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What do you expect from Eloy in 2020?


Jose Abreu

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1 hour ago, kitekrazy said:

There's always a chance for the sophomore slump.

I feel like you could only ever call a bad 2nd year a "sophomore slump" if a player had a giant rookie season. 

Eloy had certain prolonged stretches of being fantastic but he also spent a good deal of time hurt and being rusty after coming back from injury. Up until September when he stayed healthy. It felt like he would just start getting into his groove when an injury would happen. 

Promising rookie season but it wasn't a Bellinger or Pete Alonso type of "burst onto the scene". 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Richie said:

I feel like you could only ever call a bad 2nd year a "sophomore slump" if a player had a giant rookie season. 

Eloy had certain prolonged stretches of being fantastic but he also spent a good deal of time hurt and being rusty after coming back from injury. Up until September when he stayed healthy. It felt like he would just start getting into his groove when an injury would happen. 

Promising rookie season but it wasn't a Bellinger or Pete Alonso type of "burst onto the scene". 

 

 

One thing he needs to stop doing is guess hitting.  He's way too good of a hitter to be doing anything but sitting dead red and adjusting to off speed.  No more 2-2 and 3-2 fastballs taken or weakly fouled off or whiffed on because he's looking for off speed.

Now I think the injury had a role in that, as you noted.  It's hard to get hurt midseason when everybody is already well match fit.  Easier to come back in say May or June.

Edited by chitownsportsfan
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On 1/29/2020 at 4:48 PM, Jose Abreu said:

MLB posted a video today that got me thinking:

Eloy hit .267/.315/.513 (.828 OPS, 117 OPS+, 116 wRC+) in a rookie year that was often interrupted by injury, rusty periods following injury, and so on. When he was healthy and recovered from whatever ailment he had been dealing with (as in, ~2 weeks after returning from an IL stint), he was awesome. He seems to have bulked up over the winter, and his swing looks great at the end of that video.

Defense aside (I think he'll improve to the point where he's at least playable), what do you expect from him next year? Something like .270/.320/.500 may be a reasonable baseline, but if he stays healthy, I think he's gonna take a massive leap. I wouldn't be surprised if he puts up .280/.340/.560 with 45 home runs (he was on a 41 home run per 162 pace last year), for example. Is that crazy?

I'm going to get really aggressive with this projections, but I see:

305/355/605

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13 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

One thing he needs to stop doing is guess hitting.  He's way too good of a hitter to be doing anything but sitting dead red and adjusting to off speed.  No more 2-2 and 3-2 fastballs taken or weakly fouled off or whiffed on because he's looking for off speed.

Now I think the injury had a role in that, as you noted.  It's hard to get hurt midseason when everybody is already well match fit.  Easier to come back in say May or June.

I mean, he has been a guess hitter his whole life. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a guess hitter; some of the best hitters in MLB history were guess hitters. Thomas was a classic guess hitter - which is why he was off-balance so often on those ass out, flip to right field knocks. Thomas was so good that he could adjust when he was off and keep his hands back, but he's one of the best hitters in MLB history and he was a guess hitter.

Abreu is another guess hitter, although his hands aren't as good as Thomas' so he can look even worse on things he's wrong on. 

There are only two types of hitters in MLB baseball; guess hitters and reaction hitters. There are successes and failures for each.

Edit: I also don't love the term "guess hitter." Theyir guesses are based on trends and tendencies that they study. They're technically "guessing" but they're educated guesses. Also, you can be a guess hitter who is better at identifying balls and strikes - like Thomas - so you don't see as many dreadful swings on balls way out of the zone like Jose.

Edited by Look at Ray Ray Run
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1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I mean, he has been a guess hitter his whole life. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a guess hitter; some of the best hitters in MLB history were guess hitters. Thomas was a classic guess hitter - which is why he was off-balance so often on those ass out, flip to right field knocks. Thomas was so good that he could adjust when he was off and keep his hands back, but he's one of the best hitters in MLB history and he was a guess hitter.

Abreu is another guess hitter, although his hands aren't as good as Thomas' so he can look even worse on things he's wrong on. 

There are only two types of hitters in MLB baseball; guess hitters and reaction hitters. There are successes and failures for each.

Edit: I also don't love the term "guess hitter." Theyir guesses are based on trends and tendencies that they study. They're technically "guessing" but they're educated guesses. Also, you can be a guess hitter who is better at identifying balls and strikes - like Thomas - so you don't see as many dreadful swings on balls way out of the zone like Jose.

Technically everybody is a "guess hitter" as every hitter goes up there looking for "their pitch" which for most guys these days is a low fastball out over the plate.  What I mean with Eloy is that he needs to be guessing (looking really) fastball even when he's seeing a steady diet of sliders and junk.  Eloy will hit plenty of mistake hangers out of the park just off reactions to when he's looking fastball but his talent and power take over on a hanger.  

Too often last year he looked really bad with 2 strikes, even with a pitcher struggling to get a pitch over other than a fastball, because he was surprised he saw a 2 strike fastball.

Edited by chitownsportsfan
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22 hours ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

.280/.330/.520 with 40 hrs and 100 rbi

 

I feel like that is pretty realistic and would be great production for us 

I agree….280 with 40 HRS pluu 100 rbi would be good goals along with improved defense.  He just might demolish those #'s.

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12 minutes ago, soxfan49 said:

I'll be at the ASG festivities so I'm greedy :)

That's awesome for you, have a blast!  You're still going to see Eloy pinch hit in the sixth & jack one to take a 4-3 lead. Of course scoring Yoan & giving Lucas the W for the all star game.  

Has anyone else tried this koolaid?  It's so tasty. 

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