The Sophomore Slump

Cliches are cliches for a reason, right?

Last season, the Royals featured seven rookie hitters and all of them came to the plate 182 times or more. Of those seven, five debuted in 2022. One of those is Emmanuel Rivers, who was traded last season for the great Luke Weaver, so I’ll ignore him, but the other six combined to hit .238/.307/.402 with a walk rate of 8.3 percent and a strikeout rate of 23 percent. There are some better performers than others in that group that features Kyle Isbel, Michael Massey, MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino, Nick Pratto and Bobby Witt Jr. Actually, removing Isbel’s numbers since he had experience in 2021 (I’m going to include him moving forward, but for the purpose of this, it might be worth taking him out), they hit .242/.313/.412 as a group with a walk rate of 8.6 percent and a strikeout rate of 22.4 percent.

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How does that match with the rest of the league? Rookies as a whole hit .232/.299/.369 with a 7.8 percent walk rate and 25.2 percent strikeout rate. Heck, the league line of .243/.312/.395 with a walk rate of 8.2 percent and a strikeout rate of 22.4 percent actually matches up pretty well with how Royals rookies hit. I don’t think it was in any way foolish to look at that group and think things could progress nicely in 2023. And I didn’t think much beyond that. But I didn’t think much about the idea of the sophomore slump. Or maybe of a(n almost) collective sophomore slump.

Not everyone suffers from it, of course, but while there’s some superstition around it, there’s actually some actual logic behind it as well. Baseball is a game of adjustments, and they happen constantly. When a hitter first comes up, there is a scouting report but they haven’t been seen against big league pitching. But once they’ve been seen, a scouting report exists, and that changes everything. The pitchers have now adjusted and it’s on the hitter to adjust. This is very simplistic and the use of technology today means that adjustments happen faster, but it doesn’t mean that the jump from the first season to the next isn’t something that should be taken lightly.

And what I think is interesting is that it’s being seen around the league. Last season, 62 rookies accumulated at least 180 plate appearances. I used that number because Pratto had the fewest plate appearances among Royals rookies at 182. Those 62 rookies combined to hit .240/.308/.384 in 19,985 plate appearances with a walk rate of eight percent and a strikeout rate of 23.8 percent. So again, you’ll see the Royals group was better than average. But what are those players doing this season?

Well, of the 62, 11 haven’t even appeared in the big leagues this season, as of the end of action Sunday and only 35 have amassed as many as 50 plate appearances this year. On the whole, that group is hitting .248/.316/.398, but there are a few small sample outliers in there that I think are worth mentioning. Gerardo Perdomo’s .383/.456/.617 line doesn’t feel free. Maybe it is, but I think it’s fair to question it after he hit .195/.285/.262 last year. Something about that .477 BABIP makes me question things there. The numbers are buyoued as well by Rivera hitting .500 in 16 plate appearances, Pratto hitting .368 in 20 plate appearances and a handful of others. We find ourselves, like with just about everything, at the mercy of a very small sample. Though that said, if we limit the plate appearances to 75+, the overall line isn’t all that different at .250/.318/.401.

But I’m most interested in a few of the bigger names. By wRC+, the 10 best rookies with at least 180 plate appearances were Joey Meneses, Julio Rodriguez, Pasquantino, Michael Harris II, Adley Rutschman, Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, David Villar, Steven Kwan and Oscar Gonzalez. Let’s see what they did last year vs. this year:

Meneses

2022: .324/.367/.563, 6.3% BB, 21.7% K

2023: .276/.305/.353, 4.1% BB, 20.7% K

Rodriguez

2022: .284/.345/.509, 7.1% BB. 25.9% K

2023: .239/.301/.442, 4.1% BB, 24.6% K

Pasquantino

2022: .295/.383/.450, 11.7% BB, 11.4% K

2023: .278/.372/.500, 12.4% BB, 13.2% K

Harris

2022: .297/.339/.514, 4.8% BB, 24.3% K

2023: .200/.259/.240, 7.4% BB, 18.5% K

Rutschman

2022: .254/.362/.445, 13.8% BB, 18.3% K

2023: 291/.409/.437, 17.3% BB, 13.4% K

Donovan

2022: .281/.394/.378, 12.8% BB, 15.0% K

2023: .277/.330/.386, 6.6% BB, 17.6% K

Nootbaar

2022: .228/.340/.448, 14.7% BB, 20.5% K

2023: .240/.415/.380, 23.1% BB, 24.6% K

Villar

2022: .231/.331/.455, 9.9% BB, 32.0% K

2023: .148/.247/.333, 8.6% BB, 32.3% K

Kwan

2022: .298/.373/.400, 9.7% BB, 9.4% K

2023: .276/.366/.330, 12.7% BB, 11.2% K

Gonzalez

2022: .296/.327/.461, 3.9% BB, 19.6% K

2023: .174/.197/.275, 2.8% BB, 18.3% K

I want to throw in a few others who I think are interesting - Witt, Jeremy Peña, Melendez and Jose Miranda.

Witt

2022: .254/.294/.428, 4.7% BB, 21.4% K

2023: .222/.266/.393, 5.6% BB, 20.2% K

Peña

2022: .253/.289/.426, 3.9% BB, 24.2% K

2023: .250/.304/.456, 4.0% BB, 23.8% K

Melendez

2022: .217/.313/.393, 12.4% BB, 24.5% K

2023: .174/.267/.315, 10.5% BB, 35.2% K

Miranda

2022: .268/.325/.426, 5.8% BB, 18.8% K

2023: .243/.308/.355, 7.7% BB, 13.7% K

So that’s 14 2022 rookies. I’d say seven or eight have dropped off a fair amount to this point in the season while six or seven have stayed roughly the same. I don’t think we’ve seen huge improvements from any of those others, though some, like Pasquantino, don’t have a ton of room. I also think it’s interesting that timing plays a role here.

I mentioned this in a comment yesterday, but I feel like Witt has been under fire (and rightfully so) for his numbers, but if we were talking about Witt at about 6:39pm on Thursday evening, we’d be wondering if he’d figured it out. He had hit .313/.343/.516 over his previous 15 games. That’s with three doubles, two triples and two homers to go along with four steals. He’s playing good defense at shortstop. This is the guy we thought he’d be. Then he goes 1 for 18 with five strikeouts over the weekend and the numbers torpedo. Is it a bad four games and that’s it? Maybe! But it’s interesting to me that the one team in that stretch that has seen him the most handled him the best. Time will tell, but, again, timing is interesting.

Another example is Peña, who just over a week ago was hitting .216/.281/.386. I consider him one of the six or seven to stay consistent, but a week ago, he’d be in the big-time decrease category. Jose Miranda is another. On April 25, he was hitting .226/.287/.247. That’s not just bad. It’s awful. It took 16 plate appearances to go from awful to bad. Another 16 and he could be right where he was last season. So I guess my point is that it’s probably a bit premature to be burying anyone at this point, but I do think that second year players can struggle and have it be okay.

We’ve seen some big examples in Kansas City. Carlos Beltran was the Rookie of the Year in 1999 and then hit .247/.309/.366 the next season. He’s a Hall of Fame caliber player. Billy Butler was a hitting machine. But not in his second season. He hit .275/.324/.400, which seems better than it probably is. It was good for a 93 OPS+. Sure we’d take that from a few guys right now, but that’s a sophomore slump. He had to be sent to the minors at one point. Eric Hosmer looked like he might become a star his rookie year and hit .232/.304/.359. He obviously never did hit stardom, but he recovered.

That isn’t to say that everyone does recover from a poor second season. The circumstances were different because of the strike, but we all remember what Bob Hamelin did in 1994. He followed that up by hitting .168/.278/.313. He did have a couple more good years, but was gone by 1999. Angel Berroa won the Rookie of the year in 2003 and then was never even close to average. So no, there are no guarantees that a second-year slump isn’t just the reality. But there are also no guarantees that it is. I think these are talented hitters who are going through some growing pains.

I maybe should have been a little more analytical here and gotten into how pitchers are truly attacking these players and I can as the season goes on for sure. I think it’s safe to say that approach plays a huge role in it based on some of the walk rates above. But I found myself looking up some of the other rookies who were so impressive last season and realized that a lot of them had taken steps back, whether they’ve been slight like Kwan with his power drop-off, or massive like his teammate Gonzalez. Or somewhere in between like we’ve seen from Witt and Rodriguez and others.

I said this last year and I’ll repeat it now. I think we’ve been a bit spoiled by young players just being great immediately and staying great. Juan Soto and Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mike Trout and a bunch of others make it look so easy. But every so often, even the top prospect in all of baseball makes his way up, has a solid rookie year and then struggles some in his second season. No, I’m not talking about Witt. I’m talking about Wander Franco, who was still good last year, but his .277/.328/.417 line wasn’t making anyone think superstar. This year, he’s hitting .300/.364/.545. For some guys, it comes easy and stays easy. For others, there are ebbs and flows and I think that maybe I, and many others, looked past that with this club relying on so many young hitters heading into the season.

There are things they absolutely, unequivocally have to do better. I think there was some great perspective in one of the newsletters Anne Rogers put out. I’d encourage you to read the whole thing (even the home run celebration mask), but a couple of quotes stood out to me. From JJ Picollo:

“(The swing rates) are a clear sign that they’re an inexperienced group of hitters that are feeling it right now,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. “So they’re going to swing. When the swing rates go down, they’ll have more success. … We are keeping perspective on it, and using history as a reference, it tells you that guys get better with more at-bats in the Major Leagues. 

And from Alec Zumwalt, who has been under fire for his team’s performance:

“The glaring one is the chase right now,” Zumwalt said. “We have a group of young hitters that are trying to prove themselves in the Major Leagues. We knew that was going to be something that we would have to pay attention to. As much as we preach our approach and game plan with these guys, they’re learning every single night. We’ve seen the upper tier of pitching. After the fact, we can dive into it. What would you have done differently? 

They know the problem. And it’s not uncommon. Now it’s time to fix it and while we were hoping to watch a team hover around .500, that isn’t happening. All eyes now turn to see how they can adjust because that’s what this game is about. I’d bet we see a couple emerge and a couple not. But that’s the interesting part of the rest of this year. Who can figure it out and be a part of the future and make sure that this is a sophomore slump and not just who they are? We’ll find out over the next five months.