As someone who watches an inordinate amount of Sesame Street, I’ve grown accustomed to focusing on a “number of the day” to help bring the concept of numbers alive to my two year old daughter. Consequently, the notion of seeing a number occurring all over the place, even when there is no discernible pattern, permeated my thoughts as I prepared to write about Gregory Polanco today, and it just so happened to be the number four popping up everywhere I looked.
Polanco is entering his fourth season in the majors; he’s regularly batting fourth in the Pirates lineup; his strikeout rate is down four percent from last season; and he has driven in a whopping four runs through the first month of the season.
In the absence of Jung Ho Kang, the first item on that list isn’t particularly startling, but I never would have predicted the shift to the cleanup position to coincide with such shoddy run production. Of course, the reality is that it’s only one terrible month of his career; however, there’s no denying Pirates’ fans are pining for a glimpse of the Polanco who came out of the gates last season firing on all cylinders.
Polanco cooled off as the 2016 season progressed, possibly exacerbated by health concerns, but he still took a giant step forward offensively, recording 15 stolen bases, a plus .180 isolated slugging percentage, and both strikeout and walk rates above league average. To put that in perspective, Eno Sarris wrote that only 51 other players have posted a similar line before turning 26 years old, and when he looks at that list, he says, “It’s beautiful! 73 player seasons full of Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt, David Wright and also Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, Ken Griffey Jr, and Barry Bonds but also Mike Schmidt, and Dale Murphy, Mike Greenwell, and Larry Walker. It’s *really* hard to find a dud.”
In fact, Sarris even went onto elaborate that 86 percent of those player produced at least 20 fWAR over the playing career, suggesting Polanco has the potential to be quite the player for the Pirates as he continues to develop.
Yet, here we are at four RBI’s to start his fourth season, and it’s growing difficult to wonder if the shoulder issue that’s “not a big deal” continues to hamper him as continues to drive an absurd 57 percent of balls on the ground.
While there’s a number of aspects contributing to his early season struggles, I wanted to explore his approach at the plate to see if he was exhibiting signs of maturity despite the contact issues. This essentially involves examining the following three elements: 1.) a player’s ability to distinguish between balls in and out of the zone; 2.) a player’s ability to make contact when they opt to swing; and 3.) a player’s ability to selectively choose to swing in places of success.
1.) Distinguishing between balls in and out of the zone
On the surface, we can see that Polanco exhibited continued growth in each of his first few seasons, honing in on pitches in the zone while keeping his chase rate under control, but he’s swinging more aggressively this season. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it could simply be the product of Polanco feeling the need to press more out of the cleanup. Nevertheless, Polanco is struggling at the plate, and since plate discipline statistics are among the first statistics to stabilize over the course of a season, it’s worthwhile to delve deeper into his swing rate to see the root of his changing numbers.
Polanco has often had a stark split in his vs. LHP and vs. RHP profile, so let’s see if he’s being more discerning against right-handers and southpaws respectively from last year to this year.
Swing Rate Against RHP
As you can see, Polanco has a distinct elevation in swing rate against right-handed pitchers, and unfortunately, it has been unaccompanied by any distinguishable positive trend in discernment. In fact, it’s particularly concerning that he’s chasing all those high pitches above the zone, especially high and inside. Also, if he was just laying off of the rest of the pitches running inside on him, it would be an encouraging development, but he’s taking more pitches just inside the zone, which we’ll explore more when we come to selectivity.
Swing Rate Against LHP
On a more positive note, Polanco is not chasing the virtually unhittable balls thrown far outside of the zone by southpaws, but that doesn’t mean he’s doing a strong job of displaying patience at the plate. For one, the low swing rate on the entire left half of plate is disconcerting as well as the inability to layoff on balls thrown at the bottom of the zone, swinging at strikes and balls at a comparable rate.
Secondly, Polanco so frequently finds himself behind in the count against southpaws that they tend to throw more at that bottom outside corner, trying to keep things low to limit the damage or to catch him looking. This has caused Polanco to spend more time protecting the corner of the plate than being in attack mode. If you want an example of the effect this has on a hitter, keep an eye on Ivan Nova’s opponents as they are constantly falling behind in the count.
2.) Making Contact
For the second straight season, Polanco has put a priority on shortening his swing to try and be more direct to the ball (See this piece by Alan Saunders for more detail). Last season, the focus contributed to an electric start as we mentioned earlier in the article, but it hasn’t found the same magic when coupled with this aggressive approach at the plate this year.
Contact Against RHP
In 2016, Polanco was all over any pitch he swung at in the zone, but he’s been noticeably whiffing more on those same pitches this season; yet, he amazingly brought his strikeout rate against right-handers down by roughly 10 percent this season. This is in large part to 100 percent contact rate along inside of the zone and at several corners of the zone. Given how well he’s made contact in the zone during past seasons, these outside contact rates are just further testimony to how much of the plate he can cover. Just imagine how dangerous he could be as season progresses if he can put both last season’s trend and this year’s trend together.
Contact Against LHP
It’s startling to see vast difference in these contact heatmaps. Polanco’s shortened swing has him all over inside of the plate and the middle of the zone; yet, he does have a few more holes in the zone, particularly in both bottom.
From just looking at the chart, it’d be hard to believe that Polanco has an unsightly 28.6 percent strikeout rate against southpaws. The high rate, though a norm for him, is because when Polanco has two strikes on him, opposing pitchers have thrown 70 percent of their pitches in the bottom third of the zone or below with almost 50 percent of all pitches coming in the in the outside corner where he’s whiffing a ton. Unfortunately, it’s not just breaking balls, but fastball as well that are keeping Polanco off-balance and inducing those whiffs.
3.) Becoming More Selective
Alright, so it’s not just enough to swing and make contact, there’s another facet to maturing at the plate that I want to explore. Actually, we could also explore the quality of contact, but that’s clearly been a problem for Polanco. Instead, let’s turn our attention to the following two charts.
Selectivity Against RHP
What the first chart, which displays Polanco’s slugging percentage by zone against right-handers, does for us is establish the places in the zone where Polanco has frequently had success and those places where he has struggled. The significance of this is that when a hitter has matured, he isn’t only discerning between balls in and out of zone but also between pitches in his sweet spot, where he should look to pounce on the ball, and in his weak spots, where he should be more selective and hesitant to swing. Now, the second charts illustrates to what degree Polanco is succeeding at managing his swings according to where likes to see a pitch.
The first thing that jumps out is that Polanco struggles in the upper inside of the zone and in the middle upper third of the zone; yet, while avoiding those thrown on the inside and outside up in the zone, he’s been swinging away middle and up. He also has been eager to swing at the “L” formed by the three blocks in the outside corner, which happens to be a strong spot for him. It seems like an odd spot to have a sweet spot for a player of his size, but as the following clips against the Braves reveal, Polanco has an innate ability to take that pitch around the field.
Selectivity Against LHP
Again, we look for the holes in Polanco’s zone, and they appear to be the upper corners of the zone and honestly, the outside corner of the plate. He’s done an excellent job of laying off pitches against left-handed pitchers, but with so many holes in the zone, it’s easy to get behind in the count leading to problems down in the corner that we already talked about.
When we think about sweet spots, they are slim for pickings, but I suppose just outside of the middle of the zone and right inside the middle of zone seems to be where he’s had the most success in the past. Regrettably, he’s not seemed to have matured enough to be selective against lefties or proven capable enough across the zone to keep from getting exploited where pitchers know he can’t seem to get to the ball.
Conclusion
Overall, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag in terms of success in approach at the plate. If there is anything I’d take a hold of, it would be that Polanco’s improved strikeout rate against right-handers seems to be for real considering the only thing hindering him from a better one is whiffs in the zone, which hasn’t been a problem for him in the past.
Against southpaws, Polanco is still very much a work in progress. He both needs to find a way to stop getting buried in the count and to improve his eye around that corner of the zone because he often looks defenseless in that area.
Regardless, Polanco is just 25 years old and has already laid a track record of possessing the tools he needs to be cornerstone for the Pirates, and if the shoulder isn’t an issue, he’s going to be fine according to his approach, even if he has just four RBI’s at this point.
