Tracking Yandy Díaz’s Bat | FanGraphs Baseball

This can be a bounce-back season for Yandy Díaz, and never in a great way. After two straight seasons with a wRC+ above 145, the Rays first baseman is at 106 thus far in 2024. When Jay Jaffe checked in on him on June 13, Díaz had simply climbed out of a gap. By way of Could 10, Díaz was working a wRC+ of simply 77 with a 90.9 mph common exit velocity. Since that date, he’s been at 128, and his exit velocity has jumped all the best way to 93.7 mph. Much more essential, he was working a 60.3% groundball fee on Could 10, however has run a 53.3% groundball fee after that time. For the season, that also leaves him at 56.4%, highest amongst all certified gamers, however for Díaz, that handful of share factors has all the time been the distinction between being a very good hitter and being among the finest in baseball. When his groundball fee is up, his wRC+ is down, and vice versa. The connection is apparent to see:

MLB’s new bat monitoring information put the problem in stark aid. Blasts are a mix of two metrics: quick swings and squared up swings. The official definitions are right here, however if you happen to swing arduous and also you barrel the ball up, you’ll find yourself with a blast. That’s a very good factor, as a result of thus far this season, blasts have a wOBA of .731, and a barrel fee of 27.7%. For Díaz, nevertheless, these numbers are .423 and 16.0%. He’s tied with Gunnar Henderson for fourth in baseball with 100 blasts, however simply 5 of these blasts have was residence runs. Of the 260 gamers who’ve hit at the very least 25 blasts this season, that 5.0% residence run fee places him in 248th place. Why? You already know why. He has a launch angle of 1 on his blasts, tied for 259th out of 260. On the left, with the infield grime nearly fully obscured by dots, is Díaz’s spray chart on blasts. On the best, with residence runs sprinkled liberally on high, is Henderson’s.

With regards to blasts on the bottom, Díaz is out in first place with a wholesome lead. Sixty of hits blasts have been groundballs. Henderson is in second with 48. Simply as essential, Díaz will get even much less manufacturing than you’d count on out of these balls as a result of he actually buries them within the floor. He has a -11 launch angle on these groundball blasts. Of the 84 gamers who’ve hit at the very least 20 groundball blasts, that’s absolutely the lowest. In consequence, Díaz’s .207 wOBA on groundball blasts is means under the league common of .377.

Whereas these numbers are new and engaging, I’d guess that I haven’t but instructed you something that you simply couldn’t have intuited for your self: Díaz hits the ball arduous, and when he can carry it he’s nice, however that doesn’t occur all that usually. From this level on, I’m going to depart his launch angle points behind, as a result of the bat monitoring numbers present us one thing that’s much more fascinating. I’m not as sure interpret it, however I believe it’s value sharing all the identical.

Amongst certified gamers, Díaz’s 18.6% blast-per-swing fee is tied for fifth. Right here’s the highest 10 in blasts per swing amongst certified batters, however check out the column on the best. That’s quick swing fee, the proportion of swings the place the bat pace reaches 75 mph. Considered one of these items just isn’t just like the others.

There’s Díaz’s at no. 5, however take a look at his quick swing fee in comparison with all people else’s. It’s miles behind theirs. Solely two individuals are inside 20 share factors of Díaz! Right here’s what that appears like in a scatter plot.

Díaz swings arduous very often if you happen to evaluate him to the league as an entire, however for somebody who crushes the ball as typically as he does, his quick swing fee is positively miniscule. Let’s return to our high 10 listing and add one other column, blasts-per-fast-swing fee. We’re simply dividing the primary column by the second column, however now it exhibits us how typically batters sq. up the ball after they swing arduous. I don’t assume the info behind these numbers are good, however they’re positively ok to offer us an impression of what’s occurring.

Aside from Díaz and Stanton, all of the batters right here sq. up their quick swings roughly a 3rd of the time. Stanton, who’s constitutionally incapable of swinging at something lower than hyper pace, is at 19.3%. Díaz is at 58.5%. Fairly merely, when Díaz swings arduous, he doesn’t miss. That’s additionally true of him extra typically. Amongst certified gamers, his 12.4% whiff fee is second solely to the one and solely Luis Arraez. Díaz is much more of an outlier on this graph.

Realizing what we learn about bat pace — that tough swings end in louder contact however extra misses, whereas softer swings end in softer contact however a greater likelihood of squaring the ball up — my first thought was that perhaps Díaz has this complete factor found out. When he sees a pitch that he can actually crush, he swings out of his footwear, and when he doesn’t, he does his greatest Arraez impression, throttling down and discovering a strategy to put the barrel on the ball. However that’s not what’s occurring. Utilizing the info from the bat monitoring leaderboard, I went forward and reverse engineered Díaz’s contact fee on swings that aren’t quick swings. (As soon as once more, I don’t assume these numbers are good, however they’re ok to offer us an general impression.) When Díaz swings arduous, he squares up the ball 58.5% of the time, however on swings under 75 mph, he squares up the ball simply 21.3% of the time. That’s not dangerous, but it surely’s solely a bit of bit above common.

Like I stated earlier, I’m not constructive of what’s occurring. I positively don’t assume it’s a coincidence that Díaz is working a contact fee that’s a full 15 share factors above his profession fee in the identical season that his exit velocity, hard-hit fee, fly ball fee, and pull fee have all taken a tumble. He’s elevated his contact fee by letting the ball get deeper and by swinging at pitches which might be tougher to carry and tougher to drag.

He’s seeing much more sinkers, and the pitches he’s swinging at are decrease and farther outdoors. Nevertheless, if we return to our dividing line of Could 10, we are able to see that Díaz has modified his method. He’s swinging at extra inside pitches, and since the bat is normally shifting sooner on inside pitches due to the need to satisfy the ball farther out entrance, his quick swing fee has gone from 27% earlier than that date to 35% after it.

Díaz has one of the vital fascinating ability units in all of baseball. He’s able to hitting the ball as arduous as nearly anybody within the sport, whereas making contact extra typically than everybody apart from actually Luis Arraez. That’s simply not normally how issues work. Any time he manages to direct that energy someplace apart from the grime in entrance of residence plate, he’s among the finest hitters on the earth. I want we may evaluate all these bat monitoring numbers to those he ran final season. It will be fascinating to see if he was nonetheless such an outlier by way of quick swing fee whereas he was performing like a extra conventional energy hitter. For now, it’s only a enjoyable reality, however hopefully we’ll study extra concerning the relationships between these abilities as soon as we’ve got greater than half a season of information.