.
In Dyson's first two months here, I thought "Well, that's one more part-time hero who died in the sun of overexposure." He hit an empty .229 in April and his .203 in May was not empty, but it was ummm .203. A two hundred hitting Jarrod Dyson is not what we signed up for, even if he did have a couple homers that month. Even worse, he looked like he couldn't hit much - getting behind in counts, failing to punish pitchers when he did get ahead, and so forth.
Not that it made him a bad player. Even at a 70 OPS, let's say, Jarrod Dyson can definitely help a team. ... more in a role, but ....
....
Suddenly here in June, Dyson has started swinging the bat. We don't mean that metaphorically; his EYE ratio has gone down, to 1:8, and he's started slashing the ball around the park. He was batting .375/.412/.594 before Wednesday's game, and in that game he zipped two singles out into the CF grass.
A 1:8 ratio isn't Dyson's future, but he's started attacking the baseball and the EYE will fall back in line. They said the swing fix was to "keep the bat in the zone longer." That doesn't mean swing the bat slower, of course :- ) it means get the launch path onto the plane of the pitched baseball. This is exactly what it looks like Dyson is doing now, and he's ripping line drives with confidence. (If you want sabr co-witness, he has a 31% line drive rate the last two weeks. Lots of balls pulled, lots of MED and HARD hit balls.)
....
His OPS+ for the year is right at 90, his historical norm. And Fangraphs has him for 1.8 WAR in 223 at-bats, which projects to a good 4.5 WAR, full season. Hey man when you are 50% of Mike Trout you have hit the Big Time. You're in the top 20 players in the league. (We've got Maniger back to go with our Big Four and now here's Dyson as 4+ WAR player number six?!)
They've got him for +8 runs saved defensively, or +20 full season, and for +6 runs created on the bases or +15 full season. If there's any player in the league you would pay for 2-3 wins on legs alone, this is the guy.
So, yeah, we seem to be getting the Dyson we paid for! Yeah baby! He's both functional and decorative. That is, he's helping the club and a whale of a lot of fun to watch also. And Bill James had an old-style Players Handbook quote on him yesterday:
....
....
Enjoy,
Dr D
Wait, no one was holding their breath. Fine, shucks. =P
How many teams have essentially had an entire outfield break out in the same year?! Not sure where Gamel gets stuck in the lineup of revelations... but does anyone else rememeber that Leonys Martin guy? Yeah, me neither.
.....is a real treat. THe 68 OPS+ one, that we saw for a decent while, wasn't.
Heredia becomes a fulltime #4 if this all keeps up.
I'm about to leave the country (Monday night, the 19th) and was hoping we could hook up for some coffee or something? I'm available any time between now and then. I don't have a phone number, but I'm available on Twitter half the day (when I'm at my computer, at least) and I'll be checking in here often enough. Lemme know if it's possible to get together (and sorry or the late notice)!