Manny Machado: Bad Luck or Something Deeper?

A quick comparison between the tailspin of the Baltimore Orioles and the stat sheet of Manny Machado would seem to indicate that the third baseman is heavily responsible for the woes of the O’s over these last few months. However, the story of Machado’s 2017 isnt necessarily one of immense struggles, as his numbers might indicate, but rather one that remains something of an enigma. Despite numbers that pale in comparison to what he’s posted in two consecutive seasons of 6+ WAR, Machado hasn’t been nearly as bad as those figures might indicate.

The following represents Machado’s production over the last three years, with 387 plate appearances to his credit thus far in 2017:

AVG OBP OPS ISO K% BB% wRC+ WAR
2015 .286 .359 .861 .216 15.6 9.8 134 6.8
2016 .294 .343 .876 .239 17.2 6.9 129 6.5
2017 .239 .307 .753 .207 19.6 9.0 96 2.1

His park-adjusted offense alone seems to indicate that he’s been a touch below average compared to his big league counterparts. It’s his defense almost exclusively that has him in the top ten among third basemen in WAR, given that his Off rating is just 0.2 to this point in the season, which ranks 17th out of 24 qualifying players at the position. That isolated power figure also represents a relatively significant disappointment, with Machado coming off of a year in which his power potential finally manifested itself in something statistically significant.

Interestingly enough, though, there isn’t a whole lot that should indicate Machado is as bad as his production would indicate. Obviously an average where it is and an OBP barely lingering above .300 is not representative of a player that is very likely among the top three at the hot corner. With that in mind, it’s certainly worth pondering if Machado’s 2017 is one that warrants any type of concern or can largely be attribute to bad luck more than anything. Especially considering how similar his contact trends are to his strong showing in 2016:

P/PA Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Soft% Hard% BABIP
2015 3.91 43.2 70.2 91.1 84.3 16.5 33.1 0.297
2016 3.69 49.7 66.5 87.3 79.7 21.7 35.4 0.309
2017 3.73 48.1 63.6 86.0 77.2 18.9 40.4 0.253

Obviously there’s the slight dip in his contact rate, with his whiff rate also slightly rising from 10.0 to 10.9%, but there isn’t anything outlandish that should indicate why Machado has experienced such a significant decline in overall production from one season to the next. Except that BABIP. In fact, Machado’s .253 average on balls put in play is the 13th lowest among 168 qualifying position players in Major League Baseball. With his soft and hard contact rates each trending in the ideal direction, it’s extremely difficult to account for the cause of such a startling fall in the BABIP game.

One potential explanation of where that drop comes from is where Machado has been swinging within the zone. Even if his overall swing rates and whiff rates have remained relatively constant, he has demonstrated something of a penchant for swinging at pitches on the outer part of the strike zone, something that wasn’t quite as prevalent in 2016.

Here’s his heatmap from 2016:

…Up against that of his heatmap from those almost 400 plate appearances to this point in 2017, which demonstrate the trend previously discussed:

This is significant because Machado has put the ball on the ground far more this year than he did in 2016, with a 43.2 GB% against a 37.6 mark from last year. It likely cannot be attributed as entire source of his woes, but such a rise in groundballs, in conjunction with a pull percentage that is actually higher (44.0% 41.9%) likely serves as some foray into the woes that Machado has experienced, at least to an extent. Trying to swing at those outside pitches and maintaining such a high pull rate is likely leading to some semblance of rolling over, hence the increase in groundballs.

The good news is that there are two encouraging things related to Machado’s output. For one, if this is, in fact, the source of at least some of his statistical shortcomings this year, it would appear to be an easy fix. Approach and zone awareness are far less concerning than if Machado were experiencing some sort of mechanical flaw that developed over the offseason. So perhaps we see an adjustment from Machado moving forward to get that GB rate back down and get back to the linedrive ways that he demonstrated last year.

Additionally, Machado has been far better in the month of July than he had been in the previous months. After months in which he hit .224, .191, and .242, Machado is off to a .351 start in July, through 62 plate appearances in the month. He’s putting the ball on the ground just a touch less, at a rate of about 40%. Perhaps more importantly, though, his BABIP for the month is sitting at .378.

And that’s more reflective of the type of output we should expect from Manny Machado moving forward. While he’s never been an extremely high BABIP guy, he isn’t doing anything that should indicate his BABIP, or overall production, should be as low as it is. Things tend to even out over time, and assuming Machado continues to make the type of contact that he is and perhaps get the ball on a line with any more regularity, there doesn’t appear to be any reason to be legitimately concerned about Machado moving forward in 2017.





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NBiscardi17member
6 years ago

There is concern, he overestimates his ability. Horrid decision maker at the plate.