[情報] Fangraphs搬運工
Jason Heyward’s Surprising New Strategy for Success Will Shock You
by Craig Edwards
April 19, 2019
http://bit.ly/2viMLR8
Jason Heyward was a very good baseball player for a very long time. From
2010-2015, his 25 WAR was one of the top 20 marks in the game and in his
final two seasons before free agency, his 10 wins was 10th in all of
baseball. In his one season in St. Louis, Jason Heyward was worth 5.6 WAR. In
three-plus seasons for Chicago, Heyward has been worth 4.6 WAR as he
approaches the midway point of his $184 million contract. To say the contract
hasn't worked out ignores that the Cubs won a World Series in his first
season with the club and have won 90+ games in the two subsequent seasons.
Heyward hasn’t been a good value early on, but he trended upward slightly
last season, hitting at an average level and producing at a above-average
level overall when factoring in baserunning and defense. This season, Heyward
has been one of the better hitters in baseball in the early going thanks to
an a absurd 10 walks compared to just six strikeouts as well as new secret
trick: hitting the ball hard.
We probably don’t need to go through all of Heyward's history, but the
table below shows that in his final year before joining the Cubs, Heyward hit
the ball relatively hard and often on the ground while with the Cubs, Heyward
got the ball in the air more, but hit the ball with less authority.
Jason Heyward Exit Velocity
Team Avg EV %Rank Avg Launch Angle wRC+
(min. 200 BB)
2015 Cardinals 89.2 66.2% 4.6 121
2016 Cubs 86.7 25.5% 10.6 72
2017 Cubs 86.4 30.3% 10.9 88
2018 Cubs 88.1 47.0% 9.4 99
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
This season, Heyward is off to a great start with a 165 wRC+; his average
launch angle is 18 degrees and his exit velocity thus far is 90.5 mph, per
Baseball Savant. When we talked about the launch angle revolution and trying
to get players who hit the ball hard on the ground to put the ball in the air
more, Jason Heyward was a prime example of a player who might benefit.
Heyward hit the ball pretty hard with the Cardinals, and most of the time it
went on the ground. His ISO wasn't anything superlative, but he hit the ball
hard enough to make himself an above-average offensive player. Heyward did
have the one year in 2012 when he hit 27 homers, but that has become an
anomaly as his career has progressed. In the first 15 games this season,
Heyward has a .255 ISO. Look at this 15-game rolling ISO chart and try to
spot the places where Heyward has ever hit with this much power, even in a
small sample.
https://imgur.com/6VqfnZm
There's literally no 15-game period with the Cubs in which he's hit for
this much power. He had one, maybe two brief stretches with the Cardinals, he
closed the 2013 season well, and had a handful of hot periods during the
first three seasons of his career. Since the end of the 2013 season, a period
now encompassing more than five seasons, Heyward has had a short stretch like
this just a couple of times. His career ISO is .149; the league has averaged
an ISO of .151 over that span. Heyward has been, at best, an average power
hitter, and over the last few years, he's been well below. That makes what
he has done unusual so far. Of his five extra base hits this season, four
have been homers; if a couple of those homers had been doubles, we'd be
looking at something more reasonable, though Heyward's .367 xwOBA indicates
he's still been hitting the ball well, regardless of how many balls have
gone over the fence.
What's even more striking than Heyward's power output is his discipline.
Heyward has walked in 10 of his 63 plate appearances and struck out just six
times. He has long been a player who has walked a lot while striking out at a
rate better than league average, but this walk rate is one unseen since
before his 2015 in St. Louis.
https://imgur.com/ZY6JLFb
Heyward's changes in walks and strikeouts are fueled, perhaps
unsurprisingly, by swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone and more
pitches in the zone.
https://imgur.com/JoXqxFk
As he has swung at more pitches in the zone, he's making contact on more of
those pitches as well. One notable part of the graph above is the contact
percentage out of the zone. While Heyward has swung at considerably fewer
pitches outside the strike zone, he's missed on those swings at a higher
rate. This might suggest that those pitches outside the zone aren't pitches
that are close resulting in weak contact, but rather are pitches where he is
actually fooled. Given that his contact rate in the zone has gone up, it’s
possible Heyward is simply swinging a bit harder, or more comfortably, at
pitches he feels he can drive. That brings us back to launch angle.
Looking purely at average launch angle can be a bit deceiving at times. As
the table at the beginning of the post indicates, Heyward did a better job of
getting the ball in the air, but he was a much worse hitter. Launch angle
charts can help provide some insight into why. First, look at this chart from
Heyward's year in St. Louis, from Baseball Savant.
https://imgur.com/Wsbkab5
That huge needle at -25 degrees represents a ton of ground balls that
resulted in basically no hits. Then we see a bunch more batted balls from
negative 20 degrees though positive 25 degrees with a decent number of hits.
Then we see a tiny blip at 40 degrees and another small one at around 60
degrees, basically representing infield fly balls. Heyward was successful
above because he hit the ball hard. The graphs below show the Cubs years when
Heyward got the ball in the air a little more, but didn’t hit it hard and
got poor results.
https://imgur.com/6Yo4cC9
From 2016 through 2018, there is a massive spike at negative 25 degrees and a
lot more negative numbers. There are a few more balls between zero and 20
degrees compared to what we saw in 2015, but not measurably so. We then see
an uptick at the higher levels when Heyward was popping balls up; his infield
fly percentage was over 18% in each of the past two years, the worst in the
majors among the 165 batters with at least 900 plate appearances. Exchanging
a few ground balls for infield flies might be a good way to see your average
launch angle rise, but it doesn’t make for a better hitter.
(註:內飛率計算是IFFB/FB 分母只有飛球)
It is very early, but Heyward isn't hitting as many ground balls or infield
flies, instead hitting balls much more likely to land for hits or home runs.
It's possible what we are seeing is just a blip and Heyward will revert back
to the average hitter he was last year, or regress further. It's also
possible that among all of Heyward's hitting tweaks over the last decade and
improved health, he's finally found something that can turn his hard-hitting
ground ball tendencies into a launch angle converted power hitter. The Cubs
tried to tap into Heyward's power when he first arrived by changing his
swing, but a swing designed to turn on inside pitches plus a wrist injury
just made Heyward a poor hitter. He has slowly improved the last few seasons,
and he's off to a great start this year. He's finally hitting the ball
hard, again, and if he can keep putting the ball in the air on strikes in the
zone, he just might hit well enough to make opting out of his four years and
$86 million a consideration instead of a complete non-starter.
沒時間翻譯簡單講評一下
黑蛙15年在紅鳥雖然看似打擊不錯但其實都往地上打
16年來小熊開始想尻大支的所以往天上打 結果效果不佳 反而變成聯盟pop-up王
所以今年跟打教重新訂定打擊策略 開始打平的 開季成效不錯 球也打得更紮實
壞球揮棒率Q-swing%也降低 進而造成BB%上升
希望他今年真的能脫胎換骨 打出對得起薪水的成績
而且對左投wRC+有101 個人覺得是可以不用到左投就板凳的程度
如果能重回前段棒次真的是再好不過了
--
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