Moncada leading MLB in OOZ strike 3s

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

45 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:

No one gets all strike 3's called correctly, so the hypothetical slash line is a fallacy. It's also common for umps to miss strike 3's that should have been called.

I bet if you run the numbers, Moncada would be near the top as well for strikeout looking on pitches in the zone. He just doesn't swing on 2 strikes, and it's been said many time already that he needs to learn to protect on 2 strikes and should not leave anything close to the zone to the umpires discretion. Just like the NBA, umpires in MLB will give benefit of the doubt to stars like Harper, Trout, or Votto, Moncada isn't there yet. He needs to learn to be a smarter hitter.

He already admitted he was looking at the data wrong thinking that all the 2 strike calls he took looking were all 3-2 counts. So yes huge error in his extrapolation on how it affected his overall totals.

All of this discussion is just whitewashing the fact his main problem is still making contact. 124 swinging K's and probably double or triple 124 on how many pitches in the zone he swings and misses. When you can't hit anything in the zone besides pitches right down the pipe you have major contact issues. Even weak content is better with his speed. Crying about some poor calls that many players get called out on too won''t change the fact he still swings and misses  anything that's not right down the middle.

Edited September 13, 2018 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside
break up my post into 2 paragraghs instead of one.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

7 minutes ago, ptatc said:

Could some of this be that he is so passive that these are the only ones he swings at? 

Some of it is I'm sure but he has 124 K's swinging so if all 124 were right down the middle his hot zone on those pitches would not be as good as it is now . He's swinging and missing all pitches in the zone just a lot less on the ones down the middle.

[ptatc]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Some of it is I'm sure but he has 124 K's swinging so if all 124 were right down the middle his hot zone on those pitches would not be as good as it is now . He's swinging and missing all pitches in the zone just a lot less on the ones down the middle.

got it. i wasn't really sure what "hot zone" measured. i wasn't sure if it was just the hits or if it included misses.

[TaylorStSox]

4 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I've waited a long time to make up my mind on Moncada's future and I'm still pretty much undecided. I am however leaning towards him ending up not being anything special.

As an example I'll use Avisail Garcia. When Avi hit .330 last year he basically had a heat map where just about every part of the strike zone was hot. He's very good at hitting strikes for hits and had the speed that gave him a lot of infield hits. Yes his BABIP was extraordinarily high but the fact remains that he was making good contact with pitches in the strike zone. Even this year his heat map still suggests he hits fairly well on pitches in the zone. Avi's problem is pitch recognition and how he hits outside the zone. If Avi had Moncada's eye he'd be a superstar much like JD Martinez .

Moncada ,on the other hand, his heat map shows he's only good at hitting pitches right down the middle as evidenced by the links another poster gave. Moncada's problem is he can't make contact with most pitches in the zone as evidenced by his high swing and miss rates on pitches in the zone. He has even more speed than Avi while also having the advantage of hitting lefty most of the time. He should be getting 15-20 infield hits a year. Moncada basically has a ton of holes in his swing and has shown no ability thus far to make enough contact on pitches in the zone other than mistake pitches. Any little glimpses of hope we have seen from him probably was just a string of getting more mistakes to hit.

I haven't given up on him yet but his contact issues scare the hell out of me.

Avi has an issue with his swing that's visible by just looking at any 1 of his AB's. I've never been fan because of that. 

[Panerista]

On 9/12/2018 at 2:47 PM, Dam8610 said:

Literally just correcting this would change his slashline to .247/.387/.431 with a 18.7% BB rate and a 25.0% K rate. In case anyone was wondering how badly the umps have screwed Moncada over this season, there's your answer.

When you say "correcting this", do you mean setting the OOZ strikes to zero?  

[gusguyman]

22 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

He already admitted he was looking at the data wrong thinking that all the 2 strike calls he took looking were all 3-2 counts. So yes huge error in his extrapolation on how it affected his overall totals.

All of this discussion is just whitewashing the fact his main problem is still making contact. 124 swinging K's and probably double or triple 124 on how many pitches in the zone he swings and misses. When you can't hit anything in the zone besides pitches right down the pipe you have major contact issues. Even weak content is better with his speed. Crying about some poor calls that many players get called out on too won''t change the fact he still swings and misses  anything that's not right down the middle.

 

Totally agree. There is still way too much swing and miss in Moncada's game, especially since he is already selective. This table is Moncada's swing and contact stats. His Z-Contact % (The % of swings on pitches in the zone that make contact) is 7 points below average, and is basically the same as the league average total Contact %. No bueno

[Dominikk85]

On 9/13/2018 at 7:56 PM, ptatc said:

Could some of this be that he is so passive that these are the only ones he swings at? 

No he doesn't swing at them because he is a smart guy and knows he can't hit them. His heat map when he swings is also down the pipe. This is actually a good thing because heat and swing map should match somewhat but it becomes a problem once pitchers realize what you are looking for.

 

He simply needs to cover more of the zone. Especially low in the zone his contact rate is super low  while in the middle it is ok

[Dominikk85]

As a hitting coach in amateur ball here is what I would do (of course the real hitting coaches should know better than me but I will give my opinion  anyway):

Work on one of the weaknesses during the winter. You cant correct everything at once and even some great hitters have one bad edge so I would work hard on pitches either up or down all winter. The middle he can handle anyway and if he than also can handle one of the other boundaries this leaves less room for the pitchers to attack him. Ideally he should master at least two of the 4 edges (down-in, down-away, up-in, up-away).

So for example he could work all winter on inside pitches and low pitches, middle he can handle anyway. If he can master this he would be much more dangerous.

What makes it more complicated is that he is a switch hitter, that is two swings to maintain. I'm not a fan of bad switch hitters. If you are good like lindor that is great but if you have severe holes to stuff that becomes much harder when switch hitting. Maybe it even could be a consideration to give up on his righty swing at some point but for now that is probably not an option.