Ryan Mountcastle 2022

[Tony-OH]

I thought Mountcastle looked bigger and saw he's listed at 230 pounds now in baseball savant. 

Now maybe it was just a few slower than normal sprints, but his sprint speed is down 3 seconds and went from 75 percentile to 26 percentile. It will be interesting if his sprint speed rises back closer or did he slow down that much.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/ryan-mountcastle-663624?stats=statcast-r-running-mlb

[MurphDogg]

Definitely an interesting thing to keep an eye on. If he is locked in at first base and is no longer seen as an option in the outfield, gaining weight in order to increase power probably makes sense even if it does slow him down a little bit.

[glenn__davis]

There was a play either in ST or in the opening series, where I thought he had a good chance to beat it out, and he was out easily.  I think he's definitely slowed down a bit.

[Can_of_corn]

14 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Definitely an interesting thing to keep an eye on. If he is locked in at first base and is no longer seen as an option in the outfield, gaining weight in order to increase power probably makes sense even if it does slow him down a little bit.

Considering how many infield hits he had when he first came up he might want to rethink that.

[Just Regular]

I know the Sprint Speed leaderboard says a player needs to have 10 competitive runs to get on to the leaderboard.

I wonder if on Day6 they are just populating player pages with the "only" 10 runs (perhaps even fewer in some player's cases), and a lollygag or four on a well-struck ball right at an infielder is still in today's mix.

I looked at Jorge Mateo's page to see if he was 99 or 100, but couldn't find a Sprint Speed percentile on his page yet this year - maybe they are just bubbling in as guys get to 10 runs.

[MurphDogg]

16 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Considering how many infield hits he had when he first came up he might want to rethink that.

Mountcastle had 16 infield hits last year. Giancarlo Stanton, also a righthanded batter, and with a slightly slower 2021 sprint speed than Mountcastle's 2022 sprint speed. managed 9 infield hits last year. 

Certainly he would lose a few infield hits but not all of them, and I would assume that the loss of speed was a conscious choice and was paired with an effort to add strength.

Definitely something to keep an eye on though.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, MurphDogg said:

Mountcastle had 16 infield hits last year. Giancarlo Stanton, also a righthanded batter, and with a slightly slower 2021 sprint speed than Mountcastle's 2022 sprint speed. managed 9 infield hits last year. 

Certainly he would lose a few infield hits but not all of them, and I would assume that the loss of speed was a conscious choice and was paired with an effort to add strength.

Definitely something to keep an eye on though.

I was talking about 2020 more than 2021. 

In 2020 he tended to either barrel the ball or make poor contact, the type of contact that can lead to cheap infield singles.

[MurphDogg]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

I was talking about 2020 more than 2021. 

In 2020 he tended to either barrel the ball or make poor contact, the type of contact that can lead to cheap infield singles.

Yeah, that combined with a small sample size resulted in an unusually high BABIP and infield singles.

[NCRaven]

22 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Yeah, that combined with a small sample size resulted in an unusually high BABIP and infield singles.

Isn't four games into the season also an extremely small sample size to begin drawing conclusions?

Only quoted MurphDogg because he mentioned SSS.  Not a comment on his post.

[Tony-OH]

31 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

Isn't four games into the season also an extremely small sample size to begin drawing conclusions?

Only quoted MurphDogg because he mentioned SSS.  Not a comment on his post.

Absolutely, which is why I said it's something to keep an eye on. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

I'll gladly take an increase in XBH's for less infield hits (assuming it doesn't wreck his .OPS), but Mountcastle should probably never play the outfield. It wasn't many games, but Mountcastle played 21 games in the outfield during 2021 season. 

[MurphDogg]

Hope he is back Saturday or shortly thereafter. The lineup is markedly worse without him.

[MurphDogg]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:18 PM, Tony-OH said:

I thought Mountcastle looked bigger and saw he's listed at 230 pounds now in baseball savant. 

Now maybe it was just a few slower than normal sprints, but his sprint speed is down 3 seconds and went from 75 percentile to 26 percentile. It will be interesting if his sprint speed rises back closer or did he slow down that much.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/ryan-mountcastle-663624?stats=statcast-r-running-mlb

Sprint speed is up to 55th percentile so still slower than last year but not at the level he was the first couple weeks. 2022 Sprint speed is 27.3 ft/sec compared to 28.1 and 28.0 in 2021 and 2020 respectively.

[NCRaven]

21 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Hope he is back Saturday or shortly thereafter. The lineup is markedly worse without him.

Losing Mountcastle, Hays and Mateo has sucked.  Add putting up with nothing at 2B and Catcher and it feels hopeless against a team like the Yankees.

[SteveA]

1 minute ago, NCRaven said:

Losing Mountcastle, Hays and Mateo has sucked.  Add putting up with nothing at 2B and Catcher and it feels hopeless against a team like the Yankees.

And yet we were:

• A stupid play by Trey Mancini getting caught off first
• A doink off the foul pole on a fly ball that carried
• A horrible relay throw by Urias

away from taking a 2-1 lead into the 9th!