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. By way of Could 10, Díaz was operating 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 necessary, he was operating a 60.3% groundball charge on Could 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 share factors has at all times been the distinction between being an excellent hitter and being among the best 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 knowledge put the difficulty in stark aid. Blasts are a mixture of two metrics: quick swings and squared up swings. The official definitions are right here, however in case you swing arduous and also you barrel the ball up, you’ll find yourself with a blast. That’s an excellent 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 house runs. Of the 260 gamers who’ve hit at the very least 25 blasts this season, that 5.0% house run charge 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 grime virtually utterly obscured by dots, is Díaz’s spray chart on blasts. On the suitable, with house runs sprinkled liberally on high, is Henderson’s.
On the subject of 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 necessary, 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 means beneath the league common of .377.
Whereas these numbers are new and engaging, I might guess that I haven’t but informed you something that you simply couldn’t have intuited for your self: Díaz hits the ball arduous, 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 depart his launch angle points behind, as a result of the bat monitoring numbers present us one thing that’s much more attention-grabbing. I’m not as sure methods to interpret it, however I feel it’s price 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 suitable. That’s quick swing charge, the share of swings the place the bat pace reaches 75 mph. Certainly one of these items will not be 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 persons are inside 20 share factors of Díaz! Right here’s what that appears like in a scatter plot.
Díaz swings arduous very often in case you examine him to the league as a complete, however for somebody who crushes the ball as usually as he does, his quick swing charge is positively miniscule. Let’s return to our high 10 checklist and add one other column, blasts-per-fast-swing charge. We’re simply dividing the primary column by the second column, however now it reveals us how usually batters sq. up the ball once they swing arduous. I don’t suppose the info behind these numbers are good, however they’re positively ok to offer us an impression of what’s happening.
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 Decide | 19.9% | 72.9% | 27.3% |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 18.9% | 98.1% | 19.3% |
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
Aside 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 arduous, he doesn’t miss. That’s additionally true of him extra usually. 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 tough 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 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 greatest Arraez impression, throttling down and discovering a solution to put the barrel on the ball. However that’s not what’s taking place. Utilizing the info 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 suppose these numbers are good, however they’re ok to offer us an general impression.) When Díaz swings arduous, 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, nevertheless it’s solely somewhat bit above common.
Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not optimistic of what’s happening. I positively don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that Díaz is operating a contact charge that’s a full 15 share 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 tug.
He’s seeing much more sinkers, and the pitches he’s swinging at are decrease and farther outdoors. Nonetheless, if we return to our dividing line of Could 10, we are able to see that Díaz has modified his strategy. He’s swinging at extra inside pitches, and since the bat is normally shifting quicker on inside pitches due to the need to fulfill 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 attention-grabbing ability units in all of baseball. He’s able to hitting the ball as arduous as nearly anybody within the recreation, 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 apart from the grime in entrance of house plate, he’s among the best hitters on this planet. I want we might 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 when it comes to quick swing charge whereas he was performing like a extra conventional energy hitter. For now, it’s only a enjoyable reality, however hopefully we’ll be taught extra in regards to the relationships between these expertise as soon as now we have greater than half a season of information.