A Look at the Swings of the University of Texas' Hitters

Similar to my look at the deliveries of the pitchers from the University of Texas, the following is a GIF look at the Longhorn hitters' swings.

Brooks Marlow: Junior

Zane Gurwitz: Freshman

Andy McGuire: Freshman

Mark Payton: Senior

Collin Shaw: Junior

Shaw had a rough swing on an outside 90 MPH fastball, but seems to have a pretty short stroke with an ability to make contact. It doesn't appear that he is a power hitter. 

Tres Barrera: Freshman

Good athleticism defensively at first base, but was jammed by inside pitches from a RHP (I think the GIF shows that his swing is a little long). 

Bret Boswell: Freshman

He had his problems at shortstop, perhaps raising questions about his hands, but the range is there and he has an easy plus arm. He had a bad jump on the bases, but seemed to have a good eye with the ability to make good contact.

CJ Hinojosa: Sophomore

Lamar University Cardinals Baseball Scouting Reports

I watched Lamar University play against (and beat) the University of Texas in a Fall game in Austin. Below are some notes on the players I saw, along with some GIFs from the videos I took.

Billy Love

The RHP appears to be filled out already, perhaps a little short. He tilts his leg way out with a short turn away from the hitter. He threw a 90 MPH fastball with arm side tail away from lefties along with a 80-82 MPH slider that he often tried to backdoor to lefties. He also throws some kind of changeup with good depth at 84 MPH. 

J.T. Autrey

The big right-handed pitcher has sort of a hesitation in his delivery when he gets set. He struggled significantly with command, but his fastball was 88-89 MPH, up to 92, with a 78-79 breaking ball, up to 81 MPH. The latter pitch has a little two way movement and he has a tendency to bounce it. 

Lance Warren

Short stocky left-handed pitcher was 82-84 MPH on his fastball with a 69 MPH curve. 

Hunter Perry

The righty lacks a little in size, but had three pitches, a 87 MPH fastball, 79-80 MPH slider, and a 73-75 MPH curveball.

David Carver

87-90 MPH on the fastball, with a breaking ball that varied in speeds, down to 73 MPH, and up to 80 MPH, mostly sitting in the 75-78 range.

Derek Wade

85 MPH fastball, 72 MPH breaking ball, gave up homers to two of the three batters he faced.

Matt Aikin

88-89 MPH fastball with pretty good movement, but no breaking pitches and no command. 

Danny Fernandez

87-90 MPH fastball, with 73 MPH breaking ball.

Jacoby Middleton, a centerfielder out of Odessa College, has good size with room to fill out. He was far and away the best looking prospect on Lamar in the initial eye test, with his positional value and his size. He also showed some raw pop when he got under the ball. However, he had an awful first at-bat, and proved to be a pretty easy out for the University of Texas pitchers. He was chasing just about everything, especially breaking balls out of the zone, and didn't appear to be recognizing pitches well.

Sam Bumpers played shortstop, and I thought he played the position pretty well. He showed very good range on one play, even though he isn't always smooth and natural with all his motions. He isn't very fast on the basepaths, but he hit two balls hard, one pulled, and one hit the other way.

Jude Vidrine showed a good eye at the plate and hung in there left on left very well out of the 3-hole. Kevin Santana is short and stout, and not much of a runner. He keeps his hands very low in his batting stance but showed some raw power. Jake Sutton made a poor play in left-field on a fly-ball, and doesn't have a smooth level swing, but he is an other way hitter that has good contact abilities and surprising strength. Brandon Provost doesn't look like a catcher, but runs like one, and made a good throw on a stolen base attempt. He also had a lot of rough balls in the dirt to block, so much so that it was hard to evaluate from my perspective in the stands. Mason Salazar is a speed slap hitting right-handed batting 2nd baseman that struggled defensively.

Notes on KBO Draft Picks

The 2nd part (rounds two through eleven) of the Korea Baseball Organization draft took place on August 25th. The under 18 team has been playing in the Baseball World Cup, which has given me the opportunity to watch some of the players online. Below are notes on some of players on the team.

Bae Byung-Ok LG Twins 2nd round

Good size (6-1), a little slender (176 pounds), so he could add some weight and and power. He flailed at some outside pitches and his swing looked a little long and had a lot going on mechanically. He was really tied up on an inside pitch. I thought he had a good swing path overall, though it didn't seem he could adjust it well, meaning he didn't change his bat path to where the ball was pitched.
His plate discipline seemed okay for his age. He packs some power behind his swing and appears to be somewhat athletic.

Kim Tae-Jin NC Dinos 5th Round

A lefty, slap/groundball hitter (though he did scream one line drive hard up the middle). The infielder chokes up on bat, and has no pop, so it is bad when he hits the ball in the air. He will generally lay off pitches thrown low and away., but struggles to stay back on breaking pitches in the zone. A little too ansy, he has too much going on for him to be a disciplined hitter right now. Still, the bat control makes him a bit of a tough out even though he doesn't hit for power. Probably an above average runner, but doesn't have eye popping speed.

Kim Ha-seong Nexen Heroes 4th round
He has some room to fill out at 5-10 154, which makes 3rd base a somewhat logical position. Seemed to play it well, with good reaction times and athleticism.
I didn't see the bat speed though, and he had a lot of whiffs, struggling as a hitter.

Sim Woo-Jun KT Wiz Compensatory round.
SS may have to move off the position just by frame (6-0, 165 right now). He had a couple of wild chases, and doesn't really move feet while swinging, which I think hurts his ability to reach for pitches. I am not in love with the swing path, just really struggled at the plate.

An Jung-yeol KT Wiz Compensatory round

A catcher that already looks filled out, but is only 5-10 so he is not that large. I am not sure about the bat speed, but he has good bat control. He probably has some pull power and sometimes has a large violent swing (but cuts it down with 2 strikes). Still athletic and can run pretty well.

Lim Byung-Wook Nexen Heroes 1st round

I like the size and potential to fill out (listed at 6-0 165). A left-handed hitter, he finds his body falling out of the box (though not necessarily his legs) on inside pitches. Good contact tool and bat control, but he will chase breaking balls. He's looking to pull the ball mostly, low and inside is his real sweet spot. I think he has to stay back on the ball a little bit more though. He's got plus speed, and took second on a pickoff play at first.

Park Chan-ho Kia Tigers 6th round

A 2nd baseman with good range made a nice play defensively. The arm appears to be a question. Offensively, he yanked a ball hard but I don't think the bat speed is great.

Park Gwang-yeol NC Dinos 3rd round

He seems to have some plate discipline, but is probably too pull happy. He is not much of a runner, which isn't surprising considering he is listed as a catcher.

Han Joo-Seong Doosan Bears 1st round
RHP with good size (though listed at 5-11 176)
88-89 MPH fastball
74-79 breaking ball with good vertical drop. It wasn't "sharp" (looked like a curveball). He could throw it for strike and was a very good pitch against righties

Lee Su-min Samsung Lions 1st round
LHP (5-11 181) that has a lot of motion in his delivery, as he comes up, pauses, comes back down, pauses again, with a somewhat odd short arm action. There is a slight tilt that hides the ball a little to right-handed batters.

He was mostly 85-86 MPH on the fastball and could sometimes get it to come back arm side with good movement. Other times it just stopped in the strike zon and was very hittable. 
He got good sweep and two way movement on his slider. 

Park Se-ung KT Wiz 1st round
 RHP (6-0 164)
85-86 MPH with sink up to 87 on 4 seam looking
75-78 MPH downward slider

Ahn Kyu-Hyun Samsung Lions 1st round
Sidearming RHP, which seems strange for a 1st round pick (though the first round in the KBO seems to have a lot more to do with securing players that teams have territorial rights on than actually picking the best players overall).
For the most part, he still has a mostly upright posture, he just drops his arm at the time of release point:

GIF of entire delivery and one of his sliders

83-87 MPH quite a bit of two seam movement
71-73 MPH change also moves arm side
69-72 MPH slider not a lot of sweep, but it gives him something to throw away to righties.

Thanks to both Danny K and Baseball in Korea for the help with videos, streams, and rosters. 

George Springer Scouting Report

George Springer has emerged as one of the best prospects in baseball this season, making a run at 40 steals (which he already has) and 40 homers (which he was three away from when I wrote this post) for the season. The 23 year old was drafted by the Houston Astros 11th overall out of the University of Connecticut in 2011 and was rated as the 37th best prospect in baseball to start the 2013 season by Baseball America. This year, he has been destroying both AA and AAA, with a wRC + of at least 175 at both levels.

First, here is some video of a Springer at-bat from my vantage point at a game Oklahoma City played against Round Rock.

He was pitched inside pretty effectively in the game. Even though he didn't see premium velocity, pitchers were able to get in on him. Springer also had some horrible whiffs where he came completely out of his swing on breaking balls. I thought he looked pretty flawed and even bad in all of his plate appearances but one.

His one good at-bat was his homer, where he used a hard quick upper cut swing and drove a low pitch, the only pitch in the at-bat, over the wall:

He would get under the ball and did hit an infield flyball (though infield pop-ups do not seem to be a problem for him this year, he is a pure fly-ball hitter, which makes a lot of sense considering his swing path). As his heat map shows (courtesy of MLBfarm), Springer is pretty much a dead pull hitter:

So you can see why he hits for power. He uses a combination of raw strength with an uppercut swing and a pull heavy approach. So the fact that he didn't always handle fastballs well and was pitched inside effectively in my short look at him is somewhat concerning. However, he has a much higher than league average P/PA, meaning he has been working the count this season, and if you trust GameDay stringers, has been swinging at less pitches than league average outside of the strike zone.

Springer really doesn't have home/road splits (and Oklahoma City is actually slightly pitcher friendly), so it is not as if he is doing all his damage in one park. He also doesn't have real platoon splits for his career, and they are non-existent in AAA this season. The power numbers he is putting up in the highest levels of minor league baseball are real, and it is coming with walks and a high average (though he does have a high strikeout rate). 

The numbers are impressive, and I don't think you can poke holes in them in any way statistically. He is a very very good minor league player. He is also very athletic (as shown by the stolen bases), so he should be able to play the outfield well, even if he doesn't stick in center, where he has played the majority of games in his big leauge career. However, he isn't without his flaws at the plate. Because of this, I think he is less of a sure thing than his numbers suggest. The power/speed combo may be blinding enough to cause suspicions about how he looks at the plate to go away, but in the Majors, every mistake and flaw is magnified. Whether or not the rest of his game overcomes these flaws (or he fixes the flaws or the flaws happen to be exaggerated on my part because of a one game look) will determine whether or not he turns into a good Major League player.

Koshien Hitter Scouting Reports

With the Summer Koshien now wrapped up, and four separate posts written by me on the pitchers in the tournament, I wanted to take a look at some of the hitters. This can be a little bit more difficult, because it is a little harder to evaluate a hitter over one or two games than it is a pitcher over an outing. I only wrote about a handful of hitters that played in the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final game, but hopefully this post will be helpful anyway.

The school name is in italics and the player name is in bold. Next to the player name is his height and weight, converted from centimeters and kilograms to feet and pounds. Instead of converting the feet to feet plus inches, I left it in decimal form, which was just easier. The centimeters and kilograms came from the rosters I used throughout the tournament, the ones I had linked to in the past. As always, some players have more notes than others, both in quantity and quality.

Naruto Tokushima

Kawano Yuuto 5.61 159

His swing is a little long and he got jammed.  The plate discipline seemed solid.

Ise Hayato 5.97 192

A little bit of a crouch in his stance, but you still see his impressive size (especially compared to the other players in the tournament). His frame gives him some room to fill out. If he doesn't, he shouldn't be stuck on first base, though he doesn't appear to be notably athletic or a very good runner.

His swing needs some work, as he has a little bit of a bad angle on the swing, and kept hitting grounders off the end of his bat, whether foul or fair. He can pull the ball, but he was not getting under the ball.

Hanamaki Higashi

Chiba Shouta 5.12 cm 123 KG
He has an extreme chokeup on the bat, making him a slap hitter. He crouches heavily in stance. Very aggressive with two strikes, but will take if it is clearly out of the zone. Good contact tool, can use foul balls to have long at-bats. Bat gets through zone quickly.

Kishisato Ryousuke 5.94 165

He can pitch, but the left-handed batter hit a home run to dead center. Up in the order hitter, could have long at-bats and shorten stroke to make contact on pitches thrown just abut every where.

Oota Ryousuke 5.91 176

Seems to have a flat swing, can make contact on high pitches. It isn't smooth or quick though, making him foul off pitches that were good pitches to hit.

Meitoku Gijuku

Kishi Jyunichirou 5.74 159

Listed as pitcher (wears number 1, which most teams' aces do). Other way swing, but showed power on outside pitches. Does not appear to be a plus runner.

Maebashi Ikuei (winners of the tournament)

Tsuchiya Keisuke 5.71 159

Shortstop that has range and good athleticism but his arm had problems at times. He has a real potential to be a really good defender, though he will have to learn to control his body a little better. At the plate, he stayed back on a curveball pretty well, but is probably a groundball hitter.

Arai Kaito 5.77 165

Just missed a homer pulling the ball. Can, and will go the other way, though I don't love his standing point when he does so, as he robs himself of power.

Ogawa Toshiki 5.68 183

Quick bat, good control of it (though he doesn't have very good control of his body), tends to sacrifice power for contact in a pretty extreme way. Tough to strikeout and can hit everything but probably not going to walk.

Itagaki Fumiya 5.41 143

Chokes up on bat and holds it high over his head. Showed the ability to lay off the breaking balls, had some problems getting around fastballs.  Good swing plane, though it is pretty violent, swinging hard and losing some control of his body. Other way hitter, though he had some propensity to whiff.

Kusonoki Hiroki 5.94 148

Hit an inside pitch well, getting around on it quickly. He seems to have some authority behind the swing.

Takahashi Tomoya 5.58 150

Showed some athleticism at 2nd base, though his motions are still a little awkward.

Kudou Youhei 5.54 146

Can uppercut low pitches and get under the ball. A slight jailbreak in his swing mechanics.

Tamura Hayato 5.74 161

Showed some pull power on a low pitch, driving it out of the park.

Joso Gakuin

Uchida Yashuhito  6.07 192
Big swing to go with size, but had patience at the plate.

Nihon Yamagata

Shouji Yukata 6.07 165

Long and slender looking. Seemed really antsy at the plate and had some problems waiting back on balls. Sometimes the swing got really uncontrolled and too violent.

Okumura Hiromu 5.81 159

Violent left-handed swing. Struggled with contact and chased pitches out of the zone. He somewhat runs out of the box with the swing, though not the exaggerated sprint while swing that you see in some slash/speed players (which he is not).

Nobeoka Gakuen

Watarai Akihiro 5.64 157

A bit of knee bend in stance, but not a full crouch, sweeps leg like he might jailbreak or leg kick, but doesn't. Seems to swing with some authority.

Matsumoto Masaya 5.81 154

Very good bat control and contact skills. Perhaps got a little long with swing, made him unable to get around on low and inside pitches well. Can really uppercut swing. Would lay off pitches at times, showing good plate discipline.

Miguel Sano's Pitch F/X Data

Miguel Sano is well known as the power hitting 3rd baseman in the Twins organization, and was one of the team's Futures Game representatives. He was the hitter that saw the most pitches (22) in the game according to Pitch F/X (he was 0-2, with a walk and a HBP), and because of that, I wanted to take a look at his data during the game, to see what he pitches he saw, and how he reacted to them.

Compared to other Futures Game hitters, Sano was pitched really low on average, but swung at pitches that were higher and more inside (he is a right-handed hitter) on average, and had one of the biggest differences between average pitch seen and average pitch swung at, as far as location, in the Futures Game. Sano also only saw pitches against right-handed pitchers, meaning he never had the platoon advantage during the game, as the following graph shows:

He saw some pretty distinct release points, including a couple of pitches delivered basically behind him. Not surprisingly, his two contact plays came on balls delivered closer to the center of the rubber.

The following graph contains the pitches Miguel Sano swung at. As you will notice, the entire graph is the strike zone, as Sano was not one of the players that swung at a pitch outside of the traditional strike zone in the game.

All fastballs, and all in the zone. Here are the results and the velocities of those pitches.

He managed to foul off a fastball close to a 100 MPH, and both of the balls he put in play were over 95 MPH, so even with the whiff, the bat speed looks like it is there. 

Here were all the fastballs Sano saw in the game by location, labelled with result:

 Due to the nature of the Futures Game, Sano didn't see any pitches labelled as changeups, and saw just 4 breaking balls (not swinging at any of them):

We didn't see Sano's power in the Futures Game, but there is nothing that tells us that the power isn't legitimate. Small sample sizes obviously apply, but we saw a glimpse of good bat speed and good plate discipline in the Futures Game from Sano.

Evaluating Futures Game Hitters

Continuing the look at the Futures Game from a Pitch F/X perspective, in this post, I'll look at the pitches that the hitters in the game saw and swung at, just to get an idea of general plate discipline. Then, I'll compare how the hitters reacted to pitches versus how the MLB All Stars reacted in their game.

Here are where the hitters in the Futures Game were pitched on average, by hitter

Obviously small sample size rules the day, but C.J Cron, Miguel Sano, and Billy Hamilton were all pitched very low on average. George Springer and A.J. Jimenez were pitched very high on average. Still, we see the two, maybe three, general clusters of where most hitters were pitched.

How hitters react to where they are pitched seems to be more important (especially since I doubt the Futures Game pitchers were given real in depth scouting reports on where to pitch to these guys. I imagine that they just pitched to their strengths, though I could be wrong) than just where they are pitched. So, here are where the individuals swung at pitches on average

This graph actually has more uniformity than the first graph. I wanted to see which hitters had the the biggest difference between the pitches they saw, and the pitches they swung at, so here is a graph showing the horizontal (should be the blue) and the vertical difference (should be the red) between the average location of their swings versus the average location of all the pitches they saw:

 Maikel Franco had very little of a difference in which pitch he swung at versus which pitches he saw on average, while Garin Cecchini had no difference between where he was pitched on average and which pitch he swung at. James McCann, who had problems chasing pitches well outside the strike zone, also had little difference. Brandon Nimmo had perhaps the biggest diffference, at least horizontally, while A.J. Jimenez seemed to be the most discriminate vertically.

Broken down by platoon, here are the average pitch that was swung at, versus the average pitch that was a called strike (entire graph is strike zone)

Perhaps just because there were very few left-handed hitter called strikes, we see the biggest difference. Right-handers, on average, waited for the ball to get slightly more inside and higher before swinging. The average called strike was not on the outside part of the plate, which was surprising.

Compare this to the MLB All-Star Game, where the called strike tendencies make more sense:

 The swing tendencies also make sense, as hitters on both sides waited for the ball to get more in, with right-handers making it get significantly higher on average before swinging.

Futures Game Locations and Results

Continuing our look at Pitch F/X data from the Futures game, this post will take a look at pitches in the game sorted by results, mainly pitches that were put in play versus pitches that were swung through.

Here are the locations of the whiffs in the game, labelled with the hitter and the pitcher (the former first):

Xander Bogaerts actually swung and missed at a pitch down the middle (not to mention the pitches he missed low and in versus high pitches). Christian Walker swung and missed at 3 different pitches by Carlos Contreras. Since both are right-handers, this means that they are pitches thrown low and away. Two of them were fastballs (95-96 MPH)and one of them was a curveball. Taijuan Walker got whiffs using his high fastball. Addison Russell seemed to have problems pitches that were low or away.

There were two home runs in the Futures Game, and I posted the location, pitch type, and release points of the home runs in the graph below. The change was thrown by Michael Ynoa to Matt Davidson. The fastball was thrown by Ranaudo to Alcantara. 

Here are all the pitches that were put in play by hitters in the Futures Game (click on the image to enlarge)

The first things that stand out are the pitches outside of the strike zone that were put into play. Henry Urrieta seems to be quite a mid to low ball hitter. George Springer made contact on pitches both inside and outside. Kolten Wong made contact with the highest pitch, and he also hit a ball that was thrown low and away.

Here were the average locations of results (along with the two home runs), regardless of platoon, with the average velocity. The entire graph is the strike zone:

The velocity of the average pitch and the average whiff is the same, though the average whiff is slightly lower than the average pitch. The average contact is actually lower as well, but a couple of miles per hour harder than the whiffs or average pitches.

A Pitch F/X Look at the Pitchers in the Futures Game

The Futures Game provides a lot of deserved excitement every year, as many of the league's best prospects play on a national stage, giving the average viewer a look at prospects they wouldn't otherwise get. Of course, the most interesting aspect of the game, at least in my opinion, is that the game is tracked by available Pitch F/X data. In this post, I'll start by taking a quick sweeping look at the data and comparing the pitchers by location, release point, and velocity.

Here are what the average release points for each pitcher in the game looks like in graph form:

A.J. Cole's extremely out release point stands out. He has been effective against both lefties and righties this season, but it seems to be something that I would call concerning or at least notable. With that said, it is a release point similar to Max Scherzer and Drew Hutchison, so it can work if he has the stuff to back it up. Anthony Ranaudo comes with an extremely high release point, which is a product of his extreme height (standing at 6-7). This gives him really good plane on the ball. On the other hand, Rafael Montero has a pretty low release point. I found this picture that shows just how low he gets in his delivery:

This is why he has the low release point, his arm seems to be behind his delivery, as he is finishing striding forward and his arm is still coming through.

Here are where the futures game pitchers located on average, regardless of pitch classification, just to give us a general idea of where they were throwing the ball (the entire graph is the strike zone):

It should be noted that both Yordano Ventura and Jimmy Nelson each had just one pitch tracked by Pitch F/X, so their data doesn't tell us much. Eduardo Rodriguez worked the highest in the zone, though fellow left-hander Jesse Biddle  is an honorable mention, working much more arm side. Rafael De Paula, Carlos Contreras, and Noah Syndergaard all worked slightly glove side on average, while Andre Rienzo and Kyle Crick worked rather extremely glove side, and Crick barely through a strike on average. He had the lowest average pitch, speaking to some control problems he had during the game.

Michael Ynoa and Archie Bradley worked arm side pretty heavily in the game, while Enny Romero threw extremely low in the zone. For perhaps a better look, here are the pitchers' located their fastballs (4-seamers or FF tags by MLBAM, there are a couple of erroneous FA tags in the game, which I didn't include in this graph) on average

Other than Ventura's one fastball, the race for best fastball is really close, with Kyle Crick, Enny Romero, Taijuan Walker, Noah Syndergaard, and Eddie Butler all within half of a MPH on average. It seems that many of the pitchers had problems using the fastball on both sides of the plate, working arm side too much. Also, several of them worked low on average with their fastballs, which isn't what you want to do with plus fastballs because it isn't how you get whiffs.

How much of this is a product of overthrowing and pitchers being used out of their regular roles (coming in and having one hard throwing inning instead of making a start) is unclear, but it probably has some kind of impact. Since these are some of the top prospects in baseball, it isn't surprising to see a bunch of elite fastballs, making Jesse Biddle and C.J. Reifenhauser standing out like sore thumbs for their average to below average (considering it is a relief appearance and the velocities are bumped up by Brooks Baseball's release point difference) fastballs.

Corey Dickerson's Cup of Coffee

The Rockies sent Corey Dickerson back to the minors after a short stint with the club. Dickerson was the hottest hitter in the PCL prior to his callup, but struggled in his short stint with the Rockies. Dickerson had always put up good numbers, but was never rated as a high prospect (he didn't even appear in Baseball America's top 30 after 2011, 12th best in the system that seemed somewhat barren after 2012).

What I find fascinating about Dickerson's time in the Majors is how many pitches he saw per plate appearance, 4.59, an absurd number. Even though he struck out in 12 of his 39 plate appearances, it didn't seem to be because of a lack of patience, as he walked 5 times as well and saw that many pitches. However, he did swing through too many pitches and swung at more pitches out of the zone. Clearly there is a lot of small sample size noise, but the past couple of years in the minors he has been mostly a low walk and low strikeout guy. This data made me really interested in his plate discipline, so first I took a look at the pitches Dickerson saw but didn't swing at:

Dickerson is a left-handed hitter, so we saw a congregation of pitches high in the zone, along with the biggest group of pitches outside off the plate. By contrast, here are the pitches Dickerson swung at in the Majors:

Obviously a lot more pitches in the zone, getting some in and low, but most of them coming on the outside of the plate (which, when we look at his average locations below, I think we will see why). It does look like he will chase some high fastballs, especially if you get them in. For a more clear look, here are the average locations of his swings and takes, along with his contact and whiffs (and the average location he has been pitched at on a whole)

Dickerson appears to be one of the more absurd low ball hitters I have ever seen. Perhaps this is why he didn't hit a homer despite playing at Coors, but he had a decent home run rate in the minors (4.7 %, though Colorado's system is flooded with hitter friendly parks), and did hit 4 doubles. His whiffs were a little lower than his average pitch seen, but it, along with all the swings at fastballs high out of the zone, made me wonder if he was having some problems with fastballs or velocity in general.

He has swung and missed at a lot of these pitches (10 out of 64), mainly missing away, low and in, or up and in. He really struggled to put these pitches in play.

The approach does seem good however, as he seems to like the low ball, so he swung at pitches that were generally lower, and made pitchers come inside on him so he could get pitches he could reach.

Here are the pitches Dickerson made contact with, labelled with what position he hit the ball to:

Not a lot of data, but he went up the middle with a lot of pitches low and away. He pulled most of the balls in, but had some problems pulling some of the pitches outside.

Overall, I think he has the approach to succeed in the Majors, but I wonder if he has the bat speed and the talent. The struggles against fastballs are really bothersome. There is probably a reason scouting sites didn't rate him highly despite the good numbers, as perhaps he has a good plan, just not the tools to execute it.

Can Chris McGuiness be a Successful Big League Hitter

Chris McGuiness was a guy that I liked quite a bit offensively when I saw him in AA Frisco last year, and had a good Arizona Fall League season (which means nothing), but floundered in Spring Training as a Rule 5 pick with Cleveland. He went back to Texas, where he had a lot of success in AAA, and was brought up to the big league team, where he hasn't exactly started off hot. I wanted to take a look at his pitch data that he has seen so far, and see if we can make any judgments about whether McGuiness will succeed long term in the Majors as a hitter or not.*

Average Speed of all pitches seen: 86.64 MPH

Average Release Point of all pitches: Vertically: 5.62 Horizontally: -1.02

Average Spin of all pitches: 197 degrees

Swinging Strikes:

5.61 vertically -.9 horizontally

83.16 MPH

180 degrees

So he is whiffing at more breaking balls on average, which isn't anything unusual. It also isn't unusual, considering he is a left-handed hitter, that the closer to the center of the rubber (or more lefties) is giving him more problems than average.

Contact Plays:

85.43 MPH

5.68 vertically, -1.17 horizontally

203 degrees

Still not the average velocity of all pitches, but he is making contact with pitches that are harder on average, with more spin on average, than the pitches he is whiffing at, suggesting he is doing better with fastballs than breaking balls, nothing unusual. The release point data also isn't surprising, he is doing better the further out right-handed the pitcher is, and maybe not as usual, pitchers that are releasing the ball higher. 

Here are where pitchers have pitched McGuiness on average, along with his average swinging strike and average ball put in play:

 

Nothing unusual here, as he likes the ball a little more inside than he is normally pitched, and his swinging strikes are coming low, very low in this case. This shows us what the average spin and MPH of his whiffs (compared to all pitches seen) told us, he is having a lot of problems with breaking balls. However, something I found interesting was that his contact plays were still at a lower MPH than his average pitch seen. So here are all the pitches he has seen at 91 MPH and above, labelled with results, giving us an idea of how he is doing with velocity:

 

He is making plenty of contact in the zone with them, not missing many at all, but it is coming with a low BABIP, which of course, may not be his fault. Looking at all the balls he has put in play, labelled with the position McGuiness hit the ball to, may give us some kind of insight (and we should mention that his regular season BABIP is above league average so far in the very small sample size):

There clearly aren't many pitches high is the first thing you notice, and he is pulling everything from the middle of the plate in. For the most part, he is taking pitches outside the other way, though he tried to pull a couple low and away ones. The approach is certainly not bad, not too pull-happy, but willing to pull if the pitch is on the inside. At least so far (and plate discipline numbers usually make sense rather quickly), he is not swinging as much as an average hitter would, either in the zone or outside the zone. He has also shown good walk and strikeout numbers the last two years in AA and AAA suggesting a good approach.

To me, it seems that the skills are there (he can handle big league fastballs well), and the approach is there as well. I think he can be a good big league hitter if given the chance, especially if he adjusts his problems with breaking balls so far.

* Thanks to Daren Willman of Baseball Savant, as I got the regular season data from his website, and he also got me the Spring Training data, which was just 4 pitches, but I included them into the post. I did not include Arizona Fall League data.

Checking on Marcell Ozuna

Marcell Ozuna's promotion to the big leagues surprised a lot of people, as the 22 year old outfielder had played just 10 games above A+ before being placed on the big league squad. So far, through just over 30 games, Ozuna has good offensive numbers, but 3 strikeouts per every walk, a BABIP over .400, and really hasn't hit for power.

This is how the right-handed Ozuna has been pitched on average, along with his contact plays and swinging strikes

Nothing unusual in the graph, suggesting he is having some problems with breaking balls or off-speed pitches, along with doing better with pitches further inside.

To get a look at what pitches he is actually missing, here is the opposing pitcher spin and speed chart on the pitches he has swung and missed on.

 While there are a few above average fastballs there, there are no plus plus fastballs there and not a real congregation of fastballs. Instead, the groupings seem to be sliders, both soft and hard (a group around 84-87 and a smaller one at 78-81 MPH), and changeups (the group of pitches with similar spin as the fastballs but have clearly lower velocity).

Here are the release points on the pitchers that have made him swing and miss, along with the MLBAM pitch label.

 

Almost all the whiffs against lefties are against changeups, not surprising for a young hitter that may have been rushed to the Majors. He is clearly whiffing a lot against right-handers, and they are even able to use changeups to get him, suggesting he is having some really basic pitch identification problems. 

Here is what Ozuna's strike zone looks like on contact, labelled with the fielder who picked up or caught the ball

 As the average location chart showed, he is really having success on pitches on the inside part of the plate (though not necessarily up and in). He doesn't just pull inside balls, with a lot of them going to first base (suggesting perhaps he is getting jammed), or going to center, which might suggest an approach that isn't pull happy, but he is pulling more outside pitches to short or left field than you would expect. Hitting outside pitches the other way doesn't appear to be a real strength for him.

To get an idea of what kind of pitches he is hitting, here is the spin and speed chart with the location labels, on the balls he has put in play.

Clearly there is a congregation of fastballs, plus plus fastballs even. He has driven those balls mostly the other way, but he is making contact with them and not swinging and missing. Bat speed and ability to hit good fastballs clearly hasn't been a problem. It seems that a lot of the sliders he is hitting are going to shortstop and there doesn't appear to be really more than a few curveballs. He has pulled some changeups, but probably not as many as he is missing.

Here are the Release Points of the pitches he has made contact with.

  Ozuna is having a lot of success against lefties, mostly going the other way with them though. Against righties, he is hitting plenty of balls to the outfield, mostly center or pulled, with a few hit the other way, so he may just be all or nothing against right-handed pitchers.

So far from Ozuna, we are seeing some signs of youth, missing some breaking balls, but his "rawness" can be overstated, as his pitches per plate appearance and contact percentage are league average. The lack of power so far (especially since that was part of his game in the minors, and I think it is hard to find a lot prospects that had real power in the lower minors succeed in the Majors, and do it without power. That is, raw power, if legitimate, doesn't disappear) may be reflective emphasizing contact a little bit too much or is going the other way on inside pitches too much. He can handle velocity just fine, so I don't think there is a contact or mechanical issue that we should worry about in the future. Ozuna's "true" talent level offensively is a little unclear at the moment, but at the plate he is doing better than you would expect coming basically straight up from AA.