He just didn’t play defense very well during last year’s call-up. It was aberrational, because he was a good defender in the minors. Maybe just adjusting to seeing the ball well in the bigger stadiums with upper decks etc.
I’m very impressed with his ability to move to any of the three OF spots from one game to the next, or even within games, and play well.
Prompted by a post in another thread by @RZNJ, I was looking to see if Adley’s low walk rate was caused partially by being more aggressive on the first pitch. Hardly. Last year Adley had 40 PA where he put the first pitch in play. This year, in 50 games he’s only done it six times! His first pitch swing rate has dropped from 11.9% to 9.4%. So, he’s actually doubled down on his take the first pitch strategy.
On the other hand, Adley clearly has decided decided to get more aggressive in two-strike counts. Last year, 27.7.% of his strikeouts were caught looking; this year, only 7.7%.
Last year, Adley let the count get full 113 times, and walked in 50 of those, striking out 20 times. This year after 50 games he has only had a full count 18 times, walking 6, striking out twice.
Last year, Adley let the count get to two strikes 388 times, striking out 101 rimes and producing a .654 OPS in those at bats. This year, Adley has had 117 two-strike counts, striking out 39 times and producing a .547 OPS.
There’s a lot to unpack there, but my big takeaway is that Adley is being even less aggressive than before on first pitches, and more aggressive pretty much everywhere else, and he’s not letting a two-strike pitch close to the strike zone go by without taking a swing at it.
Even after being swept in STL, and then doing the sweeping of the White Sox. Exact same record on this day as last year.But the big tests are coming.Almost no days off for 45 days.All AL Eastern teams for a while. It will be very interesting, and telling.
So, "feet covered" is a little misleading, because not all plays have the same baseline average. (e.g. going left or right is probably easier than going back.) Feet vs average adjusts for for this, and they're pretty similar, with Cowser actually slightly ahead of Mullins.
In general I really didn't think Cowser could play CF based on what we saw last year, and Cowser's doing a good job of making me look like an idiot there.
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