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Zack Collins Criticism


Y2Jimmy0

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We're obviously talking over each other.  I'm excited Collins is doing well.  Whatever changes he's made have worked.  I remain mostly unchanged on his long term outlook.  He's always been a B type to me, he'll remain that throughout at least mid summer, barring a changed report on his catching ability.

Beer is on me.

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18 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

We're obviously talking over each other.  I'm excited Collins is doing well.  Whatever changes he's made have worked.  I remain mostly unchanged on his long term outlook.  He's always been a B type to me, he'll remain that throughout at least mid summer, barring a changed report on his catching ability.

Beer is on me.

Sadly he may not be there when the Sox use their 2nd pick.  

 

Fair enough though.

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On 5/30/2018 at 11:19 AM, turnin' two said:

Sigh.  Must be so difficult being that much smarter than everyone else.  Sorry.  

A couple question though, and please indulge me, because I clearly don't understand things as well as you do.  

So, first one is that, since Collins was basically a very good hitter in college, hitting .300 or so his entire career, hit .260 his first year with WS, was bad last year (in his first full season of pro-ball -- how dare he!), how does that make him a .240 hitter? 

As for examples of guys that made big adjustments after the ripe old age of 23, well I would say that most (even all players) make adjustments, but I guess that is because I don't understand simple math, or that EVERYBODY IS ALREADY REALLY GOOD, so why would they need to make adjustments?  Sorry, I am a dufus.  

My second question is: Are you contesting that a guy is what he is at 23 and that no material changes can be made after that?

Can't really think of them off the top of my head, but I seem to recall hearing about mechanical changes making a difference all the time.  Arm slot, release point, position in the batters box ( remember when Anthony Rizzo couldn't hit lefties at all then made this small mechanical change?) trying to adjust launch angle (about 50 guys last season) adding a leg kick (Jose Bautista went from a DFA guy to a perennial All Star) messing with their stance (Cal Ripken Jr.?) or always making small adjustments from the time he was drafted (Aaron Judge -- moving in the box, shifting his weight back and lessening his leg kick).   How about that, I did think of a couple off the top of my head. But who knows, maybe I just don't like, follow or play baseball enough.

I do like your 2+2=4.  I get that, maybe I am better at math than I thought.  I don't, however, understand what the statement you are making in that paragraph is trying to say, at all.  I would say the difference between a good hitter and a great hitter may be their ability to make adjustments.  They all have the physical skills (to different degrees) but the ability to adjust to what their competition is doing is what makes guys great.  I distinctly recall Manny Ramirez adjusting AB to AB and pitch to pitch and making pitchers for not adjusting their approach to him.

Final question: If Collins has a 4 WAR season, hits .280 in 1000 PA but the Sox don't win the pennant, can I still remind you?  I guess not, it doesn't meet your arbitrary criteria for a player making an adjustment that all players make that you don't believe in but say some are better at than others.  That sentence confused me.  Must be because you contradicted yourself.  

But, I will officially "cool it".  Thanks for the tip.  

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?ID=180617

Fwiw, his batting average and OPS went up each consecutive year in the Miami program.

Hopefully the same trend continues in the minors.  A mere 472 at-bats in 2016 and 2017 shouldn't define anyone as a .230's or .240's hitter, especially if he was changing his mechanics/approach...and those adjustments were going against his "muscle memory" of what made him extremely successful the first 15 years of his baseball career (and perhaps he felt he had no choice but to take their advice as a "rookie" in the organization?)

Edited by caulfield12
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3 hours ago, soxfan49 said:

RT @matthoeppner: Over his last 33 games Zack Collins has a slash line of .348/.510/.580 #WhiteSox

Wow. Hopefully this is the new Collins and not just some hot streak. Hot streaks don't tend to last 20% of the season, though.

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50 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

Wow. Hopefully this is the new Collins and not just some hot streak. Hot streaks don't tend to last 20% of the season, though.

To be fair, there’s some serious BABIP regression built into those numbers though.  Still impressive stretch of games nonetheless.

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3 hours ago, bmags said:

He seemingly always has brutal or incredible BABIPs. His average of it is hilarious.

Is there a reason for this other than luck? Does he hit the ball in a certain way (in terms of exit velocity, launch angle, etc) that causes these insane variations? 

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8 hours ago, Jose Abreu said:

Is there a reason for this other than luck? Does he hit the ball in a certain way (in terms of exit velocity, launch angle, etc) that causes these insane variations? 

From the sounds of it,  with the hitch he is incredible,  and without it he is truly awful. 

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6 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

A hitch isn't necessarily a bad thing. Fangraphs had an article about hitches a couple of years ago. 

My take: probably a way less big of a deal when they have a batting eye that can layoff high fastballs. His incredible eye means he can either wait for a good pitch, or if he’s getting worked inside and up, guess that’s what’s coming and load earlier

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To me it looks like it comes down to his line drive rate. In past seasons he's been at around 17% while this season he's at 30% so it's not surprising that his BABIP is so high. I think the BABIP regression will come more from that insanely high line drive rate being unsustainable than due to general luck evening out. He's clearly making a lot better contact this year and it makes sense that a lot more balls in play are falling for hits since he's hitting so many line drives.

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7 minutes ago, OmarComing25 said:

To me it looks like it comes down to his line drive rate. In past seasons he's been at around 17% while this season he's at 30% so it's not surprising that his BABIP is so high. I think the BABIP regression will come more from that insanely high line drive rate being unsustainable than due to general luck evening out. He's clearly making a lot better contact this year and it makes sense that a lot more balls in play are falling for hits since he's hitting so many line drives.

Maybe the adjustment in his swing turned him into a better/more frequent line drive hitter? If 30% is unsustainable, what could be sustainable? 20%? 25%?

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6 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

Maybe the adjustment in his swing turned him into a better/more frequent line drive hitter? If 30% is unsustainable, what could be sustainable? 20%? 25%?

Typically the line drive leaders are in the 25-27% range. Freeman is the current active leader in career line drive rate and he's at 27%.

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2 minutes ago, OmarComing25 said:

Typically the line drive leaders are in the 25-27% range. Freeman is the current active leader in career line drive rate and he's at 27%.

So maybe he's a 25% line drive hitter with the adjustments to his swing? That would be a huge positive development.

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15 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

So maybe he's a 25% line drive hitter with the adjustments to his swing? That would be a huge positive development.

Yeah I don't know how reliable the minor league batted ball metrics are compared to the major league ones, but his 2018 profile looks almost ideal to me right now. High line drive rate, high flyball rate, below average pop up rate. Also isn't as extremely pull heavy as he was last year so that would be a positive for beating the shift.

Edited by OmarComing25
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