Swing Decisions, Monthly

[Just Regular]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I think you are going to see these numbers change a lot once Elias’ draftees start percolating up to the majors.   They’re drafting disciplined hitters and they’re coaching it throughout the minors.   

No doubt...summer 2023 hoping the qualifying Orioles percentiles look perhaps like:

75th+: Cowser, Rutschman, Kjerstad, Urias

50th-75th: Mullins, Gunnar, Westburg

So many RBI's: Santander, Mountcastle

Two months along Urias feels all Mullins too good to be true, but whether Norby, Vavra, etc, floor 2B types abound, even if those thoroughbreds can both stay on the left side of the infield, and out of that fray themselves.

[SteveA]

47 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

In August, Ramon Urias again helped keep the team away from the very bottom.   The team ended up 25th MLB-wide for August.

Qualified PA in a month also kind of an attendance report, and Mountcastle narrowly missed with his brief absence.   He was seeing beach balls all month, so no surprise he was swinging (and crushing!) a lot.

Percentile results -   Player: April, May, June, July, August

Urias: xx, xx, xx, 95th, 85th        (another very good month, solidifying himself as someone I'm proud to see in the lineup)

Hays: xx, xx, xx, 65th, 38th       (2nd straight month of compiling Qualified full-time status)

Mullins: 75th, 52nd, 41st, 40th, 64th

Santander: xx, xx, 36th, xx, 18th

Trey: 31st, 32nd, 22nd, 39th, 29th

Mountcastle:  4th, 3rd, 11th, 5th, 2nd* (2nd percentile with threshold lowered to 70PA).

I'm hoping September gives Jahmai Jones enough run to qualify.   If we can get Jahmai and Adley circa April 15th, that'd be 8 out of 9 credible and whatever the offseason turns up for 3B, though Urias/Jones probably waaaay overextended defensively as a starting middle infield.   I'm also curious in Jones' September to see if infield/outfield flexing occurs, as I've felt he and Vavra are perhaps being groomed for that Enrique Hernandez/Chris Taylor 10th/11th player type role.

Hays dropoff from July to August certainly matches what we've seen -- he's been flailing wildly at outside pitches for most of August.  Somehow he has an 8 game hitting streak though.

[RZNJ]

2 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Hays dropoff from July to August certainly matches what we've seen -- he's been flailing wildly at outside pitches for most of August.  Somehow he has an 8 game hitting streak though.

Hays, plate discipline aside, has been letting the ball travel as they say, much better plate coverage on his swing, and a much better all fields approach.  Looking a lot better.  

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

No doubt...summer 2023 hoping the qualifying Orioles percentiles look perhaps like:

75th+: Cowser, Rutschman, Kjerstad, Urias

50th-75th: Mullins, Gunnar, Westburg

So many RBI's: Santander, Mountcastle

Two months along Urias feels all Mullins too good to be true, but whether Norby, Vavra, etc, floor 2B types abound, even if those thoroughbreds can both stay on the left side of the infield, and out of that fray themselves.

I believe in Urias’ bat.   No reason he can’t be a .750+ OPS guy in the majors.   

Not on your list above: Stowers who should do very well in this regard.  And you’re probably low on Westburg from what I’ve seen of him.   
 

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Hays dropoff from July to August certainly matches what we've seen -- he's been flailing wildly at outside pitches for most of August.  Somehow he has an 8 game hitting streak though.

 

8 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Hays, plate discipline aside, has been letting the ball travel as they say, much better plate coverage on his swing, and a much better all fields approach.  Looking a lot better.  

Hays’ overall O-Swing% is at 31.8%, which is way down from previous seasons.   I doubt the different between July’s 65th percentile and August’s 38th percentile is that big, since both are within one standard deviation from the mean.   Perhaps @OrioleDog can enlighten us on the raw numbers.   

[Just Regular]

Hays was at 34.2% for August, after 28.7% July.

He's the guy for me where until he shows up many months in a row that's the main thing to monitor.

I really hope he can.   By Ron Shandler's guideline of If a player shows a skill, he owns it, Hays at different times has hit, hit for power, controlled the strike zone, defended well.   He can run and throw, and I believe scores lots of runs/games played which IIRC was one of Bill James favorite toys for identifying players that have hidden value.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

Hays was at 34.2% for August, after 28.7% July.

He's the guy for me where until he shows up many months in a row that's the main thing to monitor.

I really hope he can.   By Ron Shandler's guideline of If a player shows a skill, he owns it, Hays at different times has hit, hit for power, controlled the strike zone, defended well.   He can run and throw, and I believe scores lots of runs/games played which IIRC was one of Bill James favorite toys for identifying players that have hidden value.

I don’t think Hays will ever show above average plate discipline over a full season.  Still, if he can keep himself within spitting distance of average, I believe in his hit tool.    Honestly I’m a little disappointed in his season to date, but I still think he’ll be an above average regular with more experience.  

[Just Regular]

For all ye Contact to Damage Stowerses and Mountcastles, here is nirvana.

Even Adley and Colton can't do this.    But you should all try.    Can't wait for Adley, Urias, Mullins and Hays all in the lineup together, hopefully circa Tax Day.   I assume SS will be a Villar/Galvis/Iglesias re-run for glove, but after trying SLG path with Franco in 2021, i am curious to see if a more scientific hitter temp gets the nod for '22.

 

[Just Regular]

Like a kid on Christmas morning who can't help but open the big box first, a few seasonal observations before circling back to the boring stocking of September monthlies.

300 PA Orioles - 2021 Chase Rate percentile among all MLB'ers with 300 PA:

82 DJ Stewart   -  the cautionary tale this skill useless if you can't hit well enough

56 Mullins

51 Severino

37 Hays

29 Mancini

15 Santander

9 Franco

4 Mountcastle  -   whether this number grows or shrinks I think heavily influences his shelf life.   I believe a lineup full of mostly scientific hitters benefits from a couple guys like this, just so long as everybody isn't trying to emulate Adam Jones.

Ramon Urias just missed at 290-ish PA.   He was awesome at this, and hit well enough for it to matter.   The first couple months of next season, I'm simply sitting on can you do the Ripken type things without something going ouch.   He is a full member of the Guys I Hope Bat 500 Times Club.   No Winter Ball!!

Team-level ratings, BAL was 27th, the Orioles at least 11th consecutive season 23rd or worse in this category.   Notwithstanding Mountcastle's ongoing efforts, I feel it is a mathematical certainty the offense Elias is building will end this streak.   When its ready to try, for real.

BOS/MIA/KCR the three clubs the Orioles bettered this year.

The Top 8 - LAD/SFG/SDP/NYY/WAS*/HOU/OAK/MIL

*Soto is Bonds

 

[Just Regular]

In September, Hays and Mountcastle converged, and as a team the Orioles did what the Orioles always do.

Qualified PA in a month also kind of an attendance report, and with lots of folks kind of tuckered out, only four qualified including Gutierrez in his all-inclusive tryout.

Percentile results -   Player: April, May, June, July, August, September

Urias: xx, xx, xx, 95th, 85th, xx     (get your body right for a full-time job in the Show, congrats on a great year)

Hays: xx, xx, xx, 65th, 38th, 25th      (3rd straight month of compiling Qualified full-time status)

Mullins: 75th, 52nd, 41st, 40th, 64th, 73rd

Santander: xx, xx, 36th, xx, 18th, xx       (ends the year 2-for-6 in qualifying months.   More DH time needed in 2022?)

Trey: 31st, 32nd, 22nd, 39th, 29th, xx

Mountcastle:  4th, 3rd, 11th, 5th, 2nd* , 21st

*AUG21 = threshold lowered to 70PA

In the September of The Mountcastle Eye thread, he hit 204/286/425.   If he was doing a month long project, this dial down might have been too much.

Gutierrez: xx, xx, xx, xx, xx, 46th     (aka, 2nd best guy on the club, by 2021 Orioles standards)

[Just Regular]

35 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

The Top 8 - LAD/SFG/SDP/NYY/WAS*/HOU/OAK/MIL

Just for a flavor of how players fall in when the team Excels, here are the 300 PA guys for 2021's MLB-leading Dodgers.

Muncy 99, Betts 94, Taylor 89, Smith 88, Lux 84, Turner 71, Seager 47, Bellinger 21, Pollock 11

Before he earned himself a lot more money than I think the Orioles are paying out, Chris Taylor was a 2022 free agent infielder I had hopes for in the vein of Enrique Hernandez, but danged if he didn't break out of role player jail even on the Dodgers and find his ~600 PA and tens of millions.

[Aristotelian]

Great posts. I hope you'll keep these coming next year. I hope Mountcastle continues to improve although it's interesting, August was one of his worst swing decision months but his best OPS month (1.183). He did have his best month drawing walks in September with 12. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Great posts. I hope you'll keep these coming next year. I hope Mountcastle continues to improve although it's interesting, August was one of his worst swing decision months but his best OPS month (1.183). He did have his best month drawing walks in September with 12. 

There are certain guys who, when they’re feeling it, will swing at pitches outside the strike zone because they can hit them.   And then when they’re not feeling it, they try to lay off.   So is it a bad swing decision, if you can hit the pitch with authority?   I don’t know.   I personally prefer disciplined hitters who make the pitchers throw strikes and don’t swing at pitchers’ pitches, even if they are strikes, unless they get a strike or two called first.   But I do understand that for some guys, when the ball is looking like a beach ball, sometimes you’re going to be aggressive.  

[Just Regular]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

42nd percentile for Hays sounds a little better than normal for him?   Not sure where your percentile numbers come from. 

Just a Fangraphs download and an Excel formula.

@seak05, in addition to that McNeil piece, BP in its Pro"Guest"us channel this past week introduced the writeup of a new tool developed by a couple of Villanova Stats-Computer Science types that was presented at the SABR Conference in March.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/74214/quantifying-hitter-plate-discipline-with-eagle-part-2/

Paywall, but basically it does many of the things you imagine could be done.   It goes deeper into the run values of each Swing-Don't Swing choice.    Ryan Mountcastle clobbers a HR on a bad fastball two inches above the zone, he gets credit instead of a penalty, etc.

Obviously Chase Rate itself and the arbitrary endpoints of a month are simple measures.   I would hope and believe OMAR is giving Orioles staff EAGLE-level feedback and more day to day, and AI is doing an ever growing chunk of the analysis.   

This ritual is just mile-high stuff for a look whether a team is controlling the strikezone if it can, which I feel has been a lot of the game of baseball for as long as there's been baseball.   

 

[Just Regular]

It looks like something happened with the initial April results post this morning.

The TEAM had a 16th MLB-wide, a lot better than I'm used to seeing.   Qualified batter player percentiles among all MLB hitters were:

Urias 87, Santander 62, Mancini 51, Hays 42, Mateo 24, Mullins 20, Mountcastle 8

Compared to their own histories, that was a patient month for Mancini and a hacky one for Mullins.