Tracking Yandy Díaz’s Bat | FanGraphs Baseball

This can be a bounce-back season for Yandy Díaz, and never in a great way. After two straight seasons with a wRC+ above 145, the Rays first baseman is at 106 to this point in 2024. When Jay Jaffe checked in on him on June 13, Díaz had simply climbed out of a gap. By Could 10, Díaz was working a wRC+ of simply 77 with a 90.9 mph common exit velocity. Since that date, he’s been at 128, and his exit velocity has jumped all the way in which to 93.7 mph. Much more vital, he was working a 60.3% groundball price on Could 10, however has run a 53.3% groundball price after that time. For the season, that also leaves him at 56.4%, highest amongst all certified gamers, however for Díaz, that handful of share factors has at all times been the distinction between being hitter and being top-of-the-line in baseball. When his groundball price is up, his wRC+ is down, and vice versa. The connection is obvious to see:

MLB’s new bat monitoring knowledge put the problem in stark reduction. Blasts are a mix of two metrics: quick swings and squared up swings. The official definitions are here, however in the event you swing onerous and also you barrel the ball up, you’ll find yourself with a blast. That’s factor, as a result of to this point this season, blasts have a wOBA of .731, and a barrel price of 27.7%. For Díaz, nevertheless, these numbers are .423 and 16.0%. He’s tied with Gunnar Henderson for fourth in baseball with 100 blasts, however simply 5 of these blasts have become dwelling runs. Of the 260 gamers who’ve hit at the very least 25 blasts this season, that 5.0% dwelling run price places him in 248th place. Why? why. He has a launch angle of 1 on his blasts, tied for 259th out of 260. On the left, with the infield filth nearly fully obscured by dots, is Díaz’s spray chart on blasts. On the proper, with dwelling runs sprinkled liberally on prime, is Henderson’s.

Relating to blasts on the bottom, Díaz is out in first place with a wholesome lead. Sixty of hits blasts have been groundballs. Henderson is in second with 48. Simply as vital, Díaz will get even much less manufacturing than you’d count on out of these balls as a result of he actually buries them within the floor. He has a -11 launch angle on these groundball blasts. Of the 84 gamers who’ve hit at the very least 20 groundball blasts, that’s absolutely the lowest. Consequently, Díaz’s .207 wOBA on groundball blasts is approach beneath the league common of .377.

Whereas these numbers are new and interesting, I’d guess that I haven’t but informed you something that you just couldn’t have intuited for your self: Díaz hits the ball onerous, and when he can carry it he’s nice, however that doesn’t occur all that always. From this level on, I’m going to go away his launch angle points behind, as a result of the bat monitoring numbers present us one thing that’s much more fascinating. I’m not as sure methods to interpret it, however I believe it’s value sharing all the identical.

Amongst certified gamers, Díaz’s 18.6% blast-per-swing price is tied for fifth. Right here’s the highest 10 in blasts per swing amongst certified batters, however check out the column on the proper. That’s quick swing price, the share of swings the place the bat velocity reaches 75 mph. Considered one of these items will not be just like the others.

There’s Díaz’s at no. 5, however have a look at his quick swing price in comparison with everyone else’s. It’s miles behind theirs. Solely two individuals are inside 20 share factors of Díaz! Right here’s what that appears like in a scatter plot.

Díaz swings onerous very often in the event you examine him to the league as an entire, however for somebody who crushes the ball as usually as he does, his quick swing price is positively miniscule. Let’s return to our prime 10 record and add one other column, blasts-per-fast-swing price. We’re simply dividing the primary column by the second column, however now it exhibits us how usually batters sq. up the ball after they swing onerous. I don’t suppose the info behind these numbers are excellent, however they’re positively ok to provide us an impression of what’s occurring.

Apart from Díaz and Stanton, all of the batters right here sq. up their quick swings roughly a 3rd of the time. Stanton, who’s constitutionally incapable of swinging at something lower than hyper velocity, is at 19.3%. Díaz is at 58.5%. Fairly merely, when Díaz swings onerous, he doesn’t miss. That’s additionally true of him extra typically. Amongst certified gamers, his 12.4% whiff price is second solely to the one and solely Luis Arraez. Díaz is much more of an outlier on this graph.

Realizing what we find out about bat velocity — that onerous swings lead to louder contact however extra misses, whereas softer swings lead to softer contact however a greater probability of squaring the ball up — my first thought was that perhaps Díaz has this complete factor discovered. When he sees a pitch that he can actually crush, he swings out of his footwear, and when he doesn’t, he does his greatest Arraez impression, throttling down and discovering a strategy to put the barrel on the ball. However that’s not what’s occurring. Utilizing the info from the bat monitoring leaderboard, I went forward and reverse engineered Díaz’s contact price on swings that aren’t quick swings. (As soon as once more, I don’t suppose these numbers are excellent, however they’re ok to provide us an total impression.) When Díaz swings onerous, he squares up the ball 58.5% of the time, however on swings beneath 75 mph, he squares up the ball simply 21.3% of the time. That’s not dangerous, but it surely’s solely a little bit bit above common.

Like I stated earlier, I’m not constructive of what’s occurring. I positively don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that Díaz is working a contact price that’s a full 15 share factors above his profession price in the identical season that his exit velocity, hard-hit price, fly ball price, and pull price have all taken a tumble. He’s elevated his contact price by letting the ball get deeper and by swinging at pitches which can be more durable to carry and more durable to drag.

He’s seeing much more sinkers, and the pitches he’s swinging at are decrease and farther exterior. Nevertheless, if we return to our dividing line of Could 10, we will see that Díaz has modified his method. He’s swinging at extra inside pitches, and since the bat is normally transferring sooner on inside pitches due to the need to satisfy the ball farther out entrance, his quick swing price has gone from 27% earlier than that date to 35% after it.

Díaz has one of the vital fascinating ability units in all of baseball. He’s able to hitting the ball as onerous as nearly anybody within the sport, whereas making contact extra usually than everybody apart from actually Luis Arraez. That’s simply not normally how issues work. Any time he manages to direct that energy someplace aside from the filth in entrance of dwelling plate, he’s top-of-the-line hitters on this planet. I want we might examine all these bat monitoring numbers to those he ran final season. It could be fascinating to see if he was nonetheless such an outlier by way of quick swing price whereas he was performing like a extra conventional energy hitter. For now, it’s only a enjoyable truth, however hopefully we’ll be taught extra concerning the relationships between these expertise as soon as we have now greater than half a season of knowledge.