Coming into the season, two gamers have been the apparent entrance runners for his or her respective league’s Rookie of the Year award: Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson. Not solely have been they every elite within the minors in 2022, they each got here as much as assist their massive league membership late within the season and continued their unimaginable all-around play. Carroll hasn’t skipped a beat in 2023. He has a 140 wRC+ and 13 stolen bases, and has performed good protection. But regardless of posting a 125 wRC+ in 132 plate appearances in 2022 — a efficiency that steered he would hit, hit, and simply carry on hitting — Henderson has struggled to this point. After 161 plate appearances this yr, he sits at a 103 wRC+. The holes that have been current in his recreation within the minor leagues earlier than 2022 have popped again up, resulting in a 31.1 Ok% and a bottom-decile whiff charge.
Let’s go over a couple of notes from Eric Longenhagen’s offseason report on Henderson. I need to deal with three issues: a worse than common in-zone whiff charge, a surgically exact method, and large all-fields energy. For higher or worse, these three elements of his profile are all holding up virtually completely. Right now, Henderson’s in-zone whiffs are certainly beneath common. This yr, the league-wide in-zone whiff charge on fastballs is 16.9%. Henderson’s mark is 33.3% after being a lot better final yr at 23.4%. Now let’s go to the nice components. His method nonetheless appears to be surgically exact. His 20.4% chase charge is within the 89th percentile, so it’s not like pitchers are all of a sudden getting him to depart his superb zones, and his extremely spectacular 16.1% stroll charge has carried his offensive manufacturing this season. Lastly, his all-fields energy continues to be current. He has two 400-foot dwelling runs to left discipline and one other that went so deep to proper discipline in Kaufmann Stadium that the digital camera might hardly monitor it. I say all of this as a result of it means Henderson continues to be who we knew him to be. But the primary gap in his recreation is being uncovered extra on this yr’s pattern than final yr’s. That’s what this piece will discover.
When such a proficient hitter experiences a ten share level leap in his whiff charge on fastballs within the zone, my thoughts instantly goes to 2 issues: swing choices and mechanical modifications. I’ve already talked about that it looks like Henderson’s method hasn’t faltered out of the zone, however let’s double test that the development holds within the zone – notably on the high of the zone, since that’s the potential gap in his swing that we have already got information of. Interestingly sufficient, his swing charge has considerably decreased within the higher third from final season. In 2022, he swung at 72.4% of the pitches he noticed on this zone; this yr, it’s solely 37.8%. Given that we all know Henderson’s method is so sound, it is smart that he would attempt to minimize down on swings on this zone. However, regardless of this logical downtick, Henderson has practically doubled his Whiff% from 28.9% to 52.6%. This brings me proper again to the opposite a part of the investigation: his swing mechanics. Below are two swings from 2022, adopted by one other two from 2023. Each pitch is a fastball within the higher third:
2022
2023
The two swings from 2022 have been each barrels hit over 100 mph. Eric famous in his report that considered one of Henderson’s key expertise is his skill to let the ball journey deep into the zone earlier than driving it to the other discipline. Both swings from 2022 displayed this skill, and the one in opposition to Justin Verlander’s properly positioned four-seamer was much more spectacular. If you might have a gap in your swing and might nonetheless often barrel the ball when pitchers assault that gap, you’re going to be alright. If you possibly can’t get to that barrel, like what’s taking place to this point this yr, then it turns into extra of a priority.
Henderson’s swing in opposition to Reynaldo López wasn’t essentially a foul one. It was hit at an excellent 27-degree launch angle. But it wasn’t hit practically exhausting sufficient (88.7 mph) and resulted in a can of corn fly out. Similarly, in opposition to Josiah Gray, Henderson couldn’t get to high quality contact and fouled the pitch straight again. I picked these two swings as a result of every pitcher’s four-seamer hasn’t carried out effectively this season (> .500 SLG%). It’s my fast method of exhibiting that Henderson isn’t attending to four-seamers with sub-optimal pitch shapes. These are pitches that you just’d count on most good hitters to have an honest shot at barreling up, particularly one with Henderson’s talent and energy. But he’s both lacking them altogether or not squaring them up.
Earlier this week, I talked about how Vertical Bat Angle (VBA), the angle of a hitter’s barrel at affect, may very well be a think about explaining these kind of fluctuations in a hitter’s efficiency and habits. However, this probably isn’t the case with the struggling rookie. His VBA final September/October was 34.5 levels; within the first month of this season, it was 34.6. Instead, I’d wish to deal with a distinct measurement of bat path referred to as Vertical Entry Angle (VEA), additionally courtesy of SwingGraphs, and its relationship with VBA. SwingGraphs defines VEA because the angle of the bat 83 milliseconds earlier than contact, however for simplicity’s sake, it’s mainly the angle of the bat proper firstly of the downswing.
In this piece, D.Ok. Willardson presents information explaining how extreme flattening in bat angle from VEA to VBA generally is a bat velocity killer. This makes intuitive sense. From a pitching perspective, we all know that having an asymmetrical relationship between the route of your left and proper arm generally is a velocity killer. Luis Castillo wants a side-swiping glove to match his aspect arm slot, and Verlander wants a vertical glove tuck to match his excessive arm slot. Doing in any other case would possibly kill their velocity. From a bat velocity perspective, a hitter getting into the zone at an excessive vertical angle and adjusting their bat an excessive amount of to a flat angle can throw off the connection between their torso and hips and successfully lower their rotational velocity. Now, let’s deal with how that pertains to Henderson.
Last yr, the diploma of flattening between Henderson’s VEA and VBA was 15.4 levels (49.9 to 34.5). In April, that quantity elevated to 17.2 (51.8 to 34.6). The query is, did that lead to any batted ball variations for Henderson? Well, sure it did. His max exit velocity is down 1.7 mph from final yr, whereas his common exit velocity is down 1 mph. These fluctuations appear small, however Henderson was already teetering fairly near flattening out an excessive amount of. Per SwingGraphs, that hole between VEA and VBA is the eleventh highest in all of baseball this yr and places him subsequent to different struggling hitters comparable to Alec Bohm and Trent Grisham. For Henderson, a slight dip in bat velocity is a fairly darn good rationalization for why he would possibly wrestle to cowl the highest of the zone. This would possibly strike you as a bit too theoretical, however the outcomes (high quality of contact and whiffs) each monitor effectively with this rationalization.
So how would possibly the Orioles talk this data to him (or one other hitter with an analogous situation)? For that, we’ll take a look at some slo-mo video. The first clip is a slowed down model of the swing in opposition to Verlander, whereas the second is the swing in opposition to López:
Unfortunately, I’m not an overlay wizard, so I can’t draw a definite line at VEA, however the slo-mo video ought to enable you see that the angle of his bat this season is steeper because it begins it descent. Henderson is clearly fairly good at adjusting his bat angle in response to pitch peak, however by beginning his entry extra vertically, he’s pressured to regulate his bat angle even additional to get to the airplane of the excessive fastball. All hitters have to regulate their bat angle on the high of the zone, however the extra you improve how a lot you want to modify it, the extra time you spend attending to your superb angle. The video suggests two potential choices. The first is to cue the highest of his bat in a distinct route than he at present is that if he desires to begin his entry just a bit bit flatter. The second is to barely modify his hand setup to begin on the airplane the place he desires to be.
I do know, all of this simply to say he wants a cue to barely change his entry into the zone. But with hitters this expert, small modifications are often the distinction between a hunch and a scorching streak. And it’s not like Henderson is hitting that poorly in any case. It’s extra simply that he isn’t performing to projections and doubtless his personal expectations, particularly in terms of swing and miss. I count on him to get it going fairly rapidly. He is just too good to not be a pressure within the already gaudy Orioles lineup.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com