Hue Jackson: Peppers is “growing and getting better every day”
August 15, 2017A cinder block: DeShone Kizer’s best friend
August 15, 2017Bam! The 2017 Cleveland Indians might finally be who we thought they were going to be. The five game lead on the rest of the AL Central is the biggest of the season as is the 12 games standing above .500. Winning four of five games is a fantastic start on what could have been a lethal 11-game road trip against four teams all vying for the MLB postseason. As the Indians head to Minnesota, they do so realizing that the 158 run differential between the Tribe and Twins is the second biggest difference comparing any other first and second place team in a division in MLB (only the Colorado Rockies trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers by 163 is bigger).
Monday was all about the offense coming together. Starter Trevor Bauer did fine (6.2 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 11 SO), but three home runs only were not harmful because they each came with the bases empty. The lineup took control though as they destroyed former divisional foe Doug Fister. Every starter reached base at least once. Only Bradley Zimmer and Abraham Almonte did not register hits. And, several more runs were possible given how hard many of the outs were hit as Jason Kipnis can tell you (two of his outs were near home runs at the warning track- glad to see the hamstring is feeling better).
Of course, the entire night can be summed up in two swings because Edwin Encarnacion reminded anyone who doubted why we signed him (which is ridiculous, by the way) when he destroyed two baseballs.
Bradley Zimmer’s hidden bat trick
Under normal circumstances, the situation would not be dire if a hitter went 2-for-4 in the first game of a three-game series before not getting another hit through the end of that same series. But, when the last game of the series is a rain delay and played 12 days after it was scheduled with three more series happening before it, the equation changes.
Perhaps Zimmer and August do not mix. He is now 0-for-29 with just four walks and a hit-by-pitch to account for any semblance of production. His slash line in the 12 games he has played is .000/.147/.000 and is a couple games away from Dean Wormer memes popping up as he walks to the plate. The atrociousness of his offense would be just as blatant even if he did not entice us all with a .284/.346/.466 through the first 66 games of his MLB career that saw multiple national writers create glowing reviews of his play.
Please note that everything on his season is still a small sample size, which makes this 12 game sample where he came in as a pinch-hitter in some miniscule, but there are still troublesome trends to begin to track.
The questions are:1
- What has changed in his peripheral statistics?
- How are pitchers attacking him now?
What has changed?
Checking on Bradley Zimmer’s Fangraphs page, it is noticeable that his BABIP was staying above .350 each month2 before August. Now, BABIP is somewhat under his control, but a quick look at Baseball Savant reveals that his batting average was a good 30 points above the expected rate given his exit velocity and launch angles. Zimmer was making good contact overall before this month, but some of what we are seeing is just good luck running out.
However, fortune does not explain how his hard hit rate (over 30% entering August, 15% in August) and line drive rate (above 25% in May and June, 15% in July, 7% in August) has been split in half this month. Fortune does not explain how his flyball rate has doubled (30% to 60%) with his infield fly rate at a career high (12.5%) as he tries to disprove the Elevation Revelation theory all on his own.3
The most glaring item is his strikeout rate has jumped from staying under 30% each month from May through July to 43% in August. Taking a look at his plate discipline numbers, he is not swinging at an out of the ordinary number of pitches out of the zone compared to earlier months (31.4% O-swing%) though he is swinging at slightly less pitches that find themselves over the plate (67% from a steady 70% clip). What is the bigger issue is that he is making contact much less often on pitches over the plate (74% Z-contact rate after being above 80% each of the previous months). So, it makes sense that his swinging strike rate has risen (18% in August is a career high) alongside his soft contact rate as intuition says if he is missing the ball totally more often, then he is not hitting it on the barrel as often either.
How are pitchers attacking him now?
We now know what has changed. Zimmer is making less contact and the contact he is making is not as good. OK, but why?
Well, an extreme pitcher might throw some of these results off in such a small sample size, but the overall picture does appear that Zimmer is being attacked differently.
Zimmer had been receiving 39% of pitches against him in the zone with a heavy concentration down-and-away or middle. He now is still receiving 38% of pitches against him in the zone, but the concentration has been replaced with a more balanced overall zone. When pitchers do go down-and-away, they are more likely to be off the plate. Also, Zimmer is being attacked down-and-in much more often.
Or, maybe the location is complicating the picture. Sometimes the easy solution is the best one. May through July, Zimmer was slashing .232/.286 (BA/SLG) against right-handed pitchers’ fourseam fastballs but crushing their sinkers with a .342/.683. In August, pitchers raised the amount of fourseamers they offered to Zimmer (46% from 37%) while lowering the number of sinkers (8% from 19%). The amount of cutters also has nearly disappeared (1% from 6%) despite Zimmer being an all-or-nothing type hitter with them as his slash of .167/.417 note.
Removing a total of 16% of hard pitch types could not all go to the fourseam fastballs as many coaches believe that type of pitch can lose effectiveness if utilized too often. So, a breaking pitch would have to pick up the rest of the load. Zimmer did fine on breaking pitches before August but hit sliders (.200/.333) less well than change ups (.304/.522). So, it should not be surprising to see the amount of sliders he has seen rise (22% from 13%).
Last word
Baseball is a game of adjustments where all players go through slumps as the opposition figures them out. It is obvious that pitchers have adjusted to whatever Zimmer was doing that worked. It will be up to him to figure it out and adjust back if he wants to show that his defensive acumen in center field is not the only MLB-level tool in his belt.
But, it is not like Zimmer is the only hot-start youngster who is having a tough time lately.
Aaron Judge has now struck out in 30 consecutive games. He's the first player to do that since Adam Dunn (32 straight games) in 2012. pic.twitter.com/ANp8DSYZTx
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) August 14, 2017
Zim Shady was a high-level prospect in the Indians system for a reason,4 and he has a ton of experienced hitters on the team to lean on for support, so the hope is that he can figure things out. He also has proven to be a better hitter than what he has shown in August even for how pitchers are attacking him.
As it stands though, Zimmer is giving the Indians a reason to option him back to Columbus once Lonnie Chisenhall is healthy, who began his rehab assignment this past weekend. Tick tock Zimmer; tick tock.
Gratuitous Frankie clip.
- Note: statistics from baseball-reference and Fangraphs do not include Monday night’s game. [↩]
- OK, .344 in July. [↩]
- This item is a joke as the Elevation Revelation includes both exit velocity and launch angle components to it. No coach wants their players hitting cans of corn for an entire month as Zimmer has been doing. [↩]
- Conversely, Tyler Naquin, who is still young but has yet to adjust to MLB pitchers who figured him out, was not a high-level prospect. If you had to bet on one of them taking the next step, then it would be Zimmer. But, crazier things have happened in baseball. [↩]
17 Comments
nice write up. Tribe is going to need some production for him on the October 25 man roster.
Absolute worst case is that he provides needed defense & speed off the bench, but I have grown accustomed to not being frantic on every fly ball hit to center field. I’d like him to figure things out (and do think that he will).
“Zimmer is giving the Indians a reason to option him back to Columbus once Lonnie Chisenhall is healthy”
Saving a couple million in a couple years is also surely being considered.
Shhhh….
(yes, and it could well be quite a bit more than a couple million)
I think it’s also worth mentioning that before the season ZiPS projected Zimmer to a .316 wOBA this year, and he now sits at .314. This, with the slump included, is what should have been expected, not the .347 mark he carried through the end of July.
Yeah, it is rough using projection models on the first year of a player in MLB, but they certainly are better than anything we could guess on our own and it is worth mentioning.
I’m also a bit obsessed these past couple years with the cat-n-mouse game of pitcher & batter. There are so many adjustments being made and we are just scratching the surface on the bigger ones here.
The Carlos Santana Kool-Aid Watch: .214 / .340 / .405
There’s some flavor in that water, but it still needs some sugar and food coloring
It’s more of a La Croix right now… I mean, the OBP/SLG means it is at least tangerine but good luck getting a kid to drink it.
Without looking at any numbers, it feels like Lindor, EE and AJax are carrying the team right now. JRam’s been slumping, and Robo and Gomers babip luck has improved at key moments and Bruce has made a big, but short term, impact.
Kipnis has been AWOL all year and still concerned this was the FO’s big miss before the deadline. Way more concerned about this than ‘Los.
We’ve gotten away with is all due to incredible starting pitching, and although Zim’s D has been shakier the last couple of weeks, before that he changed numerous games and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence the staff started turning the corner when Zimmer was called up. I don’t disagree with sending him down to get more swings, but losing him for the postseason would be a problem, IMHO.
What you have described is exactly why it is important to have a deep lineup. Everyone except Trout goes through extended slumps, so you need to have enough other guys who play at a high level to make up for it.
The Santana watch is to see if his BA creeps over his body weight. I think he’s there! So that’s something.
Boy, is he blazing his way back into the MVP race. Unbelievable. Dude has already missed over 40 games and is almost tops in WAR
Mag207s
What a difference a game makes! .267 / .400 / .578 after last night.
You know what… La Croix ain’t so bad after all!
https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6MbilKkG4UzyYQCs/giphy.gif
it’s like we jumped from La Croix to Welch’s sparkling grape juice. Getting closer…
Geo174s