Friday Rewind: So Far Soto's Just So-So
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Domo Arigato, Mr. Juan Soto
OK, that subtitle actually does not match what I’m about to write on Juan Soto … but I got it stuck in my head and I felt it was only right to put it in your head.
I don’t understand what’s happening with Juan Soto. And look, it’s still super early in the season, and we’re dealing with extremely small sample sizes but … the guy is hitting .183 and slugging below .400. This is after last season when he came to San Diego and for 52 games, hit .236 and slugged below .400.
What gives? At ages 21 and 22, Soto was channeling Ted Williams. Now, all due respect, he’s channeling Ted Sizemore. How can we make sense of any of this?
Well, I was talking to someone in the game last year, and he said something very interesting about Soto: He said that Soto has become TOO selective. We all know that Soto has, no exaggeration, among the greatest eyes in the history of baseball — great eyes meaning that he has an almost supernatural ability to differentiate between a ball and a strike. And, sure enough, even as Soto struggles this year, he again leads the league in walks. He may lead the league in walks every season for the next decade.
But what made Juan Soto so great was not his ability to walk. No, it was his unique ability to spit on bad pitches and crunch good ones. The aforementioned Ted Williams famously had three rules to hit by, and Rule #1 was “Get a good ball to hit.” He would sometimes say that the other two rules didn’t even matter.
Well, Soto still spits on bad pitches — his walk rate, even in the early part of this season, is as high as it has ever been. He very rarely goes outside the zone. And he can still crunch good pitches; his hard-hit percentage so far in 2023 is 53.8%, the highest of his career.
So what gives? Well, he’s just letting way too many good pitches go by. He’s only swinging at 54% of pitches in the strike zone, among the lowest in baseball. It’s also a huge 8% drop from 2021, when he looked like the best young hitter we’d seen in a long time. He’s swinging and missing a bit more often, too … this has led to the highest strikeout rate of his career.
He has also been unlucky — he has already hit 12 100-plus-mph shots that were turned into outs. His expected slugging percentage is .550, much more in line with what we’d expect from Soto. I feel confident that will even out over time. But I’d still say Soto just has to be more aggressive at the plate.
Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!
Mad Bum
At age 26, Madison Bumgarner had already won 100 big-league games, he was 4-0 with an 0.25 ERA in the World Series and he’d been named Sports Illustrated’s Sports Person of the Year. Cooperstown? Well, on Opening Day 2017, he pitched seven solid innings and hit two home runs.
Yeah, he was looking quite Cooperstowny.
Less than three weeks later, after having nothing but healthy seasons — incredibly, he had never been on the disabled list — he crashed while riding his dirt bike, messed up his shoulder and missed three months. He came back and pitched fairly well, but then in spring training 2018, he took a comebacker off his hand, broke his pinkie and missed the first two months. He again came back and pitched fairly well.
Then in 2019, he was healthy but he pitched less well.
And that’s how fast it can happen, how fast someone can go from legendary to ordinary. Bumgarner’s fastball velocity dropped a bit, his curveball got a few less swings and misses, and in 2020, when the Diamondbacks signed him to that five-year, $85 million deal, I couldn’t find a single person in baseball who thought that was a good idea.
It wasn’t a good idea, as it turned out, and on Thursday the Diamondbacks designated him for assignment, choosing the eat the final $34 million on the deal. You can’t blame them. Not only was Bumgarner a punching bag this season (0-3, 10.26 ERA, 10 strikeouts and 15 walks), he seemed to be a jerk. In his last start, he chattered away at Willson Contreras for, I guess, being upset that he didn’t deposit Mad Bum’s 88-mph gopher ball in the next county.
I do understand the jerk part — I mean, Bumgarner was always an edgy son of a gun anyway, but it has to be so hard to see your once brilliant career crashing down. This is the hard part. I imagine a team or two will pick up Bumgarner and give him a shot, maybe a minor league stint or something, see if he can find some of his lost magic. Anyway, he’ll always be a Giants hero.
Mookie at shortstop!
The first ground ball Mookie Betts fielded as a big-league shortstop was a friendly two hopper, which he gloved, ran and stepped on second, and then, Ozzie Smith style, jumped over the sliding runner and threw the ball while midair to first to complete the double play.
Yeah, the most delightful player in baseball making the most delightful play after the birth of his first son — I’ll take a little bit more of that in my life, please.
But I will say this: While it’s so fun to have Mookie Betts playing shortstop — seriously, that guy can do anything — I will add that it’s not particularly great that the Dodgers appear to have NO OTHER CHOICE. I mean, these are the Dodgers we’re talking about. They’re supposed to have an unlimited number of options at every position, that’s what the Dodgers have been all about for the last decade. Someone will get hurt and the Dodgers will say: “Huh, well, it just so happens that we have a shortstop in the minor leagues who will be an All-Star in two months.”
But not this Dodgers team. They still lead the league in runs because of their top-line talent and because James Outman has defied his name, but this team seriously lacks depth. And the same is true of their pitching. The Dodgers are just 10-10 now, but they will surely make October and once they get there, they have as good a shot as anybody. That’s how baseball works in 2023. But this team is not your older sister’s Dodgers.
Bottoms Up: The Reverse Power Rankings
A’s (3-16) — These will be a very sad few months for Oakland baseball.
Nationals (5-13) — But Stone Garrett is hitting .478!
Royals (4-15) — Outscored in the Texas series 28-5.
Rockies (6-14) — When a Rockies team can’t score runs, it ain’t great.
Tigers (7-10) — Whew, that lineup … but they’re winning one-run games.
Reds (7-12) — Joey Votto’s return is delayed, another bummer in a bummer year.
White Sox (7-12) — The ghost of Tony La Russa hovers over this team.
Giants (6-12) — The Brandons’ era of glory appears to be coming to an end.
Mariners (8-11) — Come on, Mariners! You’re better than this!
Phillies (8-12) — First in hits and total bases, ninth in runs scored. Weird.
Cardinals (8-11) — Everything SEEMS fine, but they’re plodding along.
Angels (9-10) — Shohei and Trout and a whole lot of doubt.
Padres (10-11) — Good news: Tatis is back! Bad news: Tatis goes 0-for-5 with 2 Ks!
Red Sox (10-10) — Maybe the doubting scouts were right on Masataka Yoshida.
Marlins (10-9) — Lowest scoring offense in the NL, but they do have pitching.
Guardians (10-9) — Ten total home runs probably isn’t the best winning formula.
Astros (9-10) — Assuming they don’t go winless in one-run games, they’ll be fine.
Blue Jays (11-8) — Matt Chapman making an early push for MVP.
Dodgers (10-10) — Weird start to the season, but they still lead the league in runs.
Diamondbacks (11-9) — Some guy tried to trade me for Corbin Carroll. Yeah, no.
Cubs (11-7) — Has Cody Bellinger found his swing? Has Patrick found Wisdom?
Orioles (11-7) — All hail Sir Adley Rutschman, the Sherpa of Sherwood.
Twins (11-8) — With Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray, this rotation suddenly has bite.
Pirates (13-7) — I am SO in on the resurgence of Andrew McCutchen.
Rangers (12-6) — I TOLD you; they will be in contention going into July/August.
Mets (13-7) — Great sign that stuff has gone wrong, and it’s still working.
Brewers (14-5) — Lead the league in ERA, and Corbin Burnes is still warming up.
Yankees (12-7) — Grumble, grumble, Gerrit Cole is the best in the game again.
Braves (14-5) — Who is Bryce Elder, and why is he also unbeatable?
Rays (16-3) — Lead the league in runs, lead the league in ERA, that’s not bad.
Week in Review
Monday: Is Less Really More? I ask the question, “Are these baseball games TOO short for you?” (Results are pretty definitive, at least for our little group). We talk about the Marlins’ bizarro “
Bartman Appreciation Weekend.”Tuesday: Some thoughts on pitch counts. Is counting pitches helpful?
Wednesday: Counting with Kershaw. A celebration of Clayton and a discussion of what baseball stats really mean.
Thursday: The Sad Ballad of the Oakland A’s.
What’s On Deck
I am working on a story that, I think, will blow your mind a little bit — a meeting of two of my favorite things, baseball and magic. Can’t wait for you to see it.
Why We Love Baseball Update
OK, we’re 137 days away from the release of Why We Love Baseball, which still seems like an awful lot to me, but most of those are summer days, which means they’ll go by super-fast. I remain SO excited about the release; I feel like I’ve been sitting on this juicy secret and am dying for everybody to know it.
Preorders to all book vendors, but particularly our good friends at Rainy Day Books, are flying in from all over the country; all over the world, even, which is so exciting. As you might remember, I am desperately hoping to break Michael Schur’s Rainy Day preorder record because, you know, I helped him get it, and he gave me COVID. I do have a number in mind, it’s a big number, it has something to do with Roberto Clemente, so I’d love your help.
As a reminder, if you preorder from Rainy Day Books, you will not only get the book signed but you will get a personal inscription — with anything you want. If you want me to say that Cardinals fans are the best in baseball, um, yeah, I’ll do it. If you want me to say that your Little League home run just barely missed the list of magic moments, absolutely, I’ll write that. If you want me to give you a top 10 list of the greatest tennis players, sure. If you want me to write a toast to be read at your wedding, hey, I’ll write whatever you want (up to 130 characters).
Here’s a snazzy promo that the good people at Dutton Publishing put together, just click on the photo (or on this link) for the preorder offer.
As a Dodger fan, Madison Bumgarner has long been one of my least favorite players (along with the easy-to-hate Brandon Crawford!), but even so it's been tough to see Bumgarner's fall.
Bumgarner's career presents a striking example of what small-sample postseason heroics can do for perceptions. If you take away the postseason stuff, he was pretty good and very durable, but nothing extraordinary. Yet, people unironically asked whether he was better than Kershaw. Now, Bumgarner's postseason performances were legendary and we can't/shouldn't ignore those. But there's a pretty good chance that those postseason stats represent random variation rather than some inherent clutchiness.
My thought on the A's: if what the Indians did in Major League is the fantasy, then the A's are the reality. John Fisher is doing what Rachel Phelps could not; he tanked so badly that the fans turned against the team, giving him the excuse he was always looking for to move the squad. What a despicable man.