Fernando Tatis Jr. Must Get His Legs Again in Examine

It’s not straightforward to skip a complete 12 months of one thing and are available again with the identical degree of efficiency or ability. Baseball is not any completely different, even for one of the best of ballplayers. Fernando Tatis Jr. missed your complete 2022 season due to wrist accidents and a suspension for utilizing efficiency enhancing medication. Whereas he was serving his suspension, he underwent labrum surgical procedure to restore a recurring difficulty that hampered his potential to constantly keep on the sphere. He was absolutely wholesome upon his return in 2023, and he remained that manner for your complete season.

But, regardless of avoiding damage for the primary full season of his profession, in 2023 Tatis had his least productive 12 months on the plate. His 113 wRC+ was 41 factors under the mark he had recorded over his first three huge league seasons. He additionally set profession lows in common (.257), on-base proportion (.322), slugging (.449), ISO (.191) and wOBA (.332). From a knowledge perspective, his high quality of contact took a big hit, although that isn’t all that shocking. Even after athletes return to the sphere, it takes time for them to regain their explosiveness following severe accidents and surgical procedures. Ronald Acuña Jr. is an ideal instance of that. He tore his ACL in July 2021, underwent season-ending surgical procedure, and missed Atlanta’s first 19 video games of 2022. Like Tatis final 12 months, Acuña was largely wholesome for the remainder of the season however didn’t carry out as much as his requirements. Then, in fact, final 12 months he received the NL MVP and have become the primary participant ever to hit 40 dwelling runs and steal 70 bases in a season.

Tatis will look to take the same path, however so as to take action, he’ll have to determine and deal with the foundation causes (mechanics, swing selections, and so forth.) of this huge drop off. Again in September, Ben Clemens investigated how spray angle on fly balls impacts a few of the hardest hitters within the sport, Tatis being certainly one of them. One of many key conclusions of Ben’s analysis is that hitters who pull their fly balls at an excessive charge, akin to Isaac Paredes, don’t do extra with these batted balls; they only hit them rather more steadily, which permits them to outproduce others on fly balls, regardless of not having the eye-popping energy that we’d assume could be the primary causal variable.

That is notable for Tatis as a result of, over his first three seasons, he hit the ball with sufficient energy to do injury on fly balls regardless of the spray angle. That was not the case final 12 months.

From 2019 by means of 2021, Tatis’ wOBA on fly balls barely outpaced his xwOBA, whereas final 12 months, he tremendously underperformed his anticipated numbers. A lot of that may be defined by his pull charge dropping from 30.5% over his first three seasons to 21.8% in 2023. Nevertheless, that’s not the one variable at play right here, as a result of even when he hit straightaway fly balls in these first three years, he had a .764 wOBA. That’s effectively under his .894 xwOBA, nevertheless it was nonetheless the third-highest mark amongst all batters from 2019–21 (min. 150 fly balls). Final season, although, Tatis completed with a .291 wOBA on straightaway fly balls, considerably decrease than his .653 xwOBA. Crushing balls to the deepest components of the park was as soon as a Tatis superpower; in 2023, it was his kryptonite.

To higher perceive how this occurred, let’s have a look at how Tatis fared in several areas of the strike zone. By breaking down his efficiency in several zones, we’ll get a greater concept of any holes that will have developed in his swing. For all his woes final 12 months, Tatis continued to rake in opposition to left-handed pitching (152 wRC+), so I’m going to give attention to his splits vs. righties, in opposition to whom he had a profession low 101 wRC+. The desk under reveals how Tatis carried out in opposition to pitches from righties in every third of the zone, first in 2021 after which in 2023.

There are drops throughout the board right here, however my goodness, what the heck occurred on the outer third? In 2021, Tatis ranked second in right-on-right wOBA on outer third pitches. This 12 months, should you had been a righty who might find on the outer third, Tatis would do the be just right for you.

What’s the deal? Making contact wasn’t the issue, as a result of he truly whiffed much less usually in opposition to the outer third final 12 months than he did in 2021. The actual difficulty was his high quality of contact. On his 67 batted balls in opposition to pitches from righties on the outer third in 2021, his xwOBACON was .634. In 2023, it was .305. Ooof.

A change in swing path is often guilty when a participant goes from destroying the outer third to hardly protecting it in any respect. Let’s have a look at the video to determine what mechanical flaws altered his swing path. Listed here are some swings from 2021 in opposition to outer third pitches from righties.

Here’s a commonplace heater away with a reasonably impartial physique angle (sorry Keegan Thompson):

This one is a low and away breaking ball with a reasonably aggressive physique adjustment to get the barrel beneath the ball:

And lastly, here’s a excessive heater that wanted an upright physique adjustment:

Every of those three swings reveals how Tatis adjusted his physique in several methods to get to his barrel to outer third pitches. The swings are reciprocal, athletic, and harsh. His stability with the bottom is constant regardless of the posture of his higher physique. Now let’s have a look at three swings on comparable pitches from 2023, beginning with one other commonplace middle-away heater:

Here’s a swing on a low breaking ball with a physique adjustment the place Tatis couldn’t fairly create the identical angle as he did in 2021:

Then here’s a can of corn fly ball to middle on an up and away heater the place Tatis caught it off the top of the barrel:

OK, now for some comparability. Off the rip, it’s clear that Tatis’ stride is working in a unique course. It’s extra impartial now than it was. As a substitute of working from a impartial stance right into a closed stride, he’s working from an open stance right into a impartial stride. The starkest comparability is how he dealt with Thompson’s heater in 2021 versus the 2023 one we noticed from Cristian Javier. Towards Javier, it was the precise sort of pitch you’d anticipate Tatis to drill into the alternative discipline hole, however his legs didn’t create sufficient house for him to get his barrel shifting within the optimum course. As a substitute of a laser reverse discipline homer, it was a measly liner to left for a simple out.

In 2021, Tatis had a extra steady base, which allowed him to create a extra drastic angle along with his higher physique in opposition to the low breaking ball. That made the distinction between his line drive within the hole from 2021 and final 12 months’s line drive to the shortstop. On each of the excessive pitches, he had the tall posture he wanted to get on airplane, however in 2023, he couldn’t get his bat on the correct horizontal angle to make flush contact, inflicting him to hit the ball off the top of the bat as a substitute of the barrel.

As I all the time say, we’re on the lookout for reciprocal actions. If he’s nonetheless kicking again aggressively however doesn’t have the motion beforehand to make the relax clean, then he’s creating asymmetrical actions. The closed stride and clean relax was his recipe for achievement in 2021. The logic right here is that when he strides closed, he has a extra steady connection to the bottom, main to higher positions to get his barrel on airplane.

He didn’t try this final 12 months, and consequently, he created much less house for his higher physique to cowl the outer third successfully, which sapped his manufacturing on fly balls. As a result of he was getting back from surgical procedure, it’s doable that he wasn’t comfy making the identical actions he had prior to now, although it’s onerous to consider that may be the one purpose for shedding his mechanics. In spite of everything, his surgical procedure was on his shoulder, and it is a decrease physique downside. That stated, even when he knew what was improper, his shoulder might have restricted the quantity of additional swings he might take to repair it throughout the season.

Now that he’s wholesome, he ought to have the ability to do the drills and cage work essential to appropriate his mechanics and return to his earlier rotational patterns.