The Weird and the Wonderful — Hitters Through Apr 24, 2023

In past years, I have reviewed some of the most extreme performers in various categories after around a week of play. Though not necessarily actionable, it was fun to see the players and stats that stood at the top and bottom of the leaderboards. It’s a bit later than I have normally reviewed the weird and the wonderful historically, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any wackiness going on! So let’s review some of the outliers a couple of weeks into the season.

These hitters are allergic to the base on balls:

Teoscar Hernández has never been a big walker, sporting a career 7.2% rate. But he’s taken his impatience to a whole new level this year as his O-Swing% has jumped to a career high, driving up his overall Swing% to a career high. With both his ISO and BABIP at their lowest marks since his 2016 debut, he’s been a disappointment so far for the Mariners offense.

Talk about an empty batting average! Mauricio Dubón has enjoyed a bizarre season so far, with few walks, but also few strikeouts, a career high BABIP, thanks to a high rate of both line drives and grounders, but no power, and for fantasy owners, just one steal. As soon as he hits a BABIP slump, he could get dropped in the batting order. Then again, Astros manager Dusty Baker isn’t exactly known for making stat-based decisions, so you never know.

What on Earth happened to Trey Mancini’s patience?! Oddly, his Swing% is right in line with his history, but he is seeing more first pitch strikes and has posted the highest Contact% of his career, along with the lowest SwStk%. So more strikes seen, plus better contact made should result in a lower walk rate, though I’m surprised it’s this low!

It’s a small sample, but with few walks, a low LD%, and no power, it surely doesn’t look like Oswaldo Cabrera is ready to hit in the Majors!

These hitters are willing to wait…and wait…and wait…for their perfect pitch:

My gosh LaMonte Wade Jr.! He’s doubled his walk rate from last year and nearly tripled it from his 2021 mini breakout. He has simply quit swinging at pitches, whether outside or inside the zone. He hasn’t contributed a whole lot for fantasy owners yet, but I’m liking his overall skill set, plus he’s already pushed his maxEV to a career high above 110 MPH, and his Barrel% is also sitting at a career high in double digits for the second time.

This is nothing new for Juan Soto, who has posted a walk rate above 20% every season since 2020. And he’s still just 24. CRAZY!

Max Muncy has always been a walk machine, but this year he’s sacrificed some contact and walked even more. His swing rates are truly bizarre, as his O-Swing% has risen to a career high, while his Z-Swing% has declined to a career low! That’s the exact opposite of what you want to see. But hey, at least has power has rebounded, and then some.

This group has become familiar with walking back to the dugout after having struck out:

After bouncing around between the high 20% and low 30% strikeout rate range in the minors, Jazz Chisholm Jr. reduced his mark to below 30% over the last two seasons. This year, his contact issues have returned, as he’s “leading” the league in strikeout rate among qualified batters, and it’s not particularly close. While he’s swinging and missing more, it’s not by enough to fully explain the strikeout rate surge. instead, it’s a spike in called strike rate, as his Z-Swing% has declined. He has also struggled majorly in making contact with pitches outside the zone. At least his power has been there, but hampered by a lowly 23.4% FB%, and he’s swiped seven bases already.

Former top prospect Riley Greene has never struck out 30% of the time in his professional career, so this is a surprise. Even more surprising is he hasn’t even swung and missed that often, having posted a reasonable 12.5% SwStk%. Diving deeper into his strike type rates, I’m struggling to understand what’s driving the big strikeout rate spike. He has swung and missed more and his foul strike rate has risen as well. But the increases don’t seem to be enough to explain posting the second highest strikeout rate in baseball. I expect improvement moving forward, though his penchant for grounders is another issue holding back his power.

Wowzers, Matt Olson’s dramatically improved 16.8% strikeout rate back in 2021 is going to prove to be the major outlier in his career. Outside of that season and his 31.4% mark the year before during the short 2020 season, he has already been in the mid-20% range. So it’s rather shocking to see his strikeout rate surge well above 30%, on the backs of a career high SwStk%. No one has noticed thanks to his .391 BABIP and second highest HR/FB rate. It’s been a sudden inability to make contact with pitches inside the strike zone, as his Z-Contact% has slipped to just 67.2% versus a 79.1% career average. That’s a bit concerning, but something no one is worrying about given everything else he’s done well at.

Despite only a marginal increase in SwStk%, Ryan McMahon’s strikeout rate has spiked and sits at the worst mark of his career. He has only played in nine of 22 games at home, though, so he hasn’t benefited from Coors as much as he ultimately will. Everything else looks good though, so I’m expecting his strikeout rate to rebound.

These hitters put the ball in play often:

Luis Arraez has posted a single digit strikeout rate in his career, which is elite, but he’s never been this good over a full season. And it comes with a microscopic 1.9% SwStk%! While this is about strikeout rate, it’s amazing to see the career high 11.1% walk rate paired with so few strikeouts. A ridiculous .463 BABIP has pushed his OBP up to an insane .506. It’s too bad he still hasn’t developed any home run power and isn’t much of a base stealer.

It’s okay not to walk often if you’re also rarely striking out like Nico Hoerner is now doing. He still owns limited power, but he’s nearly halfway to his 2022 stolen base total in less than 20% of the PAs!

There’s Mauricio Dubón again, who has paired his tiny walk rate with a similarly tiny strikeout rate. This is a guy who struck out around 20% of the time from 2019-2021, but improved dramatically last year, and has seemingly held onto those gains this year.

This hitter might be swinging with his eyes closed:

MJ Melendez struck out often from 2017-2019, but then broke out in 2021 and brought his strikeout rate down just below 22%, while his SwStk% also improved dramatically. He posted very similar marks during his MLB debut last year, so it’s quite the surprise to see him suddenly struggle to make contact this year. He actually just missed the high strikeout rate list, as he sits at 34.1%. His issue is his O-Swing% has jumped, all the while his ability to make contact on pitches outside the zone, and inside the zone, have declined significantly. I don’t know what happened here, but Melendez is going to need to adjust.