On Manny Machado’s Completely Developed Power

Okay, obviously the headline there is something that has become easily perceivable anytime anyone has watched Manny Machado pick up a bat in the last calendar year or so. One of the more prominent players at the third base position in a number of ways (again, I’m dealing in obvious statements here), one of the elements that folks were watching for early in his career was for that power to develop. Primarily a gap hitter early in his career, with 51 doubles during the 2013 season, it was only a matter of time before balls started leaving the yard. Here we are into Machado’s second completely healthy season in the last three years and that early expectation of more power has absolutely come to fruition.

In his first full season, back in 2013, Machado posted an ISO of just .148. The “just” qualifier is present only because of where he finds himself now. But he found the seats only 14 times across 700+ plate appearances. The 2014 campaign wasn’t completely a wash, but he was limited to appearances in 82 games because of injury. His ISO over that significantly smaller span came in slightly higher, at .153. But last year saw him break out in the power game.

He notched a career high 35 home runs, while driving that ISO from about .151 combined in the previous season and a half to .216 in 2015. Impressive as that may be, 2016 has seen him take yet another step forward, specifically in terms of the ISO game. One of my favorite aspects of this statistical “revolution” in recent years, ISO provides a much more general overview of a hitter’s power, and, subsequently, perhaps a more accurate one.

ISO essentially measures a player’s ability to hit for extra bases and Manny Machado hits for a lot of them. Again, a glaringly obvious statement, but the purpose here is to illustrate just that. After his first season with an ISO over .200 in 2015, Machado has posted a very impressive .259 mark that ranks fifth among his third base counterparts thus far in 2016. He’s hit 34 home runs, one short of that career high, in about 120 less plate appearances, while tacking on 39 doubles, which easily surpasses his total of 30 from last season ( and is 12 short of his career mark of 51 set back in 2013).

Here’s that ISO in visual form:

There’s not a lot there that’s going to surprise. Machado loves his pitches that are up in the zone, whether just a touch up or above the zone entirely. The outer edge of the plate represents a source of regular success for Machado as well, which speaks to conventional logic (something, something, mechanics, something, something, swing extension). Much of what we’ve seen from Machado and his power bat this season is derived from that very spot. That’s illustrated above, but also more specifically below.

Narrowing the scope down to his homers, Machado has enjoyed some success against those pitches on the outer half of the plate. Of his 34 home runs to date, 21 have come against pitches on the outer half. That’s good for 62% of his knocks that end up in the seats and is illustrated below:

So exactly what has changed in order for Manny Machado to evolve from a solid gap-to-gap hitter with an elite glove to a power hitter with high on-base skills and an elite glove? As it would turn out, not a whole lot. Machado’s approach at the plate has remained relatively constant since 2013, with 2015 serving as an outlier in which he swung at significantly less pitches overall:

It’s more difficult to find specific batted ball data, especially in terms of exit velocity, going back to 2013, just because of how much the statistical game has changed in such a short time. Nonetheless, it’s not a significant difference. His hard hit rate has increased steadily over the last few seasons, but that’s something that is probably to be expected as he adjusts to Major League pitching. So it comes as no surprise that last year represented a four percent increase in that regard (33.1% Hard%) and 2016 has seen another slight jump (up to 36.5%). When you factor in the increase in flyballs, the homer numbers really come as no surprise. The power was always something that was going to come along as Machado spent more time at the Major League level, and it’s something we’ve been able to witness in each of the last two seasons in particular.

When we talk about the power being established, it’s primarily in regard to that ISO. His power numbers are just about at, or have even surpassed, where they were last year, and in significantly fewer plate appearances. At the end of the day, this is a case of a player developing. His ability to make increasingly hard contact while at the same time developing that additional strength are all products of continued play at the big league level. We saw the power emerge last year, and it’s been firmly established this year in every way that we could have imagined when he was starting to break out at the tail end of the 2012 season.