It is 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. Via Might 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 best way to 93.7 mph. Much more vital, he was working a 60.3% groundball charge on Might 10, however has run a 53.3% groundball charge after that time. For the season, that also leaves him at 56.4%, highest amongst all certified gamers, however for Díaz, that handful of proportion factors has all the time been the distinction between being a great hitter and being among the finest in baseball. When his groundball charge is up, his wRC+ is down, and vice versa. The connection is obvious to see:
MLB’s new bat monitoring information put the difficulty in stark aid. Blasts are a mix of two metrics: quick swings and squared up swings. The official definitions are right here, however if you happen to swing laborious and also you barrel the ball up, you’ll find yourself with a blast. That’s a great factor, as a result of to this point this season, blasts have a wOBA of .731, and a barrel charge 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 changed into dwelling runs. Of the 260 gamers who’ve hit a minimum of 25 blasts this season, that 5.0% dwelling run charge places him in 248th place. Why? You recognize why. He has a launch angle of 1 on his blasts, tied for 259th out of 260. On the left, with the infield dust virtually fully obscured by dots, is Díaz’s spray chart on blasts. On the best, with dwelling runs sprinkled liberally on high, is Henderson’s.
In relation 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 a minimum of 20 groundball blasts, that’s absolutely the lowest. Consequently, Díaz’s .207 wOBA on groundball blasts is approach under the league common of .377.
Whereas these numbers are new and interesting, I’d guess that I haven’t but advised you something that you simply couldn’t have intuited for your self: Díaz hits the ball laborious, and when he can carry it he’s nice, however that doesn’t occur all that usually. From this level on, I’m going to depart 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 interpret it, however I believe it’s value sharing all the identical.
Amongst certified gamers, Díaz’s 18.6% blast-per-swing charge is tied for fifth. Right here’s the highest 10 in blasts per swing amongst certified batters, however check out the column on the best. That’s quick swing charge, the proportion of swings the place the bat pace reaches 75 mph. Certainly one of this stuff is just not just like the others.
2024 Blast Masters
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
There’s Díaz’s at no. 5, however take a look at his quick swing charge in comparison with all people else’s. It’s miles behind theirs. Solely two individuals are inside 20 proportion factors of Díaz! Right here’s what that appears like in a scatter plot.
Díaz swings laborious very often if you happen to examine him to the league as an entire, however for somebody who crushes the ball as typically as he does, his quick swing charge is positively miniscule. Let’s return to our high 10 record and add one other column, blasts-per-fast-swing charge. We’re simply dividing the primary column by the second column, however now it exhibits us how typically batters sq. up the ball once they swing laborious. I don’t assume the information behind these numbers are excellent, however they’re positively adequate to provide us an impression of what’s occurring.
2024 Blast Masters Redux
| Participant | Blast/Swing | Quick Swing% | Blast/Quick Swing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yandy Díaz | 18.6% | 31.8% | 58.5% |
| Carlos Correa | 18.6% | 48.9% | 38.0% |
| William Contreras | 17.8% | 50.5% | 35.2% |
| Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 18.2% | 52.6% | 34.6% |
| Juan Soto | 20.0% | 59.9% | 33.4% |
| Shohei Ohtani | 19.0% | 57.3% | 33.2% |
| Yordan Alvarez | 18.0% | 56.6% | 31.8% |
| Gunnar Henderson | 17.7% | 61.5% | 28.8% |
| Aaron Choose | 19.9% | 72.9% | 27.3% |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 18.9% | 98.1% | 19.3% |
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
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 pace, is at 19.3%. Díaz is at 58.5%. Fairly merely, when Díaz swings laborious, he doesn’t miss. That’s additionally true of him extra typically. Amongst certified gamers, his 12.4% whiff charge is second solely to the one and solely Luis Arraez. Díaz is much more of an outlier on this graph.
Figuring out what we find out about bat pace — that onerous swings end in louder contact however extra misses, whereas softer swings end in softer contact however a greater likelihood of squaring the ball up — my first thought was that possibly Díaz has this complete factor found out. When he sees a pitch that he can actually crush, he swings out of his footwear, and when he doesn’t, he does his finest Arraez impression, throttling down and discovering a option to put the barrel on the ball. However that’s not what’s occurring. Utilizing the information from the bat monitoring leaderboard, I went forward and reverse engineered Díaz’s contact charge on swings that aren’t quick swings. (As soon as once more, I don’t assume these numbers are excellent, however they’re adequate to provide us an total impression.) When Díaz swings laborious, he squares up the ball 58.5% of the time, however on swings under 75 mph, he squares up the ball simply 21.3% of the time. That’s not dangerous, however it’s solely somewhat bit above common.
Like I stated earlier, I’m not optimistic of what’s occurring. I positively don’t assume it’s a coincidence that Díaz is working a contact charge that’s a full 15 proportion factors above his profession charge in the identical season that his exit velocity, hard-hit charge, fly ball charge, and pull charge have all taken a tumble. He’s elevated his contact charge by letting the ball get deeper and by swinging at pitches which can be tougher to carry and tougher to drag.
He’s seeing much more sinkers, and the pitches he’s swinging at are decrease and farther exterior. Nonetheless, if we return to our dividing line of Might 10, we are able to see that Díaz has modified his method. He’s swinging at extra inside pitches, and since the bat is normally transferring quicker on inside pitches due to the need to satisfy the ball farther out entrance, his quick swing charge has gone from 27% earlier than that date to 35% after it.
Díaz has one of the crucial fascinating talent units in all of baseball. He’s able to hitting the ball as laborious as nearly anybody within the sport, whereas making contact extra typically than everybody apart from actually Luis Arraez. That’s simply not normally how issues work. Any time he manages to direct that energy someplace apart from the dust in entrance of dwelling plate, he’s among the finest hitters on the earth. I want we may examine all these bat monitoring numbers to those he ran final season. It will be fascinating to see if he was nonetheless such an outlier by way of quick swing charge 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 abilities as soon as we’ve greater than half a season of knowledge.