TT: Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson: Major League adjustments

[Tony-OH]

In the Coby Mayo thread in the minor league forum there's a conversation about how Orioles minor leaguers have made adjustments to major league pitching. The question mostly delved around how the Orioles minor league hitters are developed with the theory of only swinging at pitches where they can do damage. 

It makes sense that the "swing at pitches you can do damage on" approach is easier to employ in the minors than the majors because of major league pitcher's ability to throw quality strikes more often. In other words, major pitchers don't throw as many pitches that hitters can do damage on because that's why they are major league pitchers and not AAA pitchers.

Adley Rutschman slashed just .176/.256/.257/.513 with 18 Ks and 6 BBs over his first 82 major league PAs making that adjustment, but Gunnar did well over his first 72 PAs slashing .314/.368/.514/.883 before he started to struggle. The question is, was this an adjustment because of the approach taught or just the fact that that every hitter has to make major league adjustments coming out of the minor leagues? Now sometimes those adjustments are right away, and sometimes those adjustments happen after pitchers adjust to the hitter.

With so much data available now to teams, teams know what a hitter is good at and what he struggles with at the plate. With Adley they were busting him inside with hard stuff right away and he was unable to get those pitches early on. He eventually made the adjustments and he's been slashing .273/.373/.449/.823 since then though his approach this season has come at the expense of power.

After Gunnar's quick start, over his next 209 PAs he struggled badly slashing just .180/.325/.326/.651 with 36 walks and 67 Ks, striking out nearly once every 3 PAs. In Gunnar's case, he definitely was getting himself in way too many two strike counts and pitchers were not making too many two strike pitch mistakes.

Getting more aggressive, he slashed .273/.327/.518/.845 over his next 350 PAs with 24 BBs and 83 Ks. It's pretty obvious Gunnar's walked rate has gone way down, but he's offset that with much more power (.326 vs .518 SLG). While Gunnar's OBP is about the same, he's getting more hits vs walks and he's become much more productive.

After his slow start to his major league career, over his next 465 PAs, Rutschman slashed .283/.400/.501/.901 with 75 BB and 77 Ks, but then something happened. In his last 505 PAs, Adley has slashed just .264/.349/.404/.753 with 57 BB and 78 K. While the strike out rate has slightly come down, everything else has too, with the most obvious being a drop off in power (.501 vs .404 SLG). Over his last 92 PAs (21 G/20 starts) he’s slashing just .262/.326/.345/.671.   

The pitchers haven’t changed all that much how they’re pitching him so one theory is he’s just worn down a bit after catching so much during the early and mid-part of the season.

He does hit better as a DH than C over his career so far so there is some merit that catching takes a tool on his offense:

C    (784 PAs) - .259/.361/.416/.777
DH (258 PAs) - .289/.376/.484/.860 

So at the end of the day, the two top Orioles prospects that arrived on the scene have adjusted differently to the major leagues. Both have become well above average hitters with Rutschman’s (.344/.360) and Henderson’s (.343/.345) WOBA/XWOBA being well over the MLB average of (.316/.315).

Henderson is two and half years younger than Adley and has been hitting better of late, so he has the higher ceiling in my mind. But I also think Rutschman will end up a better hitter than he’s been overall this year. How good? That’s the real question and a different article.

 

[Jim'sKid26]

Fantastic post, thank you!

Two questions @Tony-OH if I might be so bold.

1) What does the impact of choosing to switch hit have on Adley's offensive production? By having to maintain two separate swings, does he do himself a disservice? We saw Mullins take a significant step forward when he stopped hitting right handed. 

2) Hyde has chosen to hit Adley in the lead off spot frquently. Has Adley changed his approach and thus his power has decreased because he's hitting lead off?

 

Thanks in advance for the replies.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jim'sKid26

[Tony-OH]

42 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

Fantastic post, thank you!

Two questions @Tony-OH if I might be so bold.

1) What does the impact of choosing to switch hit have on Adley's offensive production? By having to maintain two separate swings, does he do himself a disservice? We saw Mullins take a significant step forward when he stopped hitting right handed. 

2) Hyde has chosen to hit Adley in the lead off spot frquently. Has Adley changed his approach and thus his power has decreased because he's hitting lead off?

 

Thanks in advance for the replies.

Mullins stopped hitting right-handed because he was never good at it, even in the minors. Rutschman has always been good from both sides of the plate though from year to year which side is more effective may switch around. I don't see that as a problem and since he doesn't have huge splits, it wouldn't make much sense to stop him from switch-hitting even if keeping two swings straight all season can be hard for any switch hitter.

Adley's hitting whether batting 1st or 2nd has been about the same so I'd say leading off has had a negligible affect on his stats.

[Gurgi]

Anyone think Adley might be slightly injured?  Not enough to not play but enough to cut his offense and even make him not be able to throw runners out consistantly?

[baltfan]

18 minutes ago, Gurgi said:

Anyone think Adley might be slightly injured?  Not enough to not play but enough to cut his offense and even make him not be able to throw runners out consistantly?

He is throwing much better than he was earlier in the year.  At least he tends to be a bit more accurate.  

[MTMan13]

Really interesting analysis that made this long-time lurker come out of the woodwork for the first time since 2015 on a new account...thanks Tony! 

For Adley in particular, his power has dropped off, but weirdly a few of his power peripherals are actually better than last season: 

• EV is higher (88.4 2023 vs 87.9 MPH 2022)
• Hard Hit % Up  (38.3% vs 36.8%) 

It made me wonder how much his (anecdotally) inconsistent ball/strike calling by the umps this year  has played into his selectivity at the plate, made him expand the zone...He is grounding out more (.74 vs .67 GB/FB) at the expense of strikeouts / walks (both down marginally from 2022) , and hitting up the middle MUCH less (46.8% vs 54.9%)....

I'm too green to know how to post in pictures from BBREF / Baseball Cube. Can anyone give me a heads up on how to do that? 

Go O's! 

[Frobby]

Great post, Tony!   One thing I constantly need to remind myself of is that players’ progress rarely moves in a straight line and you never really know when or if a breakthrough will come.  I have this gut feeling that Adley has another gear he hasn’t reached yet, but I don’t know if he’ll reach it eventually or not.  I feel pretty sure Gunnar has another gear from a contact perspective down the road.  But, we’ll see.  

[banks703]

3 hours ago, Gurgi said:

Anyone think Adley might be slightly injured?  Not enough to not play but enough to cut his offense and even make him not be able to throw runners out consistantly?

I’ve speculated this for some time. He’s not moved well behind the plate or on the bases since at least July. In a lot of his lefty PAs, he looks both stiff and cheating on heaters, which causes him to fly open and off balance. This looks like something isn’t 100% with him. Maybe not enough to consider an injury but nagging enough to impact his play. 

[Sports Guy]

I still say Adley should be moved down the lineup. I would bat him second vs righties and 4th vs lefties. 
 

Maybe Adley is different but we have had players talk in the past about his where they bat in the lineup changes their approach. I believe Adley goes for defensive swings just to make contact and get on base at times vs trying to drive the ball.

I am not sure if he would change his approach or not but I would like to see them try.

All of that said, w/r/t this conversation, I think Gunnar is just a more skilled and more talented offensive player.

[baltfan]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I still say Adley should be moved down the lineup. I would bat him second vs righties and 4th vs lefties. 
 

Maybe Adley is different but we have had players talk in the past about his where they bat in the lineup changes their approach. I believe Adley goes for defensive swings just to make contact and get on base at times vs trying to drive the ball.

I am not sure if he would change his approach or not but I would like to see them try.

All of that said, w/r/t this conversation, I think Gunnar is just a more skilled and more talented offensive player.

I like that he sees a lot of pitches.  This helps the guys below him. He is also probably the closest thing the Orioles have a contact hitter.  He reminds me a bit of Markakis in terms of his profile.  

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, baltfan said:

I like that he sees a lot of pitches.  This helps the guys below him. He is also probably the closest thing the Orioles have a contact hitter.  He reminds me a bit of Markakis in terms of his profile.  

He can still see a lot of pitches but look to drive the ball more.

[Flash- bd]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He can still see a lot of pitches but look to drive the ball more.

Don't have anything other than my own observations to back this up, but it feels like Adley has taken a lot of big swings this season where he's just not barrelled it up, especially foul balls. 

Interested to hear what those who know more about baseball (most of you) think about this.

I wonder if it's more of a psychological thing, wherein he's aware his power numbers aren't quite where he is capable of being and when he's getting those pitches in those counts that he's looking for he's maybe even swinging too hard, instead of a more natural swing that is likely to produce more barrels and power. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Flash- bd

[justD]

5 hours ago, MTMan13 said:

I'm too green to know how to post in pictures from BBREF / Baseball Cube. Can anyone give me a heads up on how to do that? 

You can't post photos directly from another site; you have to screenshot them or otherwise download them to your device first, then upload them into the post.  I personally use the choose files... selection at the bottom of the editor to insert a pic but you can also drag and drop.

You can link to another site that has what you want to share by using the chain-link, fourth icon from the left in the top bar of the editor, or just cut and paste it.  Experiment with pasting it as plain text (the editor will ask you) to see what the result is; you can edit a post if it doesn't look how you want it.  This doesn't share the page content inside the post, tho, just a link to it. 

A Twitter/X link will expand fully inside the post if you select "use plain text instead."  

Hope that helps. 

[baltfan]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He can still see a lot of pitches but look to drive the ball more.

I had this feeling about him as well, but his stats on counts where has the advantage seem to be quite good.

http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/jBO2r

 

[oriolediehard]

Does anybody notice that since Adley got here we have had a much better pitching staff and a better team? We have had a much better winning culture since Adley handles our pitching staff. It is the unwritten rule.