demonstrated<\/a>, for example, that Mike Trout is so imposing that pitchers throw further from the center of the zone and provide him the chance to produce with a walk even if he doesn\u2019t hit. Regardless, we can say that these batters have done well so far against big-stuff pitches. It\u2019s the sort of stat that can make you feel a little better about the breakouts from Iv\u00e1n Herrera, Miguel Vargas and TJ Rumfield.<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a flip side to this, too. There may be some good hitters who are just struggling a little more than normal right now because they\u2019ve faced a ton of high-stuff pitchers. Let\u2019s take a look at the hitters who have faced the highest Stuff+ in the league so far (with the same thresholds as above).<\/p>\n
Highest stuff faced so far this year<\/p>\n
Huh. Heliot Ramos. It can\u2019t be easy when you\u2019ve faced the equivalent of Dylan Cease so far this season, while the rest of the league is facing the equivalent of Nick Martinez. That has to tell some part of Ramos\u2019 story this year.<\/p>\n
Using any one stat to look into a struggling hitter misses a lot of context, though, so let\u2019s highlight a few players who deserve a closer look.<\/p>\n
Manny Machado, 3B, San Diego Padres<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 best three hitters are in a real funk right now. Though it doesn\u2019t seem to be affecting Sheets, the heart of the Padres\u2019 lineup (Machado, Fernando Tat\u00eds Jr. and Jackson Merrill) hasn\u2019t gotten going. We\u2019re nearly a third of the way through the season. Frustration is high, but maybe the schedule will help ease things. The 10 teams with the best stuff in baseball so far are the Brewers, Phillies, Marlins, Yankees, Rays, Dodgers, Mariners, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Pirates. Among that group, the only teams the Padres haven\u2019t faced so far and will face in the next two months are the Phillies, Blue Jays and Marlins. Even then, the luck of the schedule will have something to do with the quality of opposing pitching they see.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that Machado has never seen fastballs this fast, on average, in his career.<\/p>\n
This reflects the general pattern in baseball, and also the fact that opposing teams use their best relievers against Machado. It’s also just some pure (bad) luck. He’s faced Shohei Ohtani, Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Gilbert, Kyle Harrison and Chase Dollander \u2014 gas after gas after gas.<\/p>\n
He’s not even struggling that badly against velocity or anything; this is just an indication of who he’s faced. His .431 SLG on four-seam fastballs this year is low, but he’s had lower seasons, and his expected slugging (xSLG) is more than 50 points higher. He is letting the ball travel a couple of inches more than usual, perhaps because he’s seeing so much gas. The bat speed, hard-hit rate and swinging-strike rate are all within his career norms. Age will come for Machado eventually, but there appear to be better days ahead for him this year.<\/p>\n
Matt Chapman, 3B, San Francisco Giants<\/p>\n
Just take that whole last blurb and rewrite it for Chapman, although with a lower ceiling, and with a less obvious increase in velocity faced. The average velocity of fastballs Chapman is seeing is only up to 95.1 mph this year, but it’s a career high. And he’s letting the ball travel more \u2014 perhaps as a result \u2014 and that’s led to a complete lack of power. This bit is more important for Chapman than for Machado, though. Chapman has a very flat swing \u2014 only 10 qualified batters have flatter swings \u2014 and it’s very important for those with flatter swings to get the ball out in front. Out in front, the batter’s swing starts going upwards, which can impart more lift on the ball.<\/p>\n
Chapman is not hitting the ball in the air, and it might be because of a more passive approach due to the quality of stuff he’s seen. The league’s only adding stuff, so maybe this becomes more of a problem every year, but a run of easier opponents might let Chapman get out in front more and lift the ball better. He has three straight series against bottom-half teams before the Giants go to Milwaukee at the beginning of June. Now’s the time.<\/p>\n
Salvador Perez, C, Kansas City Royals<\/p>\n
Bat speed is a result stat as well as a process stat. Pitchers can impact it, even if we haven’t publicly figured out exactly how they suppress bat speed. Part of it might be throwing faster pitches that require letting the ball travel more, which doesn’t let the bat get up to full speed. Like many of the others on this list, Perez is seeing the best velocity of his career (95 mph). He’s slugging OK on those fastballs \u2014 .449 with a .531 xSLG \u2014 but those numbers are down below his career norms. He’s also not letting the ball travel more than usual.<\/p>\n
Most worrisome is that he’s 36. By the time a player hits 36, his projections become less reliable. When you add in that his bat speed has dropped from above-average to below-average with no change in shape or contact point, and that he’s never had a really great approach in terms of not chasing outside the zone, the worry about Perez’s ability to rebound might be the highest among these players. Sure, his division opponents might not be as tough as others going forward (the AL Central has no top-10 teams by Stuff+), but you never know about players at this point on the aging curve.<\/p>\n
Pete Alonso, 1B, Baltimore Orioles<\/p>\n
The bat speed is down for Alonso, but it’s still plus. He’s hitting the ball really hard, just whiffing a little more and hitting fewer fly balls. Nothing in the bat tracking really stands out, and you could easily assume that his schedule will equalize and he’ll get to the homers as the weather warms. That’s a safe assumption. But in terms of division, he’s not in an easy one. Here are the staff Stuff+ ranks in the AL East:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Yankees: 4th
\u2022 Rays: 5th
\u2022 Blue Jays: 8th
\u2022 Red Sox: 9th
\u2022 Orioles: 18th<\/p>\n
Welp. That last one doesn’t help any. It’s tough going in the AL East. You’re going to see the best stuff in baseball the most often. So the good news is that he’s not that far off from his career stats, because the road might not get much easier in terms of pitchers he’s facing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By this point in the MLB season, it would be reasonable to expect that most hitters would have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,1186,11250,5261,591,1189,5157,85],"class_list":["post-688284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-fantasy-baseball","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}