Tim Anderson Has Discovered a New Dwelling

With spring coaching video games in full swing, the stress is mounting for baseball’s remaining free brokers to search out houses. In any case, no one needs to overlook out on the climate in Florida or Arizona this time of 12 months, and Opening Day is only a few weeks away. Now Tim Anderson gained’t have to worry. Anderson is heading to the Miami Marlins on a one-year, $5 million deal. With a transparent path to the beginning shortstop position, the 30-year-old will little question hope to re-enter free company this winter having bounced again from his disappointing ultimate season in Chicago.

Anderson’s slot in Miami is an attention-grabbing one. If he can keep wholesome and return to his prior type, he might assist to stabilize the shortstop place in Miami. However he additionally constitutes a dangerous addition to an already unsure Marlins lineup. It’s not exhausting to think about a state of affairs the place neither Anderson nor Jazz Chisholm Jr. has an offensive bounce-back, Luis Arraez regresses, and Jake Burger’s contact overhaul proves to be only a flash within the pan; it might all go sideways fairly shortly. But when it goes proper, this may very well be an thrilling lineup. If nothing else, the highest three of Arraez, Anderson, and Chisholm make for a really enjoyable group. Nonetheless, to ensure that issues to go proper for Anderson, he must get well a few of the BABIP abilities that have been a key cause for his success. Let’s deal with how precisely which may occur.

From 2019-2022, Anderson led the majors in batting common with a .318 mark. On successful per plate look foundation, no one was extra productive. Then in 2023, he cratered. Knee, shoulder, forearm, and neck accidents all contributed to the contact hitter dropping to a 60 wRC+ and -0.5 WAR in 123 video games. Add to that issues about his capacity to stay at shortstop, and you’ve got your self a participant who fell $3 million in need of his median crowdsourced contract prediction. The form of Anderson’s manufacturing by way of his profitable four-year run was inherently risky. He undoubtedly possessed abilities that propelled him to run above-average BABIPs, however the margin for error for that hitting type is razor skinny; a handful of accidents and a few lack of power could make an in any other case productive profile virtually unplayable.

Final week, I wrote about Anderson as a part of my evaluation of the variance amongst hitters with steep swings. The piece in contrast how hitters with steep Vertical Bat Angles (VBA), the angle of the barrel at contact relative to the bottom, can have extraordinarily completely different offensive profiles due to the opposite elements at play in terms of measuring bat path. Regardless of an especially steep VBA that’s on par with some fly ball heavy hitters, Anderson had a league-leading groundball charge because of different limiting elements of his swing. From 2021-2023, Anderson’s VBA was between the 96th and 97th percentile. It’s a trait he has had for some time, together with in his profitable offensive seasons. However as his VBA remained constant, different elements modified.

Final season, Anderson made contact very deep within the zone, way more so than within the earlier three years. Together with his inside-out swing, he has usually been in a position to persistently hit line drives even with deep contact factors. That may be a widespread ability amongst contact hitters as a result of they have a tendency to create a ton of depth of their bat path, which will get them on airplane with the ball deep within the hitting zone. However like I stated earlier than, this type of hitting has razor skinny margins. If a hitter begins making even deeper contact than normal, they will discover themselves working a 60% groundball charge after they had usually hovered within the mid-50s.

Along with contact level, you may take a look at different bat monitoring elements corresponding to Assault Angle (AA) to know what could have modified for Anderson. However earlier than doing that, I need to observe how AA and VBA differ from each other in order that we would higher perceive their relationship. VBA is the angle of the barrel relative to the bottom on the level of contact. AA is the angle of the trail the barrel is on at contact. AA is an expression of the vertical route the bat is shifting in, whereas VBA is merely a snapshot at contact. Ideally, a participant needs their barrel to be on an upward trajectory by way of contact as a result of it straight impacts launch angle. A participant’s vary of AA will depend upon how a lot power they’ve; the stronger they’re, the upper their vary of AA might be. Nevertheless, it ought to all the time be optimistic.

Previously, AA information hasn’t been publicly accessible, however fortunately SwingGraphs simply made some information out there final week, so we don’t need to do as a lot guess work. It’s not uncooked AA information, however they did give percentile rankings from 2019-2023, which is simply as helpful. Here’s a fast snapshot of how Anderson’s VBA and AA have trended:

At the same time as Anderson’s VBA has remained constant in the previous couple of seasons, his AA has continued to fall. As his AA has fallen, so has his xwOBACON. Final season, he posted his lowest xwOBACON since earlier than his offensive breakout. Getting again to his finest swing would require him reversing some regarding developments in his AA. Maybe improved well being would possibly assist in him in that, but it surely’s not a given. To offer an instance of one other contact hitter with an analogous swing type that has been constant for a number of seasons in a row, look no additional than Arraez, Anderson’s new center infield mate. Final season, he ran a ninety fifth percentile VBA with a twenty third percentile AA. In 2022, he ran an 82nd percentile VBA with a forty first percentile AA. The hole between Arraez’s AA and VBA in 2023 was important, however not practically as huge as Anderson’s. In reality, no hitter with at the very least 225 batted balls in 2023 had a bigger hole between their AA and VBA than Anderson. If he needs to benefit from his abilities, he’ll need to get his swing working in a extra optimistic route by way of contact by rising his AA again to his 2019-2021 ranges. On high of seeing how Arraez has balanced these two measures, he already has his personal blueprint for fulfillment.

I do know this may be exhausting to conceptualize with out truly seeing a spotlight of Anderson’s swing path, however I prefer to simplify it like this: Regardless of how steep or flat your VBA is, it’s superb for any hitter to have their bat working up by way of contact. Flatter might be good relying on the peak of the pitch or the hitter, however the stage Anderson was at in 2023 is a launch angle distribution killer. Possibly Arraez’s strategy might help Anderson. It’s all the time good to have a like-minded hitter in the identical clubhouse. Nevertheless, it’s been a multi-year pattern of shifting within the improper route for Anderson. It’ll take a major bodily adjustment for him to reverse it.

It’ll be thrilling to see if Anderson can bounce again. If all goes nicely, he’ll play nearer to his offensive ceiling and enter free company with a possibility to safe a multi-year offers, maybe having contributed to surprising playoff pushes in Miami.