This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
We are already a month into the baseball season and it has been some type of season. Steals are way up, offense is way up (over last year, at least) and pitchers cannot get out of their way in the first inning as the league-wide ERA for starters that inning was 5.21 as play began on April 26th, higher than any other inning split. As The Doobie Brothers once told us, what a fool believes, he sees, and no wise man has the power to reason away. In this instance, I am the fool who is trying to look at a few things as a wise man to reason away why certain things are happening this season.
Pull Much?
Hunter Renfroe has at least been close to this level before, but the trio of Renfroe, Francisco Lindor and C.J. Cron have been very pull-happy hitters this season. Lindor has only recently populated some of the central areas of his spray chart:
The approach has helped each with their power numbers, as the trio is each slugging over .450, but it's Renfroe who has the highest average of the three hitters so far, which is rather hilarious given he has the lowest career batting average of the trio:
HITTER | PA | HR | RBI | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | BABIP | HR/FB | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
99 | 6 | 18 | 10.1% | 18.2% | .270 | .343 | .551 | .277 | 20.7% | 32.4% | |
106 | 4 | 18 | 10.4% | 26.4% | .222 | .330 | .456 | .271 | 17.4% | 39.7% | |
86 | 5 | 10 |
We are already a month into the baseball season and it has been some type of season. Steals are way up, offense is way up (over last year, at least) and pitchers cannot get out of their way in the first inning as the league-wide ERA for starters that inning was 5.21 as play began on April 26th, higher than any other inning split. As The Doobie Brothers once told us, what a fool believes, he sees, and no wise man has the power to reason away. In this instance, I am the fool who is trying to look at a few things as a wise man to reason away why certain things are happening this season.
Pull Much?
Hunter Renfroe has at least been close to this level before, but the trio of Renfroe, Francisco Lindor and C.J. Cron have been very pull-happy hitters this season. Lindor has only recently populated some of the central areas of his spray chart:
The approach has helped each with their power numbers, as the trio is each slugging over .450, but it's Renfroe who has the highest average of the three hitters so far, which is rather hilarious given he has the lowest career batting average of the trio:
HITTER | PA | HR | RBI | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | BABIP | HR/FB | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
99 | 6 | 18 | 10.1% | 18.2% | .270 | .343 | .551 | .277 | 20.7% | 32.4% | |
106 | 4 | 18 | 10.4% | 26.4% | .222 | .330 | .456 | .271 | 17.4% | 39.7% | |
86 | 5 | 10 | 4.7% | 31.4% | .232 | .267 | .451 | .280 | 21.7% | 43.6% |
Both Renfroe and Cron are notorious streaky hitters who get their home runs in bunches, and that happened again this season as both were hot early before cooling off recently. Lindor is the one we are rather concerned with right now. His pull-happy approach has led to him striking out at a rate we have never seen from a hitter with a 15.5 percent strikeout rate for his career. This is not the Lindor we were hoping for during draft season, and it's easily understood why Lindor is doing what he is doing. He is still making hard contact, and he's decreased his frequency of chasing pitches out of zone, lowering his O-Swing% from 29.9 percent to 23.2 percent year-over-year.
We've seen Lindor hit this kind of slump previously back in the midpoint of 2021 before coming out of it nicely:
He is in once again in of those valleys with the quality of his contact, so unless he's hiding an injury, he should rebound. This absurd pull rate of his cannot continue at this level, otherwise we could be looking at another season like 2021 for him, when he hit .230 over 125 games.
The Air Up There
The top five hitters with the biggest year-over-year change in flyball rate are a mixed bag of sluggers we want to see elevating the ball and speedsters or slap hitters would be better off hitting the ball on the ground more frequently:
HITTER | PA | HR | RBI | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | BABIP | HR/FB | 2023 FB% | 2022 FB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
54 | 2 | 12 | 1.9% | 33.3% | 0.255 | 0.278 | 0.431 | 0.344 | 14.3% | 19.3% | 32.4% | |
79 | 0 | 7 | 3.8% | 16.5% | 0.260 | 0.295 | 0.342 | 0.311 | 0.0% | 17.8% | 33.9% | |
85 | 2 | 10 | 11.8% | 34.1% | 0.178 | 0.282 | 0.342 | 0.256 | 8.3% | 32.7% | 48.9% | |
68 | 2 | 6 | 5.9% | 16.2% | 0.180 | 0.235 | 0.311 | 0.180 | 7.7% | 17.5% | 30.8% | |
65 | 0 | 3 | 9.2% | 21.5% | 0.140 | 0.231 | 0.140 | 0.182 | 0.0% | 23.5% | 36.4% |
We really want Cruz to succeed, but the disparity between his walk and strikeout rates makes him incredibly risky to count on moving forward. Old Man Rio can still crush a mistake, but that's about all he's doing these days. Daza is hitting so many flyballs that he should be doing pushups in the batters box each time he pops one up because he should be more focused on grounders and liners. Melendez has been a major disappointment in the batting average department, a problem which isn't helped by a terrible strikeout rate and too many pulled flyballs. Melendez cannot take advantage of the shift rules if he continues to hit every other batted ball in the air.
Margot has been forced into more playing time against righties than he is accustomed to with Jose Siri on the injured list, so some of his issues are matchup-related, but he's been one of the few Rays bats not hitting this season. As I write this tonight, Margot has hit three hard groundball singles through the infield over 100 mph and lined out sharply to Jeremy Pena at 107 just off the ground. His turnaround may already be here. Finally, and this one hurts me as I am heavily invested in him, Wong is a mess at the plate. He leads the league in cans of corn and his StatCast slider profile has six different offensive metrics in single digits right now. He still makes plenty of contact but it isn't going anywhere right now, and hitting a higher volume of flyballs isn't going to get him out of this slump anytime soon.
Big Whiffers
We do not have Edwin Diaz to admire this season, but a few pitchers are doing their best impressions of the flamethrowing reliever, one of which is his younger brother. The following healthy (RIP Jeffrey Springs's elbow) pitchers have shown some impressive early strikeout jumps over last season:
Name | Team | G | TBF | AVG | WHIP | K% | BB% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PHI | 11 | 40 | 0.150 | 0.53 | 55.0% | 0.0% | 40.0% | 68.2% | |
Mark Leiter Jr. | CHC | 10 | 41 | 0.176 | 1.18 | 39.0% | 12.2% | 40.0% | 78.7% |
CHC | 11 | 41 | 0.211 | 1.03 | 34.1% | 7.3% | 38.9% | 82.8% | |
CIN | 9 | 30 | 0.111 | 0.63 | 53.3% | 6.7% | 40.7% | 70.6% | |
SFG | 11 | 37 | 0.200 | 0.96 | 37.8% | 5.4% | 47.1% | 76.6% | |
SEA | 13 | 52 | 0.289 | 1.69 | 42.3% | 9.6% | 28.6% | 75.0% |
We always knew Alvarado had stuff, but he's pitching on another level right now because he isn't killing himself with walks. The large lefty has a 13.1 percent career walk rate, but has yet to allow that bugaboo to appear this season as he's effectively harnessed his stuff and is pitching like peak Randy Johnson but out of the bullpen. It didn't take him too long to shove the other relievers out of the way to take over the closer role in Philadelphia, and if he continues to pitch at this level, we're looking at 30 saves and 100+ strikeouts. He already has 22 strikeouts in just 11.1 innings of work and has averaged 53 innings over the past two seasons.
Leiter Jr. went into the offseason with a plan to make changes to his approach and has done so by amping up his usage of his splitter. He's now going primarily splitter/sinker/cutter while de-emphasizing the four-seamer and curveball. He still throws too many pitches for a reliever, but improving his strikeout rate from 25.9 percent last season to 39.0 percent this season is certainly noticeable. He has a whiff rate greater than 33 percent on each of his three primary pitches, led by a 54.5 percent whiff rate on the splitter which he throws 31 percent of the time. Do not forget this as the Cubs continue to audition closers. Rucker is in the same bullpen, and his big adjustment this season is turning his cutter from a forgotten pitch to his best secondary weapon. The league has not yet adjusted. They're still hitting his four-seamer too well (.365 xBA) but the cutter has a .122 xBA and so far carries a surprising 42.9 percent whiff rate. The cutter is not a whiffy pitch by design, but the newness of the pitch in Rucker's repertoire is working so far.
Diaz has taken the crown his brother left on the infield at Loan Depot Park back in March, and setting aside one disastrous outing against Philadelphia earlier this month, has been utterly dominant. All three of his earned runs came in that one outing, but he's otherwise mowed down the league while taking his already strong 32.5 percent strikeout rate up to a ridiculous 53.3 percent this season. He hasn't made any repertoire changes as he's still all fastballs and sliders, but both pitches are performing better than they did last season and he was damn good already last year.
Brebbia has a nondescript role in the San Francisco pen, but he currently possesses the second-best year-over-year strikeout rate improvement behind only Diaz. Like Diaz, Brebbia isn't throwing any new pitches, but what he is doing is using his slider even more than last season as the pitch is currently doing extremely well for him. If you are hurting in an NL-only format and looking to piece together some statistics as pitchers continue to fall by the wayside this month, Brebbia is worth a cheap bid. Finally, we have the enigmatic Brash. He can strike anyone out on his best day, but command mistakes still leave him too hittable, as someone with his stuff should not have the league hitting .289 off him. Brash struck out 27.9 percent of the hitters he saw last year and has sat down 42.3 percent of those he's faced this season, but the league is crushing every non-slider he has thrown, hitting .429 against those pitches.
Success in the Face of Pending Failure?
There is an obvious strong correlation between hard hit rate and ERA; harder-hit balls tend to lead to extra base hits which inflate ERAs. A study at Fangraphs found a pitcher's ERA increases by 0.11 runs for every one-percent increase in hard hit rate. With that said, these are the pitchers with a hard hit rate of at least 35 percent this season:
Pitcher | ERA | Hard% |
|---|---|---|
2.25 | 49.4% | |
2.17 | 48.8% | |
7.01 | 48.6% | |
3.00 | 43.1% | |
2.70 | 41.9% | |
5.19 | 39.2% | |
6.23 | 38.5% | |
6.67 | 38.4% | |
7.52 | 37.2% | |
1.80 | 37.0% | |
4.88 | 37.0% | |
2.76 | 36.0% | |
6.20 | 35.9% | |
4.15 | 35.8% | |
5.13 | 35.4% | |
3.81 | 35.2% | |
4.28 | 35.2% | |
4.50 | 35.1% | |
7.46 | 34.8% | |
3.96 | 34.6% |
The average ERA of this group is 4.58, and each of these pitchers has faced over 100 batters this season. There are successful names on this list that we would expect to see doing well such as Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton and Framber Valdez, but I want to focus in on three names in particular: Elder, Kopech, and Kikuchi.
I got to see Elder pitch in person last Friday night in Atlanta and came away impressed at how he executes his stuff, even if his collection of pitches decidedly below-average by velocity. We don't see too many righties who average below 90 mph go out there and succeed for a stretch of five starts as Elder has this season. The league is hitting over .300 off both his fastballs but .200 or worse off his non-fastballs, so as long as Elder gets ahead of hitters, he can find success. He's doing that to date with nine walks in 29 innings of work, but this could go away as quickly as it appeared this season should his command waver and he is forced to throw more fastballs to get back into the count.
Kopech is someone I was very high on coming into the season, and I lamented not getting him in more than one league once draft season wrapped up. I now feel the exact opposite. Kopech still has the big fastball and can get swings and misses, but that's where the good news ends with him. His command has been terrible this year, much like his team overall, and it's tough to keep him on even a 15-team mixed roster at this point. The league has a .282 xBA off his fastball and a .329 xBA off his slider, and those two pitches represent 90 percent of his overall repertoire. If you are still sitting on him, I would move him the second he has a quality outing, if that ever happens. He, and his team, look terrible this season without any signs of turning it around.
Finally, we come to Kikuchi. We've been here before with Kikuchi, who comes hot out of the gate only to fade as the season wears on. These are his career numbers by half:
Stat | 1st Half | 2nd Half |
TBF | 1309 | 832 |
AVG | 0.245 | 0.285 |
OBP | 0.322 | 0.353 |
SLG | 0.434 | 0.538 |
ERA | 4.43 | 5.70 |
K% | 22.5% | 22.1% |
BB% | 7.5% | 9.6% |
HR/9 | 1.6 | 1.9 |
HardHit% | 35.0% | 39.7% |
These are those same stats by month:
Stat | Mar/Apr | ROS |
TBF | 443 | 1698 |
AVG | 0.244 | 0.265 |
OBP | 0.310 | 0.340 |
SLG | 0.429 | 0.487 |
ERA | 4.25 | 5.09 |
K% | 21.0% | 22.7% |
BB% | 8.6% | 9.3% |
HR/9 | 1.6 | 1.8 |
HardHit% | 32.2% | 38.1% |
Scared yet? What if we look at his in-season velocity:
Kikuchi is a three-pitch guy who goes fastball/slider/changeup against righties and shelves the changeup against lefties. The league is hitting .320 off his fastball with a .244 xBA, but his other offerings have significant gaps the other way between their actual and expected averages. Kikuchi's matchups thus far have included very favorable ones against the terrible Royals and the abysmal White Sox, but he was also one of the few pitchers to cool off the red-hot Rays earlier this month. Simply put, he is outperforming his expected results and the hard contact he's allowing will eventually catch up with him. He has had a place in your fantasy life, but don't think twice about cashing him in and watching him go.
In summary, we're off to a fun start of the season with some guys doing some weird things early on while others are seeing immediate returns on offseason training investments, but you're only as good as your next day's results and some of these players will have a tough time sustaining their early success.
