Hot & Cold
Who is hot and who is cold so far in the weird accelerated season of 2020?
Hot:
Aaron Judge: New York Yankees
There is no doubt about it that Judge is one of the hottest hitters in the game this season. In fact, he just hit his MLB leading, 8th homerun of the season against the Rays as I am writing this. He is currently 16 for 51 with a .314 Avg, 8 HR, 19 RBI, .364 OBP, and a .824 SLG. On August 2nd, he homered in 5 straight games becoming the 1st Yankee in 13 years to do so. Definitely impressive.
Judge is one of the power hitters in baseball who uses video replay room to analyze his swing to make in-game adjustments. Though due to Covid, in-game video is not an option to players this season. In an interview, Judge said he has been turning to his teammates in the dugout for hitting tips. Judge mentioned how he has been carpooling with Giancarlo Stanton after games. Stanton offered advice to Judge about how he can better adjust to breaking balls at the plate by keeping his head down a tad longer when making contact with the ball. He has been on fire since.
@yankees instagram
Aaron Judge’s MLB Statcast Percentile Rankings are worth a look. 100th percentile in Exit Velocity and 95th percentile in Barrell %. This is evident of the homerun power we have seen from Judge so far this year.
MLB Baseball Savant
When Judge is healthy, he is one of the best players in the league. Right now, pitcher’s facing Judge with runners on base, should consider walking him. Though with the lineup the Yankees have, every batter is dangerous and a threat. Looking at Judge’s spray chart for 2020, one thing he can work on is taking the ball to opposite field to use the 314-foot wall at Yankee stadium to his advantage. It is still early, but if Judge continues the path he is on and adds some opposite field HR’s to his game he would be a sure favorite for MVP.
Cold:
Andrew Benintendi: Boston Red Sox
Andrew Benintendi is currently 2 for 33 with a .061 AVG, .370 OPS, and has struck out 15 times to start the season. His two hits have been a bunt and a double. Both hits were off fastballs. He has a 44% Whiff % (divides the total number of pitches swung at and missed by the total number of swings) when facing off-speed pitches. It is very evident he is struggling to even make contact with the ball right now. In 44 plate appearances this season he has only hit 19 balls in play. Looking at 2020 MLB Percentile Rankings, he is in the bottom 10th percentile in Exit Velocity (9th percentile), Hard Hit % (9th percentile), and Expected Batting Average (2nd percentile). Not great. He is missing weak fastballs down the middle that he should be hitting for extra bases.
Baseball Savant
Unfortunately, we have seen a regression offensively in Benintendi since the beginning of last season. In 2017 where he was runner up ROY to Aaron Judge, Benintendi hit .271 BA, 20 HR, 90 RBI, 70 BB, 20 SB, .352 OBP, and .776 OPS. In 2018 he hit .290 BA, 16 HR, 87 RBI, 71 BB, 21 SB, .366 OBP, .830 OPS. And then in 2019 he hit .266 BA, 13 HR, 68 RBI, 59 BB, 10 SB, .242 OBP, .774 OPS. Though some would say he has been struggling since the 2018 All-Star break. All his offensive numbers dropped in the second half of the season. 2020 was supposed to be the season Benintendi would redeem himself. Now with a 60-game accelerated season there adds more pressure to perform. Benintendi held a press conference last night and when asked about his slump he said, “It’s obviously not ideal. I think everything is amplified right now because of the 60-game season. I am still working. Coming to the park excited, you know, maybe it’ll click and I’ll get things going.” He also added he his “searching for something or making changes that don’t necessarily need to be made” or that he is “overthinking things.” It just seems like a timing issue with Benintendi as he concludes by saying, “We’re facing these pitchers that we faced before, but I haven’t faced them since March or February. I am trying to get back to what I was doing in summer camp.”
Being a lefty, one thing Benintendi needs to be doing is hitting the ball to opposite field, especially when his home ballpark is Fenway Park. The Green Monster should be Benintendi’s best friend. We all know defensively he knows how to play the wall, but he needs to start using the wall offensively. One highlight from Benintendi’s season so far is that he has walked 10 times which is a 22.7% BB Rate. Though, Alex Spier from the Boston Globe made an excellent point on Twitter the other night. He said this BB Rate is inflated because he is missing pitches that he can be driving to the opposite field.
This is by far the worst slump of his young career. Hopefully, Benintendi finds his groove soon. I am not worried about him for the long-term. We might not look back at 2020 as a fond year for him but he will be simply fine. We forget that he is only 26 years old. He has so much promise and potential. His swing is too pretty to be the kind of hitter who lacks offensively and I think he will grow into the player he was meant to be. Sox outfielders, Jackie Bradley and Kevin Pillar will be free agents at the end of this year and the Sox have Benintendi locked in through 2022, so unless they trade him he will be the kind of franchise player we were hoping for him to be.
Notice how his opposite field hitting has declined since 2018, and the spike in K% is evident of his struggles this year.
