Austin Hays 2022

[Pickles]

5 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Probably but I wouldn’t be surprised if Santander’s sprint speed is as good as Hays and even though Hays has a stronger arm, Santander’s is pretty solid.

I'd be shocked if their sprint speed was all that close.  But, as noted, I agree that Santander has a solid arm.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Pickles

[RZNJ]

11 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I'd be shocked if their sprint speed was all that close.  But, as noted, I agree that Santander has a solid arm.

Hays is not that fast, IMO.  
 

ok. Hays wins. Statcast has his sprint speed at 27.8.  Santander is 26.5.   A significant difference.

Edited September 15, 2022 by RZNJ

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, RZNJ said:

Hays is not that fast, IMO.  

He's not a burner, but he runs appreciably faster than Santander, who I would classify as below average.

[Sports Guy]

According to the numbers, Hays gets poor reads and jumps on the ball.

Eye test doesn’t matter here because you normally don’t see the immediate jump or immediate read on TV.

Plus, eyes lie anyway, so I would take the newer, better and more sophisticated stats over weak eyes any day of the week.

 

[Gurgi]

21 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Probably but I wouldn’t be surprised if Santander’s sprint speed is as good as Hays and even though Hays has a stronger arm, Santander’s is pretty solid.

Santander is very slow.  If you watch the play at the plate two nights ago he took a million years to get to home after the pitcher was scuffling the ball.   Anyone on the team would of scored on that play with the exception of Jesus.   Hays would of made it.

[RZNJ]

14 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

According to the numbers, Hays gets poor reads and jumps on the ball.

Eye test doesn’t matter here because you normally don’t see the immediate jump or immediate read on TV.

Plus, eyes lie anyway, so I would take the newer, better and more sophisticated stats over weak eyes any day of the week.

 

Yeah. I know stats are better than the eye test.  I wasn’t implying that they weren’t.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Yeah. I know stats are better than the eye test.  I wasn’t implying that they weren’t.

Never said you were.

[sportsfan8703]

The wall has to have affected Hays and Mountcastle. No way it hasn’t. 

[RZNJ]

51 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

The wall has to have affected Hays and Mountcastle. No way it hasn’t. 

It has but instead of being smart and looking to take middle a middle out pitches to CF and RF they try to load up and still pull it out to LF.  You can see how much better of a hitter, Mateo, Mountcastle are when the have an all fields approach.  It also leads to better plate discipline because they aren’t cheating to get to the middle in fastball.   Really frustrating to watch these guys when they spend a month in pull mode.  Mateo hit a homer last night.  I can’t remember the last time he even attempted to drive a ball to RF.  Mountcastle has been doing it some for 3weeks now and he’s been better.

[Moose Milligan]

15 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

It has but instead of being smart and looking to take middle a middle out pitches to CF and RF they try to load up and still pull it out to LF.  You can see how much better of a hitter, Mateo, Mountcastle are when the have an all fields approach.  It also leads to better plate discipline because they aren’t cheating to get to the middle in fastball.   Really frustrating to watch these guys when they spend a month in pull mode.  Mateo hit a homer last night.  I can’t remember the last time he even attempted to drive a ball to RF.  Mountcastle has been doing it some for 3weeks now and he’s been better.

Yeah, I don't know if these guys are pull happy or genuinely just can't hit it to the opposite field with any consistency.  In other words, I can't believe USING THE WHOLE FIELD, DAMMIT, is as easy as we like to think it is.  But then you see Hays and Mountcastle rolling over outside pitches and grounding out to SS (when they make contact) and it sucks to see.

All I know is that when I played in HS and summer league teams, I liked going to the opposite field.  I felt like it allowed me to wait longer, see the pitch better.  And all my coaches wanted me to pull it because I was big and strong.  I tried, but I never was good enough at it.  

Hitting is hard, IMO, it's probably the hardest thing to do in sports.  But I always felt going the other way made it somewhat easier.  

[RZNJ]

9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, I don't know if these guys are pull happy or genuinely just can't hit it to the opposite field with any consistency.  In other words, I can't believe USING THE WHOLE FIELD, DAMMIT, is as easy as we like to think it is.  But then you see Hays and Mountcastle rolling over outside pitches and grounding out to SS (when they make contact) and it sucks to see.

All I know is that when I played in HS and summer league teams, I liked going to the opposite field.  I felt like it allowed me to wait longer, see the pitch better.  And all my coaches wanted me to pull it because I was big and strong.  I tried, but I never was good enough at it.  

Hitting is hard, IMO, it's probably the hardest thing to do in sports.  But I always felt going the other way made it somewhat easier.  

It’s something I think all three (Mateo, Hays, Mountcastle) are capable of but it’s outside of there comfort zone.  Mateo made adjustments when he hit rock bottom offensively.  Mountcastle too but it seems they eventually backslide into pull mode.   
 

Obviously, it’s not as easy as it sounds but I believe these three are capable.  I used to say the same thing about Adam Jones who had a beautiful stroke to RF.  He’d use RF for a week or two but he never did it all of the time.

[Moose Milligan]

19 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

It’s something I think all three (Mateo, Hays, Mountcastle) are capable of but it’s outside of there comfort zone.  Mateo made adjustments when he hit rock bottom offensively.  Mountcastle too but it seems they eventually backslide into pull mode.   
 

Obviously, it’s not as easy as it sounds but I believe these three are capable.  I used to say the same thing about Adam Jones who had a beautiful stroke to RF.  He’d use RF for a week or two but he never did it all of the time.

Agreed.  Yes, you see these guys do it for a little bit and then they fall back into their ways.

[Can_of_corn]

6 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, I don't know if these guys are pull happy or genuinely just can't hit it to the opposite field with any consistency.  In other words, I can't believe USING THE WHOLE FIELD, DAMMIT, is as easy as we like to think it is.  But then you see Hays and Mountcastle rolling over outside pitches and grounding out to SS (when they make contact) and it sucks to see.

All I know is that when I played in HS and summer league teams, I liked going to the opposite field.  I felt like it allowed me to wait longer, see the pitch better.  And all my coaches wanted me to pull it because I was big and strong.  I tried, but I never was good enough at it.  

Hitting is hard, IMO, it's probably the hardest thing to do in sports.  But I always felt going the other way made it somewhat easier.  

Just like asking why they don't just bunt?

It's still really hard.

[SilverRocket]

His bat is one thing, but what's happened to Hays' defense? A couple years ago he was at least in consideration for playing CF on occasion. Now he can't even play a competent LF. His range is gone, and in the second half he hasn't even been throwing out runners. I feel like he's gotten a lot worse as the season has gone on too. Fangraphs shows him as 50th out or 54 outfielders in OAA. Santander is 46th and Mullins is 11th.

Is there a health issue, or has he just lost his speed and reaction time through aging? I at least didn't expect him to fall below Santander in defense.

[Gurgi]

25 minutes ago, SilverRocket said:

His bat is one thing, but what's happened to Hays' defense? A couple years ago he was at least in consideration for playing CF on occasion. Now he can't even play a competent LF. His range is gone, and in the second half he hasn't even been throwing out runners. I feel like he's gotten a lot worse as the season has gone on too. Fangraphs shows him as 50th out or 54 outfielders in OAA. Santander is 46th and Mullins is 11th.

Is there a health issue, or has he just lost his speed and reaction time through aging? I at least didn't expect him to fall below Santander in defense.

I feel it probably is something to do with health.  He was explosive two-three years ago.  Making some epic catches.   He has not shown anything like that this year.   His wheels might be hurting.  Maybe we find out in some article in the off season when they admit the truth.