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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