Tim Anderson Has Found a New Home

With spring coaching video games in full swing, the strain is mounting for baseball’s remaining free brokers to seek out houses. In any case, no one desires to overlook out on the climate in Florida or Arizona this time of 12 months, and Opening Day is only a few weeks away. Now Tim Anderson received’t have to worry. Anderson is heading to the Miami Marlins on a one-year, $5 million deal. With a transparent path to the beginning shortstop function, the 30-year-old will little question hope to re-enter free company this winter having bounced again from his disappointing last season in Chicago.

Anderson’s slot in Miami is an fascinating one. If he can keep wholesome and return to his prior kind, he may assist to stabilize the shortstop place in Miami. However he additionally constitutes a dangerous addition to an already unsure Marlins lineup. It’s not onerous to think about a situation the place neither Anderson nor Jazz Chisholm Jr. has an offensive bounce-back, Luis Arraez regresses, and Jake Burger’s contact overhaul proves to be only a flash within the pan; it may all go sideways fairly rapidly. But when it goes proper, this might be an thrilling lineup. If nothing else, the highest three of Arraez, Anderson, and Chisholm make for a really enjoyable group. Nonetheless, to ensure that issues to go proper for Anderson, he must recuperate a number of the BABIP expertise that have been a key cause for his success. Let’s concentrate on how precisely that may occur.

From 2019-2022, Anderson led the majors in batting common with a .318 mark. On successful per plate look foundation, no one was extra productive. Then in 2023, he cratered. Knee, shoulder, forearm, and neck accidents all contributed to the contact hitter dropping to a 60 wRC+ and -0.5 WAR in 123 video games. Add to that considerations about his capacity to stay at shortstop, and you’ve got your self a participant who fell $3 million wanting his median crowdsourced contract prediction. The form of Anderson’s manufacturing via his profitable four-year run was inherently risky. He positively possessed expertise that propelled him to run above-average BABIPs, however the margin for error for that hitting type is razor skinny; a handful of accidents and a few lack of power could make an in any other case productive profile nearly unplayable.

Final week, I wrote about Anderson as a part of my analysis of the variance amongst hitters with steep swings. The piece in contrast how hitters with steep Vertical Bat Angles (VBA), the angle of the barrel at contact relative to the bottom, can have extraordinarily totally different offensive profiles due to the opposite elements at play in the case of measuring bat path. Regardless of a particularly steep VBA that’s on par with some fly ball heavy hitters, Anderson had a league-leading groundball price attributable to different limiting features of his swing. From 2021-2023, Anderson’s VBA was between the 96th and 97th percentile. It’s a trait he has had for some time, together with in his profitable offensive seasons. However as his VBA remained constant, different elements modified.

Final season, Anderson made contact very deep within the zone, rather more so than within the earlier three years. Together with his inside-out swing, he has usually been capable of constantly hit line drives even with deep contact factors. That could be a frequent ability amongst contact hitters as a result of they have an inclination to create a ton of depth of their bat path, which will get them on airplane with the ball deep within the hitting zone. However like I stated earlier than, this type of hitting has razor skinny margins. If a hitter begins making even deeper contact than standard, they’ll discover themselves working a 60% groundball price after they had usually hovered within the mid-50s.

Along with contact level, you may take a look at different bat monitoring parts corresponding to Assault Angle (AA) to know what could have modified for Anderson. However earlier than doing that, I wish to word how AA and VBA differ from each other in order that we’d higher perceive their relationship. VBA is the angle of the barrel relative to the bottom on the level of contact. AA is the angle of the trail the barrel is on at contact. AA is an expression of the vertical path the bat is shifting in, whereas VBA is merely a snapshot at contact. Ideally, a participant desires their barrel to be on an upward trajectory via contact as a result of it instantly impacts launch angle. A participant’s vary of AA will depend upon how a lot power they’ve; the stronger they’re, the upper their vary of AA may be. Nonetheless, it ought to all the time be constructive.

Previously, AA knowledge hasn’t been publicly accessible, however fortunately SwingGraphs simply made some knowledge accessible final week, so we don’t must do as a lot guess work. It’s not uncooked AA knowledge, however they did give percentile rankings from 2019-2023, which is simply as helpful. Here’s a fast snapshot of how Anderson’s VBA and AA have trended:

At the same time as Anderson’s VBA has remained constant in the previous few seasons, his AA has continued to fall. As his AA has fallen, so has his xwOBACON. Final season, he posted his lowest xwOBACON since earlier than his offensive breakout. Getting again to his greatest swing would require him reversing some regarding traits in his AA. Maybe improved well being would possibly assist in him in that, however it’s not a given. To offer an instance of one other contact hitter with an identical swing type that has been constant for a number of seasons in a row, look no additional than Arraez, Anderson’s new center infield mate. Final season, he ran a ninety fifth percentile VBA with a twenty third percentile AA. In 2022, he ran an 82nd percentile VBA with a forty first percentile AA. The hole between Arraez’s AA and VBA in 2023 was vital, however not practically as large as Anderson’s. In actual fact, no hitter with at the least 225 batted balls in 2023 had a bigger hole between their AA and VBA than Anderson. If he desires to benefit from his expertise, he’ll must get his swing working in a extra constructive path via contact by growing his AA again to his 2019-2021 ranges. On prime of seeing how Arraez has balanced these two measures, he already has his personal blueprint for fulfillment.

I do know this may be onerous to conceptualize with out truly seeing a spotlight of Anderson’s swing path, however I wish to simplify it like this: Irrespective of how steep or flat your VBA is, it’s perfect for any hitter to have their bat working up via contact. Flatter may be good relying on the peak of the pitch or the hitter, however the stage Anderson was at in 2023 is a launch angle distribution killer. Possibly Arraez’s method may help Anderson. It’s all the time good to have a like-minded hitter in the identical clubhouse. Nonetheless, it’s been a multi-year development of shifting within the flawed path for Anderson. It’ll take a big bodily adjustment for him to reverse it.

It’ll be thrilling to see if Anderson can bounce again. If all goes nicely, he’ll play nearer to his offensive ceiling and enter free company with a chance to safe a multi-year offers, maybe having contributed to surprising playoff pushes in Miami.