It’s Late Night All Day Lengthy Now

Anyone really feel up for a rousing recreation of “Guess the Player from the Anonymized Stat Line?” I often don’t like this recreation; it was a enjoyable approach to kill time on Twitter 10 years in the past, nevertheless it feels form of hacky anymore. But this one’s an actual doozy, a enjoyable sufficient set of anonymized stat traces that I’m keen to put aside my distaste and dive proper in.

Here are three gamers from the NL West. They are all within the prime 5 within the majors in stroll price amongst certified hitters. They play for various groups, and for essentially the most half they play completely different positions. Nevertheless, all three are inside a pair tenths of a run of one another when it comes to baserunning and defensive worth — the bat is the necessary factor:

Just based mostly on the groups and the stroll price, it’s best to have the ability to guess that two of those gamers are Max Muncy (who’s certainly Player A) and Juan Soto (Player B). You wouldn’t suppose it was doable to stroll that a lot in a rustic as hostile to pedestrians as ours, however these guys handle to do it yearly.

The fascinating individual on this record is Player C: LaMonte Wade Jr.

Hardcore Wadeheads, like myself, have been on the bandwagon since (sure, I’m going to speak about his school profession, you possibly can’t cease me) his days on the University of Maryland, the place he shared an infield with Rays slugger Brandon Lowe and Royals reliever Jose Cuas, then a 3rd baseman. In Wade’s draft yr, the Terps made a shock run to the Big Ten Tournament last, the place they upset an Illinois staff that had gone 21-1 in convention play. That was adequate for an NCAA match berth, the place they pulled off a fair larger upset of no. 1 total seed UCLA earlier than falling to eventual nationwide champion Virginia within the tremendous regional.

As a prospect, Wade appeared like an excellent on-base man who might perhaps play middle within the professionals and perhaps develop into a bit of energy. That’s in regards to the participant he’d turn out to be when most individuals heard of him for the primary time, his first season in San Francisco. That yr, enjoying largely as a platoon nook outfielder, Wade got here up massive repeatedly in key conditions.

In 2021, Wade hit .415 in 60 high-leverage plate appearances and .407 in 31 plate appearances with two outs and runners in scoring place. He led the league in Clutch, which measures how a lot a participant elevates his recreation in high-leverage conditions. He was eleventh in WPA, which undersells his contributions as a result of he solely batted 381 instances, whereas everybody forward of him registered a minimum of 526 plate appearances that yr. These exploits — heroics performed totally on the West Coast, on the tail finish of the day’s slate of video games — earned Wade the sobriquet “Late Night LaMonte,” which if that’s not one of the best nickname in baseball proper now, it must be close to the highest of the record.

I ask you now: What if it have been all the time Late Night, 24 hours a day? If the midnight oil have been all the time burning? If each meal have been Fourthmeal?

Wade resides in simply such an surroundings. Yeah it’s solely about seven weeks’ value of baseball, however he’s hitting like Juan Soto. That’s an enormous deal. So what’s he doing in another way?

For comparability, let’s ignore 2022 — when Wade spent greater than two months on the IL over a number of stints with a knee damage — and evaluate his sizzling begin to his finest season within the majors, 2021.

First of all, he’s getting used in another way. With Brandon Belt now in Toronto, Wade has been San Francisco’s major first baseman (although he’s additionally made seven begins in left discipline and three in proper, via Tuesday). That implies that moderately than being platooned, as he was in 2021, he’s enjoying day by day. Wade has appeared in 40 of San Francisco’s 42 video games and began 33. He’s nonetheless being shielded from left-handed pitching — a number of of these appearances have been late-inning defensive replacements — however to a lesser extent than in 2021. And that platoon construction has turn out to be much less inflexible because the yr has gone on.

And it’s straightforward to see why:

I wouldn’t let that man on the highest row hit towards lefties both. Now, he’s hitting everybody, although his numbers towards lefties are rife with small pattern alarms — the .385 BABIP, clearly, but additionally a stroll price half what it’s towards right-handed pitching and a strikeout price 10 factors larger towards lefties than righties.

You’ll discover that Wade’s batting common and slugging proportion towards righties are eerily related in 2021 and 2023. His total numbers in these classes are up this yr as nicely, however not by that a lot, and that may be defined by his (seemingly) largely BABIP-driven enchancment towards lefties.

In the enjoying time Wade has gathered towards lefties this yr, the distinction between his 2021 price stats and his 2023 price stats comes out to about three hits and 7 complete bases. Take these away from his total line and his common drops from .278 to .252, and his SLG drops from .513 to .452. In 2021, he hit .253 and slugged .482.

And actually, if the one factor completely different about Wade was a pair dozen factors of batting common attributable to a leveled platoon cut up, I might not care even a bit of. I wouldn’t even take into consideration writing about it.

But bigger forces are at work. This is all about walks, as you in all probability surmised when Wade ended up in a triptych with Muncy and Soto a pair hundred years in the past. Very little has modified about Wade as a hitter since 2021, aside from his swing conduct, which has modified profoundly. Here’s his swing map from 2021:

Wade was by no means a very aggressive hitter to start with, however this yr he’s stopped swinging at pitches on the fringe of the zone, significantly low and away:

Wade now has, in keeping with Baseball Savant, the second-lowest chase price out of 172 certified hitters. And in the event you by no means swing at something exterior the zone, you’re going to stroll a good quantity.

This strategy has its drawbacks. Wade additionally has the Twentieth-lowest swing price on pitches inside the strike zone. Using Baseball Savant’s assault zone-based metrics, he has been the Sixteenth-best hitter (out of 300) within the “Chase” zone, however the 119th within the “Shadow” zone. In layman’s phrases, meaning he’s not taking many ill-advised swings at pitches exterior the zone, however he’s taking some pointless strikes on borderline pitches.

Should a participant who’s at the moment third within the majors in on-base proportion give a tinker’s rattling in regards to the odd pointless known as strike? Probably not. What he’s doing now’s working. Wade’s stroll price has greater than doubled from 2021 to 2023, and his OBP has risen from a good .326 to a Troutlike .435.

What’s the lesson right here? Well, in the event you can, cease swinging at pitches that aren’t strikes. Seems easy sufficient.