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Glad to have you back Doc!
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Heard it on the X, Dept.
Bat571 sez,
Interesting point to ponder. We've seen with our own eyes how Ackley has turned things around. He's now at league average for the year after having a horrible first 100 or so games.
WHAT IF?
Smoak comes back on September 1st with his swing well and truly grooved and HE starts hitting like he has at Tacoma with production from both sides, but killing LHs. If he's hot, Lloyd will play him. Then, let's say Saunders comes back, initially platooning with Denorfia, and starts hitting like he was (.780 OPS). Ackley and Jackson are both ~ league average at the plate, Cano and Seager are much better than that. If you added an .800+ OPS Smoak and a .780 OPS Saunders to Morales (OPS .928 the last 2 weeks) with Zunino, Chavez, Morrison, Denorfia, and others, the Orc pitchers, even Lester, are not going to like that. And the Angels will be in peril of their (im)mortal souls. Looking forward to the next few weeks - this club could very well get reinforcements equal to a decent trade - free! -
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SeattleNative57 sez,
If Boston fans hate anyone today its gotta be Ack. In the series he was Ms one-man wrecking crew, playing outstanding defense, displaying speed and slugging. -
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OBF sez,
Speaking of the mighty bearded one... he sure has busted out of his mini slump! Oh what a salve for the soul if he finally makes good on all of that potential he had when drafted! Also, just a quirk, but Ackley's last four hits are a cycle... HR yesterday and then double, triple, and single today... I have also been incredibly impressed with his speed... he is SNEAKY fast. scoring from first on a single! and on his triple today if they had wanted to try it (0 outs so good idea not to) he totally had a inside the park homerun... Way to go Dustin! Keep it up! -
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Bill Krueger said,
"He's hitting with power the other way, pulling it with power when it's there - it seems like it's back to his NCAA days. He's just doing damage at will." (Or somesuch.)
Let's bear in mind it's a player's-eye view; he's sitting on the other bench and he's going, 'Whoa. That guy is out of his mind. Just try and keep him in the park.' We don't say it's the gospel truth. It's just an interesting reaction from Herr Krueger.
By the way, if Kreuger be right, then Ackley's evolution would go something like this:
| Avg | Plate Coverage |
| .226 |
Outside 1/3 wide open - greedy 1B HR lunges |
| .270 |
Starts focusing on outside black. Chips them to LF. Avg goes up, loses HR |
| .270 with PWR | Realizes he can focus on outside black and react to mistakes with HR's |
| .300 with PWR |
Starts hitting outside black hard, too |
| MVP candidate | Virtuoso, "creative genius" stage |
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Swing Dynamics .... vs .... BARRELLING THE BALL UP
The next two pics give you an Ackley double that was hit hard the other way, against the Phillies.
[Turns out we'll have to get you the pics some other time. Just pretend they exist.]
His weight is still, um, weird. I am especially taken with the 2nd pic, where you can see how static his lower body is. It's almost like you:
- Stood on a 3' stepladder,
- Leaned wayyyyyy out, and then
- Took a mighty blow at a target ...
- ... that was at the very edge of your reach
But, he barrelled it up and the pitch went flying into the corner. So, we're back to Ichiro.
...
And here is a triple he lined into the power alley on Sunday, the one into the 420 triangle. The video is a lot better than the pic - you oughter to watch that instead.
[Oh, hey, no, wait! We did link the videos. We're clear! Yeah baby!]
Another Ichiro-weird swing: he reeeeeaaaaccccches way out where there is absolutely no leverage -- but then he hits the ball right on the "balance point" of the bat (the ball hits the bat's own Center of Gravity).
...
Jack Nicklaus once answered the question of why LPGA golfers can hit so far. "They hit the ball very SQUARELY."
Maybe, as with Ichiro, with this guy it's not a question of classic swing dynamics. Maybe it's more about (1) anticipation and then (2) just that perfect "click" of a bat bisecting a ball.
Cheers,
Jeff
Comments
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I have had difficulty keeping the glass half-full in your absence. When you are at your keyboard, I know that all's right with the world again.
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When Dustin was drafted, I called him Mark Grace 2.0. A bunch of doubles, handful of speed-triples from a corner hitter, good D, 5-15 homers, good average and a nice percentage of walks.
Then Dustin spent time at second (at which position I said Mark Grace / Robin Ventura production is basically a HOFer, and Dustin only approximated that kind of production for half a season), and got himself completely out of whack at the plate.
His motion is not a simple one. He has that Ichiro like ability to square up balls with a hinged swing that pulls his weight around his upper body. His lower body doesn't drive anything, but can foul him up when it goes badly. But it's a swing that requires good timing and great hand-eye to pull off. As Doc has said, Ichiro did it very well, but did it for singles only (Ichiro should have been capable of far more doubles, you would think, but it wasn't his game).
Dustin, as a corner player without all of Ichiro's defensive advantages or incredible batting average, will need a few more extra base hits. And he knew it. And it messed him up badly. He was swinging for homers he can't hit, rolling over on the ball horribly because he wanted to pull everything, and bizarrely did not trust his ability to turn on inside pitches so he stood too far away from the plate to hit the outside pitches that were killing him.
It must have been hard for him, seeing Seager (a hitter he FAR surpassed on the same team in college) making the relatively easy adjustment to the pros with a simple swing and a ton of hard work on defense. Seager could drive the ball. Why couldn't Dustin? But comparing yourself to someone else is a fallacy in baseball, as it is in golf. You have to play the best game YOU can play, not try to do what others are doing. Stricker and Furyk don't hit the ball like Woods and Mickelson, but they do all right by maximizing their own gifts.
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Lately Dustin has done what he was doing when he first came up to the bigs (and how he won that shint CPOD award in college that means absolutely nothing now). He's been driving the ball the other way, and into gaps, and when he gets a pitch he can pull and hammer he's doing it.
But unlike his Greedy Phase, he's doing what comes. "I must have the most first-row homers in the league," he says self-deprecatingly... but tellingly. Has he finally realized that reaching the seats for him is a matter of a double going a few more feet and clearing a wall, rather than a glory swing and Ortiz-like trot around the bases?
Play your game, kid. And his game is controlling the zone, swinging at pitches in it, and clubbing them on a wire around the park. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's doing that just as soon as he got comfortable (and then GOOD) in the outfield. Our coaches have been great this year, infield and outfield, but Ackley is taking MUCH improved routes, throwing in with confidence, leaping for balls and playing em off the wall like he's a born outfielder.
And with the comfort came relaxation in his game, and he's brought it to the plate. Lloyd made the perfect decision to LEAVE Ackley somewhere. Just let him get good at one thing. Then another thing. Don't make him have to work on all the things all at once. With comfort has come success, and with success may come another step up the learning curve.
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When Ackley was struggling, I comped him to Alex Gordon, another disappointing best-hitter who flourished once he was allowed to play a position with less glove pressure and was in the lineup all the time. Gordon, BTW, is a terrific fielder at a non-premium glove position and gets a lot of extra value out of it. Dustin, as a 100 OPS+ hitter on the year, is closing in on 2 WAR, y'know. He's been pretty good defensively the last few months and is getting REALLY good out there.
And his huge second half is not BABIP-driven. He's at .340 for the second half, but just .280 for the last 28 days, where he's hitting .275/.330/.515. And even .340 is not unsustainable for a season, or even a peak. Edgar's career BABIP is .335, but that ain't easy. You've gotta be an all-fields line-driver, and being able to hustle up the line helps. Gar could not do that, and wasn't a lefty either, but you know who runs really well and IS a lefty? Ackley.
Mark Grace's BABIP was .310. He averaged 12 HRs per 162 (Dustin's at 11 career while batting like the depressed and perhaps inebriated version of himself). Grace hit 45 doubles per 162, though, and Dustin's at 28 - very Ichiro-like, but not where you need a more normal corner OF to be. Dustin's slugging on the year though is 146 points, and Grace averaged 140 for his career as well.
Grace was worth 46 WAR over his career with that total, btw... AS a corner hitter DURING the Roid Era. If Ackley is a .300/.380/.440 hitter he's gonna get a ton of cash. If he's a .280/.350/.420 he'll still do just fine. Safeco is likely to depress whatever power he has (it certainly has this year) but if he played in a place like Boston like he's playing this second half, he'd hit himself into being a Pedroia-like cult figure in no time. They'd be having Beard Nights and Ack-Attack dolls, the whole nine.
Boras no doubt knows that. He's gonna rep this version of Dustin to anybody with a smaller park or reachable right field porch, so don't worry about extending him or re-signing him. Just worry about maximizing his time with us. Can Dustin keep doing this when they go back to busting him inside now that he appears to have moved slightly closer to the plate and can reach the called outside part of the plate? Can he start drawing walks as the fear factor goes up or will he get greedy and chase? Can he keep finding gaps instead of gloves?
Dunno. I will say that I watched him in college for 2 full years with the knowledge that we were terrible and would be drafting pretty highly. I was watching him and Gordon both, and was adamant that Alex Gordon was gonna be a good one. When he struggled I wanted to trade for him. Ackley was similarly amazing, and could basically do anything he desired with an aluminum bat against college arms. At some point it would translate. I figured Ackley would put it together as soon as he changed parks and hitting coaches.
Maybe it was only the change in dugout management that was required. HoJo and Lloyd seem to have made a quality impact on many players, but maybe Ackley is the most important. I thought Ackley would walk more, and maybe that's the next stage. If he can remain ungreedy and realize that getting on base is the most important thing, then his value to us will continue to skyrocket.
Lloyd challenged Seager to start hitting more like .300 than .260. Seager's around .280 with more power. If he can challenge Ackley for gap hits and walks, and Ackley can hit that mark (pun sort of intended), he really can find that inner Grace.
Billy Beane is already on record saying the Mariners scare the pants off him. He said that as the Angels were chasing his team down for the AL West lead. We have a brutal division, and we'll have to fight for everything we get.
This version of Ackley is a worthy warrior for that cause - and that alone is cause for celebration, this year and the next few.
~G
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Welcome back, Doc. This is fun, and I want to enjoy as much as I can with this long suffering SSI community. We've seen the unfocused outlines of this ballclup for a few years now, and it's nice to see it come to some fruition (adding Cano to the mixture sure didn't hurt, either).
Wow...the Bartender is leading the bullpen in ERA+ this side of Beimel (wait, let me read that again). And not far behind Rodney is Medina. Danny, Dom and Brandon in the mix as well and Fernando solidifying the whole thing. Pinch me, am I dreaming? What a bullpen. Spec earlier speculated that Maurer was our middle relief secret weapon, but right now, it looks like that job belongs to Tommy.
And the offense...5 runs off perhaps the best closer in baseball to win a game we had all but lost. Who are these guys.
We have two 5 WAR hitters in our offense. How did THAT happen? And now Ackley emerges, in the #2 hole no less.
Miller AND Taylor mixing and matching at SS and elsewhere. Yeah, Billy, this team IS scary. And we've kept the powder dry in the minors.
Nice work, Jack. Don't get cocky. We haven't won anything yet. But we're having fun, and I'll take it!
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Back in the shouts, I mentioned that one of the keys in my eyes as to whether it's another teaser hot streak or an actual sign of development was to observe whatever adjustments Ackley might make when he inevitably reverts back to bad habits.
Bad habits are things we all tend to revert to after adjustments, so it would be surprising if Ackley didn't do that at some point.
Well he did have the inevitable streak where he began to rollover the outside pitches, but his adjustment back to hitting the other way was swift. For me, that's been the key I've looked for all along. I don't know where I'd put the odds at this August being an outlier or the new expected mean (or close) - that's more for the guys in the trenches to know. But I do know this: if Ackley were to have that epiphany and figure out how to hit - to make that final aha moment - this is what it would look like....
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Was Ackley (and Gordon) rushed too quickly to the majors?
Basically both had like 800 ABs in the minors and then were called up.
In Ackley's case, he didn't really totally dominate every level he played at as well.
Personally, I don't think it's just about the reps.
I think that there's some worthy discussion here about sports psychology.
Seager clearly has a personality that deals with antagonism better than Ackley.
Would Ackley have benefitted more from another year in the minors?
And would it have made his overall output better?
Unfortunately, the Boras Contract side basically made it not worth while for the M's to keep Ackley down.
But perhaps such a contract for quick profit damaged his peak net worth as well.
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From Divish's pre-game yesterday:
"Here was a funny quote from McClendon about Ackley's confidence level.
"The mountain man’s a hard guy to read," he said. "I don’t know. I really don’t. You’ll probably have to ask him that. Hell, he looks at me sometimes, I think he’s looking right through me, so I just don’t know. Other days, he says, smell my beard, skip. I’m like, I don’t think so. So you probably need to ask him that question."