Meet the Padres' OTHER star infielder

While Fernando Tatis Jr. has been hitting rockets, Eric Hosmer has embraced the launch-angle revolution and Manny Machado's resume speaks for itself, San Diego’s star infielders have been getting outperformed by ... the team’s 26-year-old rookie utility man?

It’s true, at least in terms of a key Statcast metric, xwOBA, which tells the story of a player’s season based on his quality and amount of contact.

MLB’s xwOBA leaderboard has plenty of familiar faces, but there’s only one Padre among the top 10, and it’s Jake Cronenworth (Tatis ranks second on the team and 21st overall.)

Highest xwOBA, 2020
Qualified hitters
1. Juan Soto -- .530
2. Corey Seager -- .504
3. Jake Cronenworth -- .487
4. Jesse Winker -- .484
5. Bryce Harper -- .483
6. Giancarlo Stanton -- .475
7. Bo Bichette -- .452
8. Erik Gonzalez -- .449
9. Mike Trout -- .441
10-T. Aaron Judge -- .432
10-T. Brandon Lowe -- .432

Additionally, Cronenworth ranks second overall in xBA (.398) and is tied for fourth in xSLG (.723).

His hitting skills are also evident in his actual stats, as he’s slashing .306/.358/.592 with two homers, two triples and four doubles over 53 plate appearances this season.

Who is he, and how has he been doing this? Let’s take a closer look.

Where did he come from?

Cronenworth arrived in San Diego alongside Tommy Pham last December in a trade that sent Hunter Renfroe and two others to the Rays.

Tampa Bay selected Cronenworth in the seventh round of the 2015 Draft out of the University of Michigan, and he spent five years in their Minor League system, hitting .283/.375/.394 with only 22 homers in 2,214 plate appearances.

He also pitched a little in Triple-A last year -- the first time he took the mound since college -- and didn't allow an earned run over 7 1/3 innings. The Padres haven't needed him to toe the rubber yet, but he got a chance to show off his arm when he threw out the D-backs' David Peralta at home plate from the outfield grass Saturday night.

Back in Spring Training, Cronenworth didn’t seem likely to land a spot on the Padres’ Opening Day roster, but after the rosters were expanded as part of MLB’s protocols during the coronavirus pandemic, the team suddenly had a place for him.

Hosmer’s brief injured list stint due to gastritis opened up a spot for Cronenworth to start at first base earlier this month, and San Diego has continued to find playing time for him since Hosmer returned.

Why are his expected stats so great?

While xwOBA is based on quality of contact, it also takes into account real-world strikeout and walk numbers, and Cronenworth has done well to keep his K’s down so far.

The infielder has fanned eight times in 53 PAs, for a strikeout rate of 15.1%. The MLB average this season is 23.3%.

Pitchers haven’t been able to get Cronenworth to expand the zone much, as his chase rate is just 22.5%, again much lower than the league average of 28.2%. But when they’ve thrown him something to hit, he typically has mashed it.

Cronenworth's sweet-spot rate -- the percentage of batted balls with a launch-angle between 8-32 degrees -- is among the best in MLB.

Highest sweet-spot%, 2020
Qualified hitters
1. Austin Slater -- 64.3%
2. Yadier Molina -- 62.5%
3. Paul DeJong -- 60.0%
4. Ben Gamel -- 58.1%
5. Travis d’Arnaud -- 54.5%
6. Jake Cronenworth -- 53.7%

Why does that matter? Because batted balls in the sweet-spot zone have yielded an xBA of .593 and an xSLG of 1.108 since Statcast began tracking in 2015.

On top of that, Cronenworth has been hitting the ball with authority, producing a hard-hit ball (95+ mph exit velocity) on 20.7% of his swings, tied for the 16th-best mark in MLB, with an average exit velocity of 90.4 mph (75th percentile), a hard-hit rate of 41.5% (64th percentile) and a barrel rate of 12.2% (83rd percentile).

Cronenworth’s wheels are also a factor in his lofty xBA, as his average Sprint Speed is 28.5 ft/sec, placing him in the 94th percentile. Though he doesn’t have an infield hit yet, his xBA on topped or weakly hit balls (Sprint Speed is factored into xBA on these batted balls) is .266, well above this season's league average of .211 on such balls.

While it remains to be seen if Cronenworth can keep hitting like this, his unexpected emergence adds another bullet point to the long list of reasons why the Padres are MLB’s must-watch team this season.