Dodgers: Grading the Outfield for the Month of April

Due to their struggles against left-handed pitching in 2016, Franklin Gutierrez was signed by the Dodgers to do one job: hit lefties. Gutierrez is a career .288 hitter off left-handed pitching with a .844 OPS and 50 home runs. In April the Dodgers did not get a chance to see if he still has that lefty-killing magic in his bat because he went down with a hamstring injury.

Gutierrez got only 13 at-bats in April with 12 of those coming against lefties. He posted a .231 average with two doubles in 12 at-bats off of lefties. He struck out four times, so he seemed to be hit or miss in his brief amount of at-bats. One thing working for Franklin was that his average exit velocity was 90 miles per hour, which was the second highest of any Dodger outfielder.

Against the Rockies and Cubs, Gutierrez had a few fly balls that he just missed for home runs. Had he been able to get around on those pitches, he might have better numbers and a better grade for the month of April. However, due to his predictive injury issues and failure to do much damage in his small amount of opportunity, Gutierrez gets a D grade for the season’s first month.