Swing Decisions, Monthly

[RZNJ]

8 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Hyde saying in postgame, having guys that are scuffling, having really big swings, need to get back to staying in the middle of the field. Don’t do that enough. Brought up Bogaerts who uses whole field. Taking big swings and getting into bad counts. 

We are a team of hackers.  Worst offenders.

Hays

Mountcaste

Odor

Mateo.

Hays finally gets a hit to RF.  Next time up does a nice job getting into a 2-0 count.  Now he can look pitch and location. So what does he do?  Swings at a fastball 4 inches and jams himself.  He got an infield hit but terrible swing decision ahead in the count.  Henderson and Rutschman and Vavra have the best AB’s on the team.  Embarrassing!!   

[eddie83]

Just now, RZNJ said:

We are a team of hackers.  Worst offenders.

Hays

Mountcaste

Odor

Mateo.

Hays finally gets a hit to RF.  Next time up does a nice job getting into a 2-0 count.  Now he can look pitch and location. So what does he do?  Swings at a fastball 4 inches and jams himself.  He got an infield hit but terrible swing decision ahead in the count.  Henderson and Rutschman and Vavra have the best AB’s on the team.  Embarrassing!!   

They clearly need to add a different type of hitter. You aren’t going to have 9 hitters with a great approach but we have too many guys like that. Odor will not be back. 
 

Our performance today was awful. They look tight and trying to hit bombs. 

[Just Regular]

September 2022 - Gunnar Henderson led team improvement to 8th MLB-wide, supported by Ryan Mountcastle putting out a month in which he was in the Top Half of qualified MLB Bats.

YTD April-May-June-July-August-September ranks for BAL at O-Swing among the 30 Clubs: 16th, 29th, 28th, 27th, 14th, 8th

Just six of the Bats qualified as regulars by Fangraphs Sep/Oct reckoning, as Gunnar's first full month pushed all three of Urias-Mateo-Odor out of qualifying status for the 1-month sample.

Player, and April-May-June-July-August-September percentile among qualified MLB bats

Gunnar, xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-95       beat Adley by 20 points of this metric in Month1 - new king of the hill?

Adley, xx-xx-86-98-90-75         Rookie wall a little bit, or maybe him finding balance and letting it eat some as SLG crept towards .500

Mullins, 20-19-25-66-58-40        

Mountcastle, 8-xx-13-1-24-54      he even still hit decently this month

Hays, 42-10-8-6-12-36

Santander, 62-43-4-9-40-62       those six months symmetrical and have wild variance

Adley wobbled some by his standard, but a second straight month several guys made big jumps.    These are probably the Top 6 Guys in the OD lineup.   On Offseason Day 1 Mateo, Urias and Stowers are possible incumbents to be the other three guys while the Cowser '23 model rolls along the final few inches of the assembly line.

Here is everyone on the Team yearlong at 90 PA or up, a threshold hand selected to get both Vavra 101 and Stowers 98 for 2023 flavor.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=90&type=5&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=2&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31

[Just Regular]

Season wrap-up - the Gunnar/Adley September Orioles were very good, but seasonally BAL results were 27th MLB-wide, something like the Orioles 10th+ year in a row in the Bottom Third, and probably their last one for quite some time.

Of all Bats with 300 PA (277 guys MLB-wide in 2022), the percentiles of qualifying Orioles were:

Adley 88, Urias 44, Mullins 43, Odor 37, Santander 36, Mateo 14, Hays 13 Mountcastle 10

Among Orioles qualifiers across multiple seasons, results have been:

'20-'22 Mullins: 35, 56, 43

'19-'22 Santander: 9, 7, 15, 36

'20-'22 Hays: 12, 37, 13

'20-'22 Mountcastle: 6, 4, 10

The Dodgers were MLB-best in 2022 at this; for flavor of how it looks when you are awesome, their qualifying player results were:

Muncy 99, Smith 89, Mookie 85, Lux 82, Taylor 80, Freeman 62, J. Turner 61, Bellinger 40, T. Turner 25

[Just Regular]

In case we buy a bat, here are the 2021 and 2022 percentiles of FA's among all MLB Bats with 300 PA.    In 2022, Haniger, Conforto, Brantley and Belt all failed to meet that Half Season standard.

Aaron Judge, 79-81

Trea Turner, 53-25

Carlos Correa, 80-64

Xander Bogaerts, 30-57

Dansby Swanson, 64-61

Brandon Nimmo, 98-85

Jose Abreu, 18-46

Trey Mancini, 29-49

Josh Bell, 76-71

Anthony Rizzo, 41-56

Andrew Benintendi, 23-76       (moving from Bottom Quartile to Top Quartile not something that happens often)

Mitch Haniger, 40-xx

Michael Conforto, 73-xx

JD Martinez, 13-38

Michael Brantley, 66-xx

Joc Pederson, 21-58

Joey Gallo, 95-59

Brandon Belt, 92-xx

Carlos Santana, 83-86

Good luck with the job hunting, Trey!

 

[Frobby]

The degree of variation between 2921 and 2022 for certain players on that list is interesting.  Turner 53-25, Bogaerts 30-57, Abreu 18-46, Benintendi 23-76, Martinez 13-38, Pederson 21-58, Gallo 93-59.   Pretty drastic changes.  

[Just Regular]

Month 1 of a promising looking year in the books.   Here's how things shake out here.

Having done this a couple years now, its gradually settled the Best/Worst difference IRL is about 1 pitch an inning.

April 2023 the team best/worst Chase Rates are 26 and 37.    Any given night, a Club sees about 50 balls and 100 strikes.   About 30 of those 100 strikes are "true balls" except the Stuff taxes the human brain's ability to discern always.     So 80 true balls, and the best Team chases about 20 of them, and the worst Team chases about 30 of them.     When Jonathan Schoop rescues a drowning Felix Bautista, that's about as bad as it can get.     Early Grayson Rodriguez's too wasteful 2-strike pitches, even Salvador Perez can not swing at them.

April 2023 - BAL ranked 14th MLB-wide.    Cedric Mullins, coming off a 43rd percentile 2022, joined Gunnar and Adley among the game's best in 2023.   

This morning Frazier at 91 plate appearances made - and Urias/Mateo at 84/83 missed - being counted as "Qualified" by Fangraphs, but I've elected to run the numbers at 80 PA as Urias/Mateo were real everyday players in a broad sense.

Player, and April percentile among MLB bats (80 PA+) in Chase Rate:

Gunnar, 95   

Mullins, 91

Adley, 88

Urias, 64

Hays, 54

Mateo, 49

Frazier, 44

Santander, 7

Mountcastle, 1        (202nd of 205 - we'll see Mr. 205 Salvador Perez tomorrow.    Not too many strikes Tyler Wells and Adley!)  

[Frobby]

Santander’s poor decisions have been quite apparent.  His chase rate is up from 35.0% last year to 41.8% this year.  He needs to get back to being more selective.  

[kidrock]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Santander’s poor decisions have been quite apparent.  His chase rate is up from 35.0% last year to 41.8% this year.  He needs to get back to being more selective.  

Frobby - do you see this as something he can significantly improve mid-season? 

[Just Regular]

We don't really get a large sample size to know, but anecdotally, psychobabble, whatever you want to call it, a Santander WBC hangover seems like it might be a thing.     Running hot gets you in Swing mode, you expend energy unusually, a wall comes early.

Care will be taken to unlock that 2022 and March 2023 guy.

What I think could happen in May that's new is Santander and/or Mountcastle getting moved down in the lineup in a way that hasn't happened in a while.

If you split lineups Top 5 / Bottom 4, Mike Elias' GUYS are Adley-Gunnar-Kjerstad-Cowser-Holliday.     It isn't long until everyone else is in the bottom half most days, assuming the Jorge Mateo Bo Bichette level up isn't sticky.    That guy might still hit 6th anyway.

[Just Regular]

May 2023 - BAL ranked 26th MLB-wide.    Gunnar and Adley held near the top of the scale, but everyone in the middle gave back about 10 percentile points among all MLB hitters.     Now we enter the No Mullins June - he'd been the 3rd best guy to date.

Player, and May percentile among MLB bats, Qualified, in Chase Rate (parens are April-May results):

Gunnar, 93         (95-93)

Adley, 92            (88-92)

Mullins, 81          (91-81)

Hays, 39             (54-39)

Frazier, 36         (44-36)

Mateo, 21          (xx-21)          Mateo April "xx" is for a non-qualified month; Ramon Urias has missed both April and May

Santander, 10     (7-10)

Mountcastle, 2   (1-2)

Hopefully Mountcastle can get it going.    Mullins' absence may make his style even more conspicuous.

We'll see if Cowser shows up this month.    Elias probably doesn't love a Bottom 5 MLB result even with Adley and Gunnar in full time.       

[Pat Kelly]

Mountcastle is just awful. 

[Hank Scorpio]

46 minutes ago, Pat Kelly said:

Mountcastle is just awful. 

He is painful to watch, yes. 

[clapdiddy]

4 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

He is painful to watch, yes. 

And...we haven't gotten to his "bad" month yet.   He's OPS'd a robust .594 in the month of July for his career thus far.  He wasn't too far off of his career May OPS of .729 (.710).   Hopefully, he'll heat up as he normally does in June (career OPS of .987).

[Just Regular]

June 2023 - BAL ranked 25th MLB-wide.    A "no Ryan Mountcastle month" didn't move the team needle as Gunnar doing adjustments and Adley having a .293 OBP month posted league average results in this discipline.   

First half of the year on the infield, Frazier has qualified each month, and Mateo/Urias just 1 out of 6, including both missing qualification this past month.

Now we enter the Westburg July, and we'll see how his training interacts with a diet of MLB pitches, and pushes veterans to even smaller roles.     

Player, and June percentile among MLB bats, Qualified, in Chase Rate (parens are April-May-June results):

A. Hicks, 76        (xx-xx-76)

Gunnar, 51         (95-93-51)

Adley, 47            (88-92-47)

Frazier, 28          (44-36-28)

Hays, 26             (54-39-26)

Santander, 17     (7-10-17)

JUNE Team Stats, Fangraphs rates the BAL Bats 16th, and the BAL Arms 14th in fWAR, so raise your hand if you had the Mike Elias Talent Mix's pitchers outplaying the hitters in the middle of 2023.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Just Regular