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Is this Rickard's slump or just emerging to ...?


BirdAttack

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As we have all enjoyed the Hot Joey at the beginning of the season:2yay-thumb:, his bat has been cooled off for a while since:(.

Of course we only saw a small sample of his ability, but so was the decision made to put him as our everyday lead-off.

It makes me wonder:scratchchinhmm:; He could have been luckily hot at the beginning of the season, and just came down to the normal Joey now.

I think we will need to see at least until the end of this month, but...

Do you think it's just a slump that will eventually go away, and we will see him as a real lead-off once he gets out of the slump?

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I think the league's pitchers are getting to have a bit of a book on him and that's what we're seeing. It's on Rickard to now make the adjustments. Happens to all new hitters.

Buck (in Roch's latest article today) delves into it.

Roch: "Rickard was batting .350 on April 21, but has gone 7-for-44 to lower his average to .269. However, he doesn't appear lost at the plate.

I've seen many slumps during my years on the beat and this one isn't nearly as ugly. Pitchers aren't disposing of him quickly and moving on to the next batter.

"I don't think anybody expected Joey to hit .500, but he's playing with the same effort, the same outfield defense, running the bases," said manager Buck Showalter.

"What I'm looking for is when he starts swinging out of the strike zone a lot. I like the fact that he's deep in a lot of counts. He makes contributions to the rest of our eight guys in the batting order by his at-bat. He makes the guy throw four, five, six pitches, makes him show a lot of things, not make it be an easy at-bat. And as long as he stays selective and doesn't get out of that, he'll get back to being a little more productive offensively.""

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The data says he is swinging out of the strike zone quite a bit. For a guy with limited power and a low walk rate, he also strikes out a lot. That limits his ceiling as an offensive player quite a bit unless some of that changes.

He's sitting at an 86 wRC+ and -0.7 fWAR right now and still no signs of him losing his grip on every day outfield play. He has a 58 wRC+ against RHP.

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The data says he is swinging out of the strike zone quite a bit. For a guy with limited power and a low walk rate, he also strikes out a lot. That limits his ceiling as an offensive player quite a bit unless some of that changes.

He's sitting at an 86 wRC+ and -0.7 fWAR right now and still no signs of him losing his grip on every day outfield play. He has a 58 wRC+ against RHP.

Buck can be stubborn once he makes up his mind.

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The data says he is swinging out of the strike zone quite a bit. For a guy with limited power and a low walk rate, he also strikes out a lot. That limits his ceiling as an offensive player quite a bit unless some of that changes.

He's sitting at an 86 wRC+ and -0.7 fWAR right now and still no signs of him losing his grip on every day outfield play. He has a 58 wRC+ against RHP.

What do you consider quite a bit? His O swing % is lower than Manny's, about the same as CD, and much lower than AJ's and Schoop's. His contact rate for OZ pitches is high.
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That isn't necessarily a good thing.
It is if they are a lot of foul balls on border line pitches. I think his problem is too much week contact on Z swings. He gets out on his front foot with off speed stuff. He has low weak contact, high medium contact, and very low hard hit contact.
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Reimold can run, has a great eye, sees a lot of pitches , and makes plays in the outfield.We could put Remold in RF or LF, and Trumbo the other outfield spot..then put Alvarez at DH. I think that would work just as well .
Buck seems to like Joey's defense more than you do.
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It is if they are a lot of foul balls on border line pitches. I think his problem is too much week contact on Z swings. He gets out on his front foot with off speed stuff. He has low weak contact, high medium contact, and very low hard hit contact.

Sure it is if it means he is fouling off borderline pitches. No so much if they result in weak contact in the field of play. Generally speaking contact is harder on pitches in the strike zone.

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Reimold can run, has a great eye, sees a lot of pitches , and makes plays in the outfield.We could put Remold in RF or LF, and Trumbo the other outfield spot..then put Alvarez at DH. I think that would work just as well .

Not a bad idea for me.

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What do you consider quite a bit? His O swing % is lower than Manny's, about the same as CD, and much lower than AJ's and Schoop's. His contact rate for OZ pitches is high.

I consider 73rd in MLB rather high. I have his O-swing slightly higher than Manny's at 28.2 to 27.7, 3 percentage points higher than Davis is not insignificant, and we all know AJ and Schoop are extreme hackers.

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Sure it is if it means he is fouling off borderline pitches. No so much if they result in weak contact in the field of play. Generally speaking contact is harder on pitches in the strike zone.
You need to take a closer look at his numbers. His O sw % is fairly low, unless Manny has a high O sw %. He has good GB and FB rates but his overall hard hit ball rate is low. He is hitting a lot of pitches in the zone for medium or weak impact. Since he has a lot of LD that tells me he is hitting a lot of lazy FB.
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I consider 73rd in MLB rather high. I have his O-swing slightly higher than Manny's at 28.2 to 27.7, 3 percentage points higher than Davis is not insignificant, and we all know AJ and Schoop are extreme hackers.

73rd out of how many? Average O swing for 2014 was 31 %

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