I’ve obtained excellent news for you, Padres followers. Manny Machado is hitting the ball as onerous as practically anybody in baseball*. Significantly! Check out this leaderboard:
Highest Common Exit Velocity*, 2024
Yeah! There’s our man, fourth within the majors, completely pummeling the ball. No Aaron Decide on this listing. No Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani or Gunnar Henderson. Machado’s outdoing all of them. By no means thoughts that pesky asterisk up above. He’s completely fastened. Although talking of, what is that asterisk about?
*: Exit velocity on groundballs solely
Oh. Huh. I suppose that’s why the listing is lacking all these nice hitters, and as an alternative has dudes barely hanging on or getting demoted to Triple-A. Thunderous energy doesn’t imply a lot in the event you’re hitting the ball straight into the infield grass. That explains this complicated pattern:
Manny Machado, Contact Metrics By 12 months
| 12 months | Avg EV | Prime 50% EV | Air EV | Floor EV | GB% | ISO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 90.2 | 102.7 | 91.4 | 88.2 | 37.2% | .277 |
| 2021 | 93.1 | 104.9 | 94.2 | 91.5 | 39.0% | .211 |
| 2022 | 91.5 | 102.6 | 92.1 | 90.5 | 37.8% | .234 |
| 2023 | 91.0 | 102.4 | 92.2 | 89.2 | 40.2% | .204 |
| 2024 | 92.4 | 103.1 | 92.3 | 92.5 | 47.9% | .130 |
In the event you simply checked out his common exit velocity, you’d assume Machado was surging this yr. Even in the event you regarded on the common of the highest half of his contact, it’s higher than the final two years. However he’s not hitting the ball any tougher when he elevates, and he’s elevating lower than ever. The outcome? Fewer homers and doubles, and a decrease ISO.
Possibly you’ve seen this chart earlier than, nevertheless it’s value repeating after we’re speaking about this. Including velocity to grounders doesn’t do a lot to have an effect on manufacturing on these grounders. Right here’s wOBA bucketed by exit velocity, league-wide, because the shift ban in 2023, break up between floor and air contact:
In different phrases, hitting the ball tougher on the bottom simply doesn’t pay that a lot. Hit a grounder at 90 mph, and also you’re taking a look at a .204 wOBA. Ramp it as much as 100 mph, and also you’re solely as much as .314. For reference, the common wOBA on contact on this timeframe is .368. Taking it from 90 to 100 solely goes from horrible to dangerous.
In the meantime, smashing your elevated contact is juicy. At 90 mph, the league has produced a .198 mark, basically an identical to grounders. At 100 mph, that balloons to a .571 mark. That’s simply wanting Aaron Decide’s league-best .579 wOBA on contact this yr. Including energy is nice – so long as you will get the ball within the air.
Are you able to get good outcomes by hitting grounders at actually ludicrous speeds? Undoubtedly. At 105 mph and above, grounders did higher than the common ball in play. However at 105 mph and above, elevated contact is much extra helpful. Charts like this are the explanation hitters are attempting to place the ball within the air extra.
Machado has performed nearly his complete profession with a fly ball strategy. It suits his sport completely. He’s able to demolishing the ball, however he’s typically joyful to elevate and pull at lower than a very maxed-out swing as a result of that turns his energy into homers so simply. He has an excellent sense of the strike zone and common bat-to-ball expertise. Combine that every one collectively, and also you get Machado’s profession line – extra walks than common, fewer strikeouts than common, and a batted ball combine heavy on pulled dwelling runs.
That covers what’s gone unsuitable. A greater query: Why has it gone unsuitable? There are 4 methods this may go. There’s the innocuous rationalization. Machado began the season harm, and he’s again now, so all the things might be higher. Nicely, all the things might be higher assuming his current damage is only a minor one.
There’s some promising proof on this entrance, although it’s too early to inform for certain. He’s been elevating extra continuously since Might 15, and prospering whereas doing so. Is that this a sizzling streak or a return to kind? They’re indistinguishable till we get extra proof.
One other risk: That is simply age-related decline. I’m skeptical of this one. It simply doesn’t actually match with the obtainable proof. Machado remains to be swinging impressively onerous. His eye on the plate hasn’t declined. Take a look at these air contact numbers and high 50% EV numbers; nothing about this season appears completely different from the earlier ones. If that is growing old, then we should always all be so fortunate.
A 3rd choice is there’s been a change in strategy. Possibly Machado is concentrating on pitches that he places on the bottom extra continuously, or perhaps he’s modified his swing to prioritize floor contact. I’m not an knowledgeable on this, however I watched lots of video of Machado whereas writing this text, and I’ve to inform you, I don’t see a lot in the way in which of modifications. Right here’s a pulled grounder from 2023:
And from 2024:
I attempted to work out comparable digicam angles and pitch places, and the swings look an identical to me. Location-wise, he’s swinging barely extra at pitches down within the zone and barely extra at sinkers – these two results are strongly correlated, in any case. However these results are tiny in comparison with the variance that comes with taking part in baseball and dealing with completely different opposing pitchers. If he’s made a change in his strategy, it’s one so minute that it seems to be like random noise.
That leaves one final choice: Nothing important has modified, and we’re simply trying on the slings and arrows of outrageous variance. Truthfully, that appears fairly cheap to me! Right here’s a graph of Machado’s 10-game rolling groundball charges over the previous 5 years:
He’s had quick stretches like this earlier than. Two of them in the identical yr is undoubtedly dangerous, however I don’t see a lot pattern there, and in the event you’re pattern-matching, his final 10 video games appear to be a return to kind anyway. Match this story with our first attainable rationalization – Machado’s early-season damage was stopping him from utilizing his regular strategy – and we’ve got a compelling story. Possibly the most effective projection for him on a going-forward foundation is that he’ll proceed to be Manny Machado, similar to all the time, regardless of the bizarre statistical line he’s accrued to date this yr.
That mentioned, I’m keen to alter my opinion if Machado continues to pummel the ball on the bottom, and I’ve some potential worrisome proof to that finish. Machado has squared up 54.4% of his grounders this yr, and solely 47.4% of his elevated contact. Squared-up charge is a brand new Statcast metric that measures whether or not a hitter imparted practically the entire potential power of his swing to the ball – not less than 80% of its theoretical most exit velocity, to be exact. In different phrases, he’s more proficient at transferring his most energy on grounders than line drives and fly balls.
That’s the other of the sample that hitters exhibit in combination. League-wide, 50.4% of grounders have been squared up this yr, whereas 61% of aerial contact has been. In different phrases, most hitters are catching the ball flush extra continuously after they elevate. Machado is doing it extra continuously when he hits the ball downwards. That’s a worrisome signal, to say the least; it’s simply easy logic that you just’d favor the league’s sample to Machado’s.
The one drawback with this information: I’ve no clue what Machado’s splits regarded like final yr. It’s one factor to say that his methodology sounds dangerous. It does sound dangerous! However with out context, it’s onerous to know precisely what this implies. Possibly Machado’s squared-up charges had been even worse final yr. Possibly he succeeds regardless of that generically scary sounding batted ball distribution as a result of he does different issues properly. Possibly this sort of factor varies enormously from one yr to the subsequent, and even from one month to the subsequent.
I apologize for the way wishy-washy this all sounds. That’s a part of the disadvantage of analyzing partial seasons of recent information sources. I really don’t know whether or not Machado’s grounder-heavy 2024 is a part of an overhauled swing, a brand new limitation of his sport, or simply enterprise as ordinary. I’ll be maintaining a tally of whether or not he begins connecting extra solidly when he places the ball within the air – however greater than something, I’ll be looking ahead to extra information, of any sort, to see what’s happening.