Adley is in an otherworldly slump right now

[interloper]

From 7/1/2024 through 8/2/2024: 

.125/.247/.213/.460
37 WRC+
.088 ISO

If you're looking for some kind of ray of hope, he's had a .118 BABIP during this stretch. 

=====

For perspective, here is Jorge Mateo's horrific month last year, 7/1/2023 - 8/1/2023:

.150/.209/.250/.459
25 WRC+
.100 ISO

Edited August 2 by interloper

[interloper]

I'm trying my hardest to not freak out about this. But there is not a single more important thing I would be trying to sort out if I'm the Orioles coaches. It's incredibly important that Adley hits in this offense. There's just no way around that fact. Without him, it's just a significantly worse offense. 

Hyde continues to bat him 2nd when he catches, but I would think about dropping him to 5th or 6th for awhile. 
 

[The Goob]

And it seemed to come out of nowhere.  OPS by month .827 in April, .798 in May, .848 in June and .482 in July.  Just crazy how bad he has been for over a month now.  For a catcher with the heat this time of year you would assume overwork and exhaustion but I feel like the team has done a decent job of resting him by using the DH slot.  Maybe they need to consider more full off days for August and September.  With Mayo coming and Eloy here maybe they gets all the DH at bats versus LHP and Adley can rest fully.

[e16bball]

Just to add a little more statistical backing to what we’ve all been seeing (and suffering through) with our own two eyes, the batted ball quality has also been awful.

He’s posted an average EV of 85.6 MPH since 6/30, which would rank 140 out of 145 qualifiers over the course of the full season. He also has a 27.1 HH% during that span, which would also be 140 out of 145. He’s had 3 barrels all month, and the launch angle is a very un-Adley-like 20+ degrees. 
 

On the positive side, as the OP indicated, there’s probably some significant bad luck there. Statcast has him at a .219 xBA — which still isn’t very good, of course, but it’s much better than the .119 mark he’s actually posted. The BB (13%) and K (11%) rates look much more like what we’ve come to expect from Adley, as compared to where he was earlier in the season. 

And in terms of the very small recent sample, he does look like he might be coming out of it. Over the last 3 game, the EV is way up (93.9) and he’s consistently hitting the ball hard (60%). He’s only 1 for 12, but the xBA on those batted balls is a whopping .346. 

Edited August 2 by e16bball

[Moose Milligan]

20 minutes ago, interloper said:

I'm trying my hardest to not freak out about this. 

Sometimes I think you and @sportsfan8703are the same person with different accounts. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sometimes I think you and @sportsfan8703are the same person with different accounts. 

 

[Gunnar]

i'll take this opportunity to point out that Adley's swing is weird.  he drops to one knee on almost every swing, and to me it seems like way too much wacky motion to hit the ball consistently. that being said, he was doing that when he was hitting well so i guess at that point it was working for him.

not to mention he takes the first pitch in almost every at bat so is often in an 0-1 hole. doesn't seem like a good long term strategy to me.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

40 minutes ago, interloper said:

From 7/1/2024 through 8/2/2024: 

.125/.247/.213/.460
37 WRC+
.088 ISO

If you're looking for some kind of ray of hope, he's had a .118 BABIP during this stretch. 

=====

For perspective, here is Jorge Mateo's horrific month last year, 7/1/2023 - 8/1/2023:

.150/.209/.250/.459
25 WRC+
.100 ISO

It seems Gunnar's struggles in the field have distracted from how bad Adley has been on offense the past month. I knew Adley was in a slump, but I didn't know it was this bad.

It's probably time to drop him him to 5th or 6th in the lineup until he course corrects.

[Morgan423]

3 minutes ago, Gunnar said:

Not to mention he takes the first pitch in almost every at bat so is often in an 0-1 hole. doesn't seem like a good long term strategy to me.

It worked great when pitchers weren't as aware of what he was doing.  I don't have the numbers readily available right now, but I have seen them, and for a while, he was doing significantly better taking 0-0 rather than swinging at it.

The problem is that everyone has now noticed that he was taking 0-0 far too often, and they've adjusted by just getting 0-0 over and putting him in 0-1 (and often after the second pitch being fouled off, 0-2) holes.  His recent results reflect this.

It's very much a similar scenario to if you're playing in a poker tournament.  You can play conservatively, and only enter pots with the strongest starting hands dealt to you, but if players notice that you're doing that all the time (via you only showing down strong starting hands, and your low playing frequency, as strong hands are dealt less often), they won't tangle with you when you enter pots, and the pots you take down will be tiny.  You'll get whittled out of the tournament. 

The opposite is also true, you can play aggressively, frequently going after pots with whatever starting hands you get, but after a while, everyone will notice you're playing weak hands, and they'll just wait til they get stronger hands and beat you down. 

The best players will do both a good percentage of the time, regardless of their preferred play style.  They'll play aggressively for a while, but then quietly switch over to conservative play... then vice versa.  They are going to showdown with a wide array of hands, their play has many different apparent patterns in real time... and no one is able to tell what they're actually doing at any given moment.

And so it goes for Adley.  He's going to need to adjust back, and start swinging at a good percentage of these get-me-over 0-0 pitches he's been getting from these adjusted pitchers.  He's been sitting conservative for far too long without varying his play.  He's got to go aggressive a higher percentage of the time for a while, so that opposing pitchers don't know what he's going to do. 

[e16bball]

To be a bit less scientific for a moment, I had a bad feeling at the time about that Sunday Night Baseball game where our kids were the toast of the town. And it was all Lego shoes and headsets in the field and modeling dusters for the ASG voting and cool-guy interviews in the stands. Just felt like one of those moments that could be tough for a young kid to really process, where you’re making the jump from “local star” to “national superstar.”

Here’s how it’s broken down for our two superstars before and after that game (6/30).

Gunnar Before: .292/.388/.612/1.000, 179 wRC+, 5.4 fWAR (9 errors)

Gunnar After: .274/.336/.406/.742, 113 wRC+, 0.6 fWAR (9 errors)

Adley Before: .298/.354/.476/.830, 135 wRC+, 2.9 fWAR

Adley After: .119/.237/.202/.439, 31 wRC+, -0.4 fWAR

I guess also interestingly, both Westburg (2.5 fWAR prior and 0.3 fWAR after) and Mountcastle (118 wRC+ prior and 88 wRC+ after) also pretty much fell apart right around that date. 

 

I’m sure everyone has their own idea in their head of what started this recent collapse for our star players. Maybe it’s fatigue, maybe it was all the All-Star game stuff, maybe it was clubhouse discomfort, maybe it’s just the league adjusting, maybe it’s just normal regression to the mean. As with most things, it’s probably some combination of a lot of different factors.

But I sure can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t a coincidence that both of these guys were flying as high as you can fly coming into that Sunday night game (Gunnar had a 1.305 OPS in his prior 10 games and Adley was at .969) — and since that day, it’s pretty much been absolutely disastrous.

Edited August 2 by e16bball

[baltfan]

Guys slump but I don’t understand not bumping him down in the lineup. 

[interloper]

3 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Guys slump but I don’t understand not bumping him down in the lineup. 

Yeah even Gunnar was bumped to 3rd and his slump was not remotely as horrendous as Adley's. 

[Too Tall]

When you couple all this with the loss of pitching, it's amazing we are still atop the East. As I said in anothet thread, I think Elias sees this - knows this - and has finally just said, bring up Mayo and see if he can be and light a spark. I thought McCann's Message would be a catalyst. Maybe we will get hot when it counts!

[webbrick2010]

When the final assessment of Elias is made, he will have to own the decision to pass on a multi MVP HOF player to select a catcher.

Adley has always had average or less EV and barrel % numbers. I was amazed at his start this year, but when all the dust clears he is at best a .260, 20 HR guy who apparently can only catch 2/3 of the time and really struggles to hit when also catching.

At least 6 2019 first round picks have a higher WAR this year.

Adley will go down as a huge miss at 1-1

[Since1984]

53 minutes ago, e16bball said:

To be a bit less scientific for a moment, I had a bad feeling at the time about that Sunday Night Baseball game where our kids were the toast of the town. And it was all Lego shoes and headsets in the field and modeling dusters for the ASG voting and cool-guy interviews in the stands. Just felt like one of those moments that could be tough for a young kid to really process, where you’re making the jump from “local star” to “national superstar.”

Here’s how it’s broken down for our two superstars before and after that game (6/30).

Gunnar Before: .292/.388/.612/1.000, 179 wRC+, 5.4 fWAR (9 errors)

Gunnar After: .274/.336/.406/.742, 113 wRC+, 0.6 fWAR (9 errors)

Adley Before: .298/.354/.476/.830, 135 wRC+, 2.9 fWAR

Adley After: .119/.237/.202/.439, 31 wRC+, -0.4 fWAR

I guess also interestingly, both Westburg (2.5 fWAR prior and 0.3 fWAR after) and Mountcastle (118 wRC+ prior and 88 wRC+ after) also pretty much fell apart right around that date. 

 

I’m sure everyone has their own idea in their head of what started this recent collapse for our star players. Maybe it’s fatigue, maybe it was all the All-Star game stuff, maybe it was clubhouse discomfort, maybe it’s just the league adjusting, maybe it’s just normal regression to the mean. As with most things, it’s probably some combination of a lot of different factors.

But I sure can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t a coincidence that both of these guys were flying as high as you can fly coming into that Sunday night game (Gunnar had a 1.305 OPS in his prior 10 games and Adley was at .969) — and since that day, it’s pretty much been absolutely disastrous.

Have had a similar feeling about the AS group. I felt the week leading up to the AS game was the start of this drop off too.