Myles Straw is one of the most polarizing players on a dynamic, young Guardians team. Acquired in a 2021 trade deadline deal with the Astros in exchange for C/1B Yainer Diaz and RP Phil Maton, Straw was one of the few bright spots in a poor second half for Cleveland. He combined a .737 OPS (108 OPS+) with 13 SB and tremendous defense in CF for the 80 win club. This performance, while not exceptional, was in stark contrast to the historically poor record of Cleveland OF and made Straw appear as a key cog in the Guardians’ future.
This narrative has completely flipped in the 2022 season as Straw has sputtered to a 64 OPS+ while the emergence of ROY candidate Steven Kwan and fellow rookies Oscar Gonzalez and Will Brennan has given Cleveland a surplus of young OF talent that it has long lacked. However, I believe a deeper look into Straw’s profile, particularly his offensive struggles, is warranted and he can indeed be a valuable starting CF on the playoff-bound Guardians.
Let’s begin with Straw’s defensive value. Myles Straw is a legitimate Gold Glove caliber CF. Statistically, DRS evaluates his defense in 2022 as +17 runs, second in baseball among CF, while Outs above Average calculates his range at +13 outs (or +11 runs). Like most tremendous defensive OF, Straw’s abilities begin with his speed, which is in the 94th percentile of all MLB players. However, his true brilliance is combining his blazing speed with a gracefulness and fluidity at the catch point that allows him to snare balls on the dead run.
For instance, a 97 foot sprint into the gap to rob Jose Abreu, complete with an ultra-smooth slide…
or a 15% catch probability Superman dive against Taylor Walls…
or a split second reaction to pluck a ball off the dirt, again against Abreu.
Straw’s defensive prowess is not limited to his glove though. Despite having a well below average throw velocity of 85.3 MPH (compared with the CF average of 90.0 MPH), Straw has managed to accrue 12 OF assists in 2022, best amongst CF. His DRS Arm component is also tops for CF at +7 runs. Myles accomplishes this by utilizing his speed to allow him to reach balls quickly, before uncorking accurate throws to the bag, like this one to nail Jose Alfaro.
I would not anticipate Straw to maintain such a prolific throwing resume in the future due to his poor arm strength and mediocre record prior to this season (-2 runs in over 1600 innings). However, his performance this season combined with his spectacular range and catching ability leaves little doubt that he can again be at least a +10 run CF in the near future.
Myles Straw’s brilliance is not limited to the field. The same raw speed and quick acceleration that allows him to reach so many balls in the outfield assists Straw on the basepaths, where he is a tremendous baserunner. Since arriving in Cleveland, Straw has stolen 33 bases and only been caught twice (a 94% clip). For his career, he has maintained an excellent 87% SB rate. This skill, combined with his ability to take the extra base and a penchant for avoiding double plays (only 4 in nearly 600 PA), has caused him to be worth more than 7 runs above average on the basepaths in 2022 (per Fangraphs BsR). This figure tracks with his general career baserunning performance and it is fair to believe he can maintain a similar level in 2023, particularly with the rule changes favoring base stealers.
Now that I’ve addressed the unimpeachably good parts of Myles Straw’s game, it is time to focus on the elephant in the room, his offensive performance in 2022. One needs to go no further than to look at his offensive slashline, .219/.290/.272 (good for a 64 OPS+), to know how dismal a season it has been. Particularly jarring is the lack of a single HR in almost 600 PA. Straw’s stats with the stick are so poor that he has been a negative contributor to the Guardians despite being worth over 23 runs(!) in the field and on the basepaths. However, I firmly believe Straw can make adjustments that will elevate his offensive game and allow him to be a solid hitter.
Before zeroing in on the deficient aspects of Straw’s hitting, it is worthwhile to identify his strong areas to provide a foundation for his path to success. While not quite matching the Jedi-like ability of Steven Kwan, Myles Straw has a tremendous ability to make contact. His Whiff Rate of 12.7% is in the 99th percentile for MLB hitters and is less than half of the MLB average of 24.7%. As well, Straw is exceptional at not chasing pitches out of the zone, which he only does 19.9% of the time (compared to the MLB average of over 28%). As is typical for hitters who don’t chase much, Straw also does not swing a lot at pitches in the zone, doing so 9% less than average (58% vs an average of 66.9%). This trade-off is likely worth it for Myles, as research by Eno Sarris and others has shown that swinging less is generally beneficial, particularly for batters who don’t pack much oomph like Straw. However, this passive approach has combined with Straw’s lack of power in a way that begins to paint a picture of his struggles.
Simply put, opposing pitchers are not scared of Myles Straw. Pitchers have thrown him a whopping 46.4% of pitches in the zone (per Fangraphs) and 9.5% of them have been labeled “meatballs” by Statcast (30% higher than the big league average of 7.2%). While some of this may be due to Straw’s passive approach, a larger factor is the total absence of extra base hits for him this season. A Pitcher’s willingness to enter the zone is largely tied to the fear of allowing an extra base hit, as can be seen in the graph below.
Straw is an extreme example of a batter with a low ISO and a great eye at the plate, making attacking him in the zone an obvious strategy.
As I’ve demonstrated, Myles Straw’s struggles at the plate can largely be attributed to his lack of power production. This may seem like quite an obvious observation and one that is largely set in stone, given his 5'10" 178 lb stature. That is mostly true, but Straw’s power struggles go further than missing bat speed. Despite being in the 18th percentile for max exit velocity, far from the worst in MLB, Myles Straw has had BY FAR the worst results on fly balls among qualified hitters, with just a .100 AVG and -30 wRC+. In comparison, similarly powerful hitters Tony Kemp and Steven Kwan have managed wRC+ figures 58 and 45 points higher, respectively. In a similarly poor vein, Straw ranks 146th out of 150 qualified hitters in results on line drives.
This phenomenon is largely attributable to a pattern that is all to familiar to Guardians fans this year, like this fly hit against the Mariners…
or this one to Ramon Laureano…
and this one to Stephen Piscotty…
They are all relatively similar, can-of-corn opposite field flyouts. This swing is a trademark of Straw’s hitting profile, as it is easy to see from his spray chart.
This approach makes Straw quite easy to defend, as can be seen from this unbelievable Cavan Biggio play.
It is hard to imagine that catch could even be attempted against any other MLB hitter.
However, it is not only the predictability of Straw’s flyballs that hurts his offensive success on them so dramatically. Flyballs, due to their boom-or-bust nature, are the batted balls that are most dependent on placement and exit velocity. This means that particular hitters will have far more success on flyballs than others, while the distribution of hitter outcomes on groundballs will be much tighter, as shown below.
This obviously has a large impact on the flyballs of all weak-hitting players, not just Myles Straw. However, unfortunately for Myles, this effect is compounded on opposite-field flyballs.
From the above graph, it may appear that Pull FB in fact have the highest amount of variation between the results of hitters. However, this is due to the fact that Oppo FB have a much lower BA in general. If one divides the Standard Deviation of each batted ball distribution by the mean for that batted ball type (giving the Coefficient of Variation, or CV), the CV of Oppo FB is approximately double the size of the CV for Pull FB (.39 to .20). In layman’s terms, opposite field flyball results are particularly affected by who is batting. When a flyball is pulled, it is quite often a HR. Therefore, Aaron Judge-like strength will only add distance to make it a moonshot. However, weaker Oppo FB need the extra distance that a slugger provides.
With this concept in mind, it is easy to understand why Myles Straw has struggled so mightily this season in terms of driving the ball. Particularly as the dead ball in use this season has killed opposite field HRs. Straw’s 90 Oppo FB have resulted in a mind-boggling .057 average and .158 OPS. In contrast, his (only) 9 Pull FB have resulted in a .444 average and 1.333 OPS. Both the difference in results and the 10 to 1 ratio are alarming, especially as those 90 FB are tied for 2nd in baseball with Kwan.
All this being said, the solution for Myles seems simple: he should start hitting more pulled flyballs. However, in baseball as in other things, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Due to the angle of the bat through the zone, pulled batted balls are more likely to be grounders (59% in 2022) and pull hitters have a reputation for being strikeout-prone. While these are real tradeoffs, in Straw’s case they certainly seem worthwhile. This year, he has an OPS 200 points higher on GB than FB, so while hitting additional grounders might be a negative for the average MLB hitter, it would not be for him. Furthermore, Myles is a RHH and above average runner, the archetype for a someone who will force more errors with his grounders, a factor not included in his hitting statistics.
A potential increase in strikeouts is possible if Straw adopts a more pull-heavy approach, but I do not believe it would be significant and outweigh the potential benefits of a more pull-heavy approach. As mentioned above, Straw is a hitter with excellent contact skills and a plus eye at the plate. In this sense, he is similar to his star teammate Jose Ramirez, who makes up for his relative lack of raw pop with the most pulled flyballs in the league. While Myles would not have to adopt such an extreme approach, the added power will still be valuable and make him more difficult to defend. As a secondary benefit, any semblance of power will likely allow Straw to continue walking at a high clip, as his BB% has steadily decreased over the course of the season as pitchers have peppered the zone against him.
In order to implement a change to Myles’s batted ball distribution and more effectively pull pitches, Straw will have to focus on the inside part of the plate. This is an area of the zone where he has not had a lot of success in 2022.
This issue seems to be due to a particular approach he takes to inside pitches, particularly fastballs, like this one from Matt Festa…
or this one from Jon Gray…
He loves driving them to RF. This results in a very high launch angle on the inside part of the plate.
As a result, Straw tends to have much more success on outside pitches, which he can poke to RF as low line drives or groundballs, while struggling on the inside pitch.
In summary, the path to offensive success for Myles Straw is to better attack the inside pitch to create more pulled FB and GB, which should increase his power output and cause his BB% to increase, as pitchers become marginally less comfortable with throwing him pitches over the plate. Of course this is definitely not a quick fix and will require knowledge of his particular swing mechanics and cues which only a personal hitting coach can provide. Nevertheless, I believe that Straw has the ability to be a solid hitter, which combined with his superb fielding and baserunning will allow him to be a very good MLB player.
P.S. While this is hardly indicative of a complete shift in Myles Straw’s approach, his Pull% in 98 Sept/Oct AB has increased 50% over his season average, from 26% to 39%. Perhaps this has helped his OPS+ increase to ~110, though the change seems more due to a BABIP improvement than ISO.
