I’ve heard some rumblings on the street that pitchers have adjusted to the upward swing approach many of our guys take at the plate - Chris Taylor being the poster boy for that hitting style. It’s one theory why the whole team is struggling and strikeouts are on a record pace. I’ll be the first to admit I was one shot of whiskey away from getting “CT3” tattooed on my nut sack last year, but if he can’t adjust his hitting then he is a fluke. As far as the theory, if it’s true we could see Turner in the same boat when he returns. Time will tell.
was always a safe bet they could not produce that prolifically two years in a row but still... theres a lot of things fluky about how things are going at the moment baseball is one of the strangest games in history for that shit for an entire team to pretty much fall off the table is just bizarre whatever they lost as a team i believe they will find it as a team no way they could keep it up but no way its gone either imo its bigger than just one guy but i don't have any idea why and neither do they i expect
Weird, many of his advanced numbers were all out of whack a week or two ago, but at quick glance they seem to be more in line with last season now. There was a report earlier in the year that said he was watching many more pitches in the strike zone, but now he is pretty much on pace with 2017(the numbers I am referring to). He is swinging at less pitches out of the zone, but making more contact when he does choose to swing at them otherwise everything else is practically the same. His ground ball rate is down(close to 8%), his line drive rate is up (close to 4%) and his flyball rate is up(close to 5%), while his Soft/Med/Hard contacts are also fairly similar to last year. The biggest changes from last season are his BABIP and HR/FB rate are way down from last year. What we are probably looking at is a bit of a mix of bad luck(sub .300 BABIP thus far) and that his 2017 season was not sustainable(.360 BABIP) long term. He is supposedly a student of the game much like Chase Utley, so it will be interesting to see if he is able to make any adjustments that maybe gets some of these balls to drop in or more to sale over the fence. I don't think he is as bad as his numbers have been in the early going, but he is probably not nearly the player he was last year. Would be nice if he could find a way to work himself into an .800 OPS hitter the rest of the way.
would be nice if he could get a little work done so he isn't so rat like in appearance that can't be good
He's 8-22 over his last 7 games, so maybe he's coming out of it. And so much for any worries about Turner.
team wide epidemic pitchers/league adjusted to taylor he needs to (figure out how to) adjust back i put more blame on mgmt/coaches/fo tbh but i have more faith in taylor turning shit around than i do in kemp continuing at a .318/.355/.504 and that's no slam on kemp
Some nobody player with one lucky season full of players having lucky seasons instills more faith in you than a perennial MVP candidate playing at an all-star level ?
kemp was never a perennial mvp and by your logic you could argue it was he who had one lucky season and btw he's 33... 5 years older than taylor
Candidate, perennial MVP candidate. Officially only nominated twice. But had a handful of really good seasons. Lifetime numbers are not spectacular but pretty solid .286 .339 .488 .827 Not one lucky season. Plus he was MVP of the Dodgers many times, probably.