Riley Greene has by no means seen the ball like this earlier than. You by no means know the way somebody will react to their first postseason expertise – gamers have been recognized to press or freeze up – however Greene has completed no such factor. He’s chasing pitches outdoors the strike zone about as steadily as he did within the common season. In the meantime, he’s locked in when pitchers problem him. He’s swinging at 85% of pitches within the strike zone, up from about 66% through the common season. And when he will get one proper down the center, he’s going for it: He’s taken 13 swings at 15 such pitches, additionally an 85% swing charge, up from 73% earlier than October.
Only one drawback: Greene is hitting .133/.278/.200 within the playoffs. He’s strolling at about the identical clip, and his strikeouts are barely down. In the meantime, his energy has fully disappeared. He has one extra-base hit, a double. He hasn’t barreled up a single ball. His bat pace is down two ticks from the common season, and down practically 2.5 mph from his second-half mark. He’s making extra weak contact and fewer laborious contact. These items don’t fairly make sense collectively. Are we a fluke of batted ball luck or a development?
Now, let’s be trustworthy with ourselves. It’s in all probability at the very least partly a fluke of batted ball luck. We’re speaking about 4 video games right here, 18 plate appearances. You’re not purported to learn an excessive amount of into samples that small, and in the event you do, it’s best to give attention to probably the most steady indicators yow will discover. On-base proportion? Slugging? Heck, strikeout charge? We haven’t seen practically sufficient to take these at face worth. However I do assume one thing’s incorrect, so I believed I’d dig a little bit deeper.
I’ll inform you instantly, the bat pace bit I discussed was a crimson herring. Bat pace and swing size are correlated to hit course: pulled batted balls come from swings that meet the ball out in entrance of the plate, with usually longer swing lengths and sooner swing speeds. That’s simply physics. Listed below are Greene’s batted balls this postseason:
Wish to register decrease bat pace? Begin going oppo with all the things. I watched all of these swings to get an concept of what’s happening right here. A few of them are simply Greene being an excellent hitter. Right here he’s in a 1-2 rely towards Tanner Bibee:
That’s nice work. With two strikes, he each shortened up and waited on his swing for a greater likelihood at pitch identification. It’s laborious to show round a 94-mph fastball on the outer third, so he didn’t attempt to; he simply stayed on aircraft and “hit the ball the place it was pitched,” to make use of teaching parlance.
This Matthew Boyd sinker alternatively:
That’s a slower pitch, in a better location, in a friendlier rely. Greene didn’t put up his finest skilled season by taking pictures balls like that the opposite approach; he sprayed them to all fields with authority, notably when he didn’t have his again towards the wall. However, properly, he additionally hit them the opposite approach generally. He simply received higher outcomes:
I picked that clip to point out the inherent problem of evaluating hitters based mostly on a small pattern. These two swings are strikingly related. They each got here on 91-mph fastballs that had been simply off of lifeless heart. They each got here in even counts, when Greene may hunt a pitch to hit. His swing towards Boyd makes me assume he was anticipating one thing tender after which adjusted to a fastball. I’m unsure I might have made that selection towards Boyd, who began lefties with fastballs greater than half the time this yr, however I can perceive the considering. One simply went out, and the opposite wanted ever so barely extra juice.
Whereas I used to be capable of finding different instances that Greene poked a fastball the opposite strategy to nice success, I do assume there’s one thing right here. Small pattern or no, not sufficient knowledge to stabilize however, it’s simply true that Greene is sending the ball the other approach much more steadily within the final 4 video games than he often does.
Possibly it’s associated to the best way he’s being pitched. Greene has confronted two lefty starters and a few lefty relievers already. A 3rd of the pitches he’s seen have include a platoon drawback, far larger than his profession charge. That places him on the defensive proper from the beginning; like just about each lefty, he hits worse and pulls the ball much less steadily towards same-handed pitching.
It will get a bit weirder from there. There’s a basic pitching rule that any youth coach can inform you: laborious in and tender away. It refers to attacking hitters with fastballs inside after which secondary pitches that break free from them, to the skin fringe of the plate and even outdoors. It’s laborious to do this each time in observe, however as a basic rule, most pitchers observe it. Right here’s the place the fastballs Greene noticed this common season had been positioned:
And listed here are all of the fastballs he’s seen within the playoffs:
To place it one other approach, 15% of the fastballs Greene confronted within the common season had been strikes within the inside third of the zone. Within the playoffs, he’s seen 39 fastballs. Precisely a kind of has been on the inside third, and that was a demon cutter from Emmanuel Clase that dotted the inside edge at 101 and broke Greene’s bat. Usually, Greene feasts on these pitches. He doesn’t whiff typically, makes a ton of laborious contact, and slugs .691 when he places the ball in play.
He’s not getting an opportunity to do this to this point, and I think about that has made for a troublesome adjustment. To make issues much more complicated, pitchers are venturing inside with secondary pitches at double the speed they did within the common season. Lefties are front-dooring him with sliders, whereas righties are throwing them to his again foot, or at the very least attacking the within edge to maintain him guessing when he leans out in search of fastballs.
It’s approach too early to say that that is the best way to beat Greene. Once more, it’s been 4 video games. Change the batted ball luck simply barely, or let him catch that Boyd sinker only a tiny bit extra flush, and we could be speaking about how he’s adapting to the best way he’s pitched and punishing pitchers for his or her unconventional strategy. However none of that has occurred, and truthfully, I don’t assume he’s found out tips on how to deal with it but. He actually has hit with much less authority, and he actually does appear to be getting circled attempting to deal with all these outdoors fastballs.
Right here’s the excellent news for Tigers followers: Riley Greene is a celebrity and a hitting genius. If he might be defeated by a easy tactic like finding fastballs some place else, he wouldn’t have popped 24 homers and slugged .479 in cavernous Comerica Park, a area that’s a depressing 16% beneath common on the subject of lefty house runs. For those who present Greene the identical search for per week straight, it’s a reasonably good wager that he’ll alter to it.
If you watch Greene bat in the present day, control the place the fastballs are. If the previous few video games are any indication, they’ll largely be up and away. And if they’re, it’s Greene’s job to make the opposition pay, both by punching them the opposite approach like he did towards Bibee or by hammering those that leak over the center of the plate. Thus far, he hasn’t been as much as the duty. However it’s solely a matter of time earlier than he figures it out. The one query is whether or not it is going to occur in time to rescue Detroit’s moribund offense, which has scored fewer than three runs a sport this October. He’ll have to regulate rapidly – or hope for some extra Tarik Skubal shutouts to provide him extra time to be taught.