The Art of Multi-Dimensional Hitting
In an era where most hitters aim for solely power, there is still a class of hitter who can do it all.
I love writing about José Altuve. Although Mike Trout eventually wound up as my 2016 AL Most Outstanding Player (in RO Baseball’s season awards), in the piece linked there, I made my case why Altuve was nearly just as outstanding.
I also love writing (and tweeting, and analyzing, and talking…) about barrels. When you put the two together, you really have hit my wheelhouse.
I have made countless claims how important barrels are to how I study the game of baseball, but you won’t find the diminutive Altuve near the top of any barrel leaderboards.
That is not to say he can’t do it. Altuve has 26 barrels on the season, good enough for a 5.60 percent (per plate appearance) rate, well above the league average of 4.10.
But when you look at the hitters on top of the wRC+ chart, you see power guys like Aaron Judge, who hit barrels 12.1 percent of the time, or Paul Goldschmidt, who has an 8.1 rate.
So how can Altuve bring the same amount of production, along with the highest batting average in MLB by twenty points, if he isn’t hitting it hard at the same rate as his peers?
Well first off, he’s fast. Altuve leads all of baseball with 23 infield hits. Even though most of those base hits appear as pulled in the chart above, Altuve is shift-proof. He has only been shifted on 42 PAs this season and with a 60 percent pull percentage on ground balls, there is not much of a reason on why teams would give up that much of an advantage.
Altuve can get on hitting the ball into the ground, and he can barrel it up when need be, but it might be the category in the middle which separates him from the pack.
With the amount of respect given to him by opposing outfielders having to play him deep, it leaves Altuve plenty of room to drop in “flares.”
On the August 2episode of the Statcast podcast, co-host Matt Meyers labeled these types as “Tony Gwynn hits” — which is perfect. Gwynn was another player, perhaps most famously (at least in this writer’s generation), to always take what the defense gave him. He could power it up when he needed, but he was perfectly fine with dropping in singles in front of a drawn-back outfield.
Gwynn did it for his entire career, and Altuve is off to a great start, but is this skill repeatable? For a long time in the pre-Statcast era, there was a belief pitchers couldn’t necessarily control batted-ball impact. This led to pitching analytics such as DIPS and FIP. Some of those beliefs are starting to fade, but what about from the other side? Can a hitter actually take what the defense is giving them, thus making the “BABIP-is-luck” mantra obsolete?
Above is a chart of MLB’s leaders this season in BABIP on non-barreled balls. It has some names you might expect — Delino DeShields is a speedster, as is Jon Jay, and Gerardo Parra is most likely taking advantage of his home park’s (Coors) spacious outfield.
The name at the top has become well-known this season due to his coming out of nowhere. Chris Taylor was not expecting to be playing much for the Los Angeles Dodgers this year, and that was without knowledge they would be 40+ games over .500. But he has planted himself in the leadoff spot on the best team in baseball, and a lot of people look at his BABIP and doubt his true talent.
Taylor is barreling the baseball 4.41 percent of his plate appearances, above average, but not as high as you would expect from someone with a 146 wRC+. He must be making a huge impact on his non-barreled balls, and as you can see from the two images above, there’s no doubt he is. But is it sustainable?
Taylor had incredible success right from the start of the season, but then hit a lull in June. As most would have predicted, he started finding gloves on his softly batted balls. However, since around July 1, he has again been finding nearly as much grass as leather.
Taylor’s batted balls in July had a significant amount more spray and elevation than he had in June. He hit less ground balls, and pulled the ones he did put on the ground. His fly balls pushed more into right field shown by several more dropping in between right and center field.
It might be acceptable to believe Altuve can continue succeeding with this approach because it’s been seen now for multiple years. It will be worth keeping an eye on if Taylor has found a similar path to success or if the opposition is able to find better ways to attack the breakout star.
To wrap up this study, it makes sense to look at the best hitter in the game. It shouldn’t surprise anyone Mike Trout succeeds on all types of batted balls. In his current injury-shortened season, Trout has barreled more baseballs than either Altuve or Taylor, at a rate of nearly nine percent. But he also fares just as well at taking what the defense gives him.
Trout has been doing this consistently for several seasons. Only Paul Goldschmidt and DJ LeMahieu have a higher BABIP (all batted balls) over the last three seasons than Trout, both of them playing more often at hitter-friendly ballparks (Coors and Chase Field).
If anyone is proving to be the definition of a multi-dimensional hitter, independent of stadium, weather, or any other influence, it is Mike Trout.
As Jeremy Frank pointed out earlier this week, Trout is essentially slump-proof. He can leg out a ground ball, drop a “Gwynn-hit” in front of the outfielders, or slug one out of the park.
Altuve may be approaching Trout-like levels, although probably never to the same extremes.
As for Taylor — well, it looks like this art may be possible, for supremely talented hitters. But it would seem if he can’t hit the same extremes of barreling the ball or legging out base hits, defenses will eventually be able to pin him down.
