph, which is considered a fast swing rate, on 45.7% of his swings. The MLB average is 22.6% of the time. This honestly, on some level, actually does suggest an approach issue. He certainly swings the bat hard enough to pull the ball more. He just got raised on hitting fastballs the other way. Probably too late to change that impulse, but there is in theory some untapped potential here if you can tilt it just a little bit towards pulling the ball more.
The other positive aspect is his speed, which was 82nd percentile. He had a sprint speed of 28.5 feet per second. Who knows how good he actually is at centerfield, but the overwhelming evidence suggests he can sub in at CF. Three different organizations think so and his speed suggests it as well.
He signed a minor league deal which means he isn’t going to be a sure thing great signing, but he does have two important elements to hope on, which is he can most likely play CF and he swings his bat very hard. I wonder if the Cardinals have a plan for him, approach-wise, to get him to pull the ball more, because there might be something there if they think they can. Or he’s the equivalent to a lottery ticket and there’s no harm if this doesn’t work out. Either way, definitely an interesting minor league signing.
