Austin Hays 2023

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Two homers for Hays last night.  Playing in Minute Maid Park, he must think he’s died and gone to heaven.  He’d probably be a 30-homer guy if he played there.  The second one was no cheapie, though, 422 feet.  

For me, this has been Hays’ best season.  So far, he has career highs in runs, hits, doubles, walks and total bases, and he’s on pace to have career bests in all the rate stats.  He’s also played really good defense this season, with the exception of the first ten games or so.  He had one pretty long slump, but even so I’d say this has been his most consistent season.  Hopefully he can finish our strong.  He’s still got a shot at .800 OPS for the year (.792 now).
 

This has no doubt been Hays' best full season with the Orioles.  He's also been very good defensively even though he's put up a 0 OOA in statcast. He did get a 2 run value for arm value.

The best news is this is two seasons in a row without a lot of injuries or getting banged up so we can put that to bed.

[RZNJ]

I must say Hays has surprised me.  He looked like he was headed for a really poor 2nd half again but has righted the ship.   I don’t have confidence in him against RHP and he still swings at pitches a foot off the plate sometimes and seems especially vulnerable to breaking pitches but he came up huge last night and continues to get the job done on both sites of the ball.   I think the Orioles are higher on his defense than the stats are.   That, combined with Cowser’s poor showing lead me to believe that both Hays and Santander come back next season.

[Frobby]

Hays finished the season a little cold (.692 in September), but to me, he had his best season.  He finished at .275/.325/.444, 117 OPS+, 16 homers and 67 RBI, 2.6 rWAR and 2.2 fWAR.   He had a really bad first two weeks of the year on defense, then played excellent defense the rest of the year.  He’s got his flaws, but he’s a gutsy player who you can tell really loves playing the game.  I hope he performs well in the postseason .

[turtlebowl]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Hays finished the season a little cold (.692 in September), but to me, he had his best season.  He finished at .275/.325/.444, 117 OPS+, 16 homers and 67 RBI, 2.6 rWAR and 2.2 fWAR.   He had a really bad first two weeks of the year on defense, then played excellent defense the rest of the year.  He’s got his flaws, but he’s a gutsy player who you can tell really loves playing the game.  I hope he performs well in the postseason .

I have always been a huge Hay's supporter.  I have to admit though that this may end up being the best of what he can do and truthfully that falls short of what I thought he could end up being.  

Still a solid player that leaves it all on the field.  You can win with guys like this in your lineup.  Probably see more platooning needed moving forward as he really struggles with right handers that have good breaking pitches. Hopefully he will remain on the team and will be a valuable contributor with teams making yearly championship runs.

[Tony-OH]

26 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Hays finished the season a little cold (.692 in September), but to me, he had his best season.  He finished at .275/.325/.444, 117 OPS+, 16 homers and 67 RBI, 2.6 rWAR and 2.2 fWAR.   He had a really bad first two weeks of the year on defense, then played excellent defense the rest of the year.  He’s got his flaws, but he’s a gutsy player who you can tell really loves playing the game.  I hope he performs well in the postseason .

He's become a solid every day major league outfielder. Nothing wrong with that. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, turtlebowl said:

I have always been a huge Hay's supporter.  I have to admit though that this may end up being the best of what he can do and truthfully that falls short of what I thought he could end up being. 

I agree with this.  He’s probably always going to be a guy who chases a bit too much and is prone to slumps.   He’s put together several really good half-seasons but always hits a pretty significant bump in the road sometime during the season.  This was probably his most consistent season, but even so, he had one or two long periods where he was ice cold.  Still, like you say, he’s proven he’s a solid contributor.  

[Malike]

Hays was a top prospect, and I think that sometimes people believe that being on the Top 100 lists means you're going to get a star or a generational talent. You are lucky to get a solid everyday ML player off of a top 100 list, most will not even be that, with the exception of the few generational talents here and there.

[RVAOsFan]

I really like the way Hays plays the game and am happy for him making an all star team and for the most part really staying healthy this year.  I think one thing we may take for granted around here a bit is we have a guy who can play CF in LF. When talking about prospects coming up a popular thing to say is “can we turn them into a corner outfielder”. I think with the dimensions at Camden Yards this roster needs more than just a guy who can play some outfield in LF. We need a guy like Hays who can run some balls down. 

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, Malike said:

Hays was a top prospect, and I think that sometimes people believe that being on the Top 100 lists means you're going to get a star or a generational talent. You are lucky to get a solid everyday ML player off of a top 100 list, most will not even be that, with the exception of the few generational talents here and there.

At 9.1 rWAR with hopefully several more solid seasons in him, I’d say Hays is meeting reasonable expectations for a guy who was ranked 21st by BA, 23rd by MLB.com, and 72nd by BP.   He might have gotten where he is a little sooner if he hadn’t been injured so often in 2018-20.  But he’s been pretty healthy for 3 years now, enough to easily qualify for the batting title each of those years.  He’s got a good shot at a 15-20 rWAR career, which is nothing to sneeze at.  

[Malike]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

At 9.1 rWAR with hopefully several more solid seasons in him, I’d say Hays is meeting reasonable expectations for a guy who was ranked 21st by BA, 23rd by MLB.com, and 72nd by BP.   He might have gotten where he is a little sooner if he hadn’t been injured so often in 2018-20.  But he’s been pretty healthy for 3 years now, enough to easily qualify for the batting title each of those years.  He’s got a good shot at a 15-20 rWAR career, which is nothing to sneeze at.  

Sure, 20 rWAR isn't a star over a career, and I think a lot of people just assume because a guy is highly ranked on the top 100 lists they are going to be a star. I'm not suggesting you think this, just stating the obvious, most guys on a top 100 list are more likely to fade into oblivion than become an everyday MLB regular.

[Frobby]

On 9/20/2023 at 10:06 AM, Say O! said:

Fangraphs interview of Austin Hays

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/austin-hays-follows-the-numbers-and-trusts-the-process/

I somehow missed this interview in the heat of the pennant race.  I encourage everyone to read it.  Here’s a few quotes I liked:

Laurila: Is chasing exit velocity a good idea?

Hays: “It depends on how you’re chasing it. If you’re trying to get your exit velocity up by effort level, you’re over-swinging, that’s probably going to cause you to chase pitches out of the zone. But if you’re chasing exit velocity by making sure you’re swinging at pitches over the heart of the plate, I think that would be a very good thing to try to do. That is what I’ve been trying to do.”

Laurila: Which of your data do you look at after games?

Hays: “We have an app that we use. All of the information goes in there after each game, and something I’ve tried to improve on this year is my swing-decision scores. Every pitch you swing at or take, every pitch thrown, we have a score for. It’s not a perfect metric, but I think it does a pretty good job of showing you what you’re doing at the plate.

“If you’re taking a strike with two strikes, that’s going to have the biggest negative score. And if you’re in a three-ball count and swing at a pitch that’s pretty far outside the strike zone, a clear ball, that’s going to get the most hurt as well. But if you take edgy pitches early in the count, or you take a close pitch for ball four, a pitch that is just outside the zone, that’s going to get the most points.

“That’s something I’ve been looking at every single day. It’s ‘OK, how was my plate discipline yesterday? How did I do?’ From that you can start to see, ‘Oh, wow, I’ve had a really good two weeks, I’ve have a lot of doubles, hit some home runs, and my batting average is really high.’ I’ll see that I’ve been making really good swing decisions, and that’s led me to me hitting the ball hard. Or let’s say I have a bad week. I can see if there is any correlation to the pitches I’ve been swinging at and if I’ve been chasing.”