Comparing Performance by Hitting Coach

We've reached about a 50/50 split, so let's take a look and see what's changed.

When the Royals made a change at hitting coach, they were 12-20 and about to start a crucial homestand that could either all but end their season or give them hope. They won two games, so it was the former, but I believe we could see signs of better offensive instruction nearly immediately. And now that we’ve hit an off-day with 32 games under the old coaching and 30 games under the new coaching, we can take a look and see where improvements were made and where anything may have fallen off from the start of the season. For this exercise, I honestly don’t know what the end result is at this point, which is something I love to do because I’m going to be learning along with you. So let’s dive in.

The Raw Numbers

So there’s an improvement across the board in the first five columns and then the walk rate has stayed largely the same while the strikeout rate has jumped up a little bit. I think it’s important to remember that a big league offense is not likely to be as bad as the Royals were in those first 32 games. We obviously will never know if they would get to the levels they are right now if they had left Terry Bradshaw in charge of the hitting, but I think we can reasonably expect that they would have improved in some ways.

The Royals had a wRC+ of 79 in those first 32 games, which is quite bad and a BABIP of .264. The league BABIP at that time was .282, so they were a bit unlucky, but not so much so that it made them 21 percent worse than average. And since they’ve made the change, they have a wRC+ of 101 with a team BABIP of .303. The league BABIP heading into play yesterday was .295 in that time, so while they’re a bit better than average, it’s awfully close and likely wouldn’t change their wRC+ numbers much, if at all, if they were average.

Again, maybe this happens either way, but regardless, it’s hard to call the move anything but a success.

At The Heart

You might remember that I wrote about the Royals offensive issues with pitches they should be doing damage on. As it turned out, that newsletter ran right before the last weekend Bradshaw was employed as hitting coach, so it’s almost perfect to just simply not include them and link you to that article here. I’m not going to go back and dig through those numbers again just to add a couple of games, but it’s a close enough point.

Since the change, the Royals have seen their rankings climb. At that time, they were hitting .233 with a .348 SLG on pitches over the heart of the plate. That’s brutal. But since the first game with the new hitting coaches, they’re up to .319 and .550. Those numbers rank 12th and 10th respectively. And you have to keep in mind with all of these numbers that they include three games in two days directly after the move was made. Since the new coaching staff was internal, you can safely assume that the players have worked with Alec Zumwalt and Mike Tosar before and recently, but even so, there’s a bit of an adjustment period.

What gets me so excited about these numbers is that this is what these coaches preach so much to the players. It’s all about hunting the right pitch to drive and the pitches that sit in the heart of the plate are generally the right pitches to drive. They’re no longer missing fastballs over the heart of the plate. And they are demolishing breaking balls, leading the league in average and ranking seventh in slugging percentage on those pitches over the heart. Where struggles remain is on off-speed mistakes.

And that’s something I talk about a lot with the Royals young pitching. A guy like Kris Bubic, for example, got lit up with his changeup last season on pitches that were mistakes. But you can make a mistake on those if your other pitches are working. Well it’s no different for every other team. So I think I’m probably not terribly surprised that they are struggling some with those pitches in the middle of the zone. But regardless, this is another spot where I’m seeing huge improvement.

In The Shadows

The other area where I think this particular set of coaches works hard is something that works in tandem with pitches in the heart of the plate. Those pitches that are on the edges, both inside and out of the zone, are areas where a hitter can find themselves in trouble. There are strikes and there are good strikes to hit. A strike on the edges is generally not going to be a great pitch to hit especially in hitter’s counts. This is the spot where you might see a hitter take a pitch on a 1-0 count and see it called for a strike but realize they were right to not swing. They are usually pitcher’s pitches.

The Royals actually fared sort of well on these pitches relative to the rest of the league. Their average was seventh best in baseball while their slugging percentage was in the bottom-third. But, for reference, the seventh-best average in baseball on those pitches was .225. So sure, you’d like to be able to do damage on every pitch, but these are the pitches you want to talk prior to two strikes.

Before the change, the Royals swung at 49.4 percent of pitches in the shadow zone that game in pre-two strikes. Since, it’s down to 45.1 percent. That may seem like a little, but it’s actually a decent amount. And they’re simply not very good on those pitches. Some teams actually are decent, but if a team generally doesn’t do well on certain pitches, especially when those pitches are only strikes some of the time, the best idea before you get to two strikes is to simply take them. And they’re doing a better job of that. And they’re actually fouling off more two-strike pitches in the shadow zones than they were before as well.

So it’s pretty simple. Do damage in the heart of the plate and try to avoid doing damage to your stats in the shadows. They’re doing better with that.

Chasing

This is one area where the Royals haven’t seen improvement, but I think there’s more to the story than the numbers show. Prior to the change, they were chasing on 28.6 percent of pitches based on the automated zone. Since, it’s up to 29.5 percent. It’s not a huge jump, but it’s a jump. And they’re actually making more contact on the pitches they’re chasing, which generally isn’t a good thing because pitches outside the zone tend to be weaker contact. They are chasing a touch less with two strikes, but not by enough to matter. Which means this is an area for improvement in a big way.

They are seeing a few more pitches outside the zone than before, but also not a lot more. It’s up to 51.2 percent from 50.8 percent. That’s close enough to just be random, but I suppose you could argue that pitches are less confident in challenging them now that they’re actually doing damage on pitches in the strike zone. I don’t think that’s the case given the small difference, but I suppose you never know.

Some Other Batted Ball Data

They’re hitting the ball harder and at better trajectories. They’re spreading the ball around the field better. It’s no wonder they look better offensively. I think some of the issues they’ve dealt with recently had more to do with their opponents than them. They had a lot of terrible weather to deal with earlier in the season, but they ran into a Blue Jays staff pitching quite well and then the Giants staff is also just so well run. Even though there’s work to do, it’s very clear things have turned around for the better with this offense.

And not to make this about the pitching staff, but boy does it make this organization look bad to have made a change and to see it working and have them absolutely refuse to do anything with the pitching. That part makes just zero sense.

Individual Performances

I want to just take a look at the players on the team before the change and after just looking at a very small amount of information because I think it’s interesting to see who has improved and who hasn’t. I’ve listed the players who played under both coaching staffs alphabetically.

So there’s some success. We’ve seen improvement in the wRC+ from nine of the 12 hitters. Some are likely meaningless. Salvador Perez going from 80 to 81 is an improvement, but not enough to matter. Ryan O’Hearn going from 42 to 54 is going from terrible to slightly less terrible. But there are big jumps in guys like Kyle Isbel, who is still in “bad” territory and Whit Merrifield, who is up to merely below average. And there are some big drops. Emmanuel Rivera has struggled lately. Hunter Dozier and Andrew Benintendi have still been above average, but just less so. It’s not all the coaching staff, obviously, but there are probably some who benefit more than others. And, of course, there’s Michael A. Taylor, who has somehow become an offensive force.

But maybe most importantly, the two who matter more than anyone for the future, Bobby Witt Jr. and MJ Melendez, have both been difference-makers since the change. If the Royals lineup starts with those two for the next five years, that’s a great place to start and now they’re working with the group that helped Witt become a top prospect and Melendez regain prospect status.

So ultimately, I think you can say the change has been a success. As I’ve said, maybe things change anyway without them doing a thing, but the level of preparation is said to be much improved and the areas that are preached most prevalently by Zumwalt, Tosar and Keoni DeRenne seem to have improved as well. I’m very curious to take a look again at this in a few weeks and see if the offense has remained on an upward trend or if there’s new information that changes my outlook on the whole situation.