Has Dansby turned the corner?

smootness said:
It is a small sample, so it's hard to make any real conclusions.

But Dansby was better defensively than he got credit for before he was sent down, and his offense was always going to rebound. So while it's a SSS, it's also what I always figured he would do, which is start hitting better. He never should have been benched.
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Agreed. The mental lapses - booting easy ground balls and such - seem to be much less frequent now compared to the early season. I'm not sure how much that dinged him in the first half, or how much it's helped his defensive ratings since his recall from AAA.
 
Enscheff said:
Hard to say.

Maybe because he simply has gotten lucky and hasn't faced guys who feature good sliders.

Maybe guys don't fear him enough to care about pitching him carefully and are challenging him more with the pitcher behind him.

Maybe he has handled (either by hitting or laying off) enough sliders recently that they stopped throwing them.

One thing is for certain though....guys will start to notice his .900-1.000 OPS over the last 1-2 weeks and start to look at different ways to attack Swanson. The obvious plan will be to go back to attacking him with sliders. When that happens we will see how Swanson responds.

If Swanson is seeing 25%+ sliders through most of September and is still posting a .320+ wOBA over that stretch, I'll take that as a decent indication he is "fixed"
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I lean toward thinking it's because he's laying off the good ones when he doesn't have two strikes, and spitting on the ones way out of the zone when he does. Seems like a lot of his K's were on sliders that missed by a lot. Encheff, how tough would it be to track his swing rate at sliders out of the zone early in the season and now (realizing that "now" would be a very small sample size)?
 
DirkPiggler said:
Agreed. The mental lapses - booting easy ground balls and such - seem to be much less frequent now compared to the early season. I'm not sure how much that dinged him in the first half, or how much it's helped his defensive ratings since his recall from AAA.
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Better focus is perhaps something that you could credibly learn after being demoted for a short period.
 
jimsnores said:
I lean toward thinking it's because he's laying off the good ones when he doesn't have two strikes, and spitting on the ones way out of the zone when he does. Seems like a lot of his K's were on sliders that missed by a lot. Encheff, how tough would it be to track his swing rate at sliders out of the zone early in the season and now (realizing that "now" would be a very small sample size)?
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In chart format there is.

Swing% on SLs in 2017 (except August):

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Swing% on SLs in August 2017:

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Only 22 pitches in the August sample, so it's hard to say.

Maybe it had to do with his contact on sliders...

Contact% on SLs in 2017 (except August):

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Contact% on SLs in August 2017:

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Again, only 22 pitches this month, but he is still missing the down and away slider. He does seem to be handling the slider in the zone much better though.

It still looks like his recent success might simply be due to guys not throwing him very many sliders lately. I want Swanson be fed 25%+ sliders in September so we can see what happens.
 
Enscheff said:
In chart format there is.

Swing% on SLs in 2017 (except August):

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Swing% on SLs in August 2017:

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Only 22 pitches in the August sample, so it's hard to say.

Maybe it had to do with his contact on sliders...

Contact% on SLs in 2017 (except August):

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Contact% on SLs in August 2017:

http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Again, only 22 pitches this month, but he is still missing the down and away slider. He does seem to be handling the slider in the zone much better though.

It still looks like his recent success might simply be due to guys not throwing him very many sliders lately. I want Swanson be fed 25%+ sliders in September so we can see what happens.
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Do you think having his buddy Albies in the lineup is also taking the pressure off him. A modern updated version of Kemp Protection. I would imagine that both of them will really take off along with the whole team when Acuna arrives. Acuna should be able to provide Trout-like protection.
 
Enscheff said:
In chart format there is.

Swing% on SLs in 2017 (except August):
http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Swing% on SLs in August 2017:
http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Only 22 pitches in the August sample, so it's hard to say.

Maybe it had to do with his contact on sliders...

Contact% on SLs in 2017 (except August):
http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Contact% on SLs in August 2017:
http://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.a...&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=SL&season=all&data=pi

Again, only 22 pitches this month, but he is still missing the down and away slider.

Nothing I have seen shows me he is better at laying off or making contact with sliders. It still looks like his recent success might simply be due to guys not throwing him very many sliders lately. I want Swanson be fed 25%+ sliders in September so we can see what happens.
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So we are back to trying to explain why they are throwing him fewer sliders. The sample size is still too small to draw any conclusions, but the eye test suggests he has a more disciplined approach to them... Looking forward to watching this the rest of the year.
 
nsacpi said:
Do you think having his buddy Albies in the lineup is also taking the pressure off him. A modern updated version of Kemp Protection. I would imagine that both of them will really take off along with the whole team when Acuna arrives. Acuna should be able to provide Trout-like protection.
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I think Dansby was a guy who wasn't hitting particularly well in AA, was called up for no justifiable reason, and had good BABIP luck for 6 weeks.

Then he regressed...hard. Now he is figuring it out.

It's just a shame the Braves gave up control over his age 29 season so this could happen as it did.
 
Enscheff said:
I think Dansby was a guy who wasn't hitting particularly well in AA, was called up for no justifiable reason, and had good BABIP luck for 6 weeks.

Then he regressed...hard. Now he is figuring it out.

It's just a shame the Braves gave up control over his age 29 season so this could happen as it did.
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also sometimes when you turn a corner you end up at a dead end...just trying to answer the question in the thread title
 
Enscheff said:
I think Dansby was a guy who wasn't hitting particularly well in AA, was called up for no justifiable reason, and had good BABIP luck for 6 weeks.

Then he regressed...hard. Now he is figuring it out.

It's just a shame the Braves gave up control over his age 29 season so this could happen as it did.
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I get what you are saying, but I think it is also possible that he needed to go through this cycle at some point. We can argue about when the team will actually be competitive, but if they thought it might be next year, then getting this out of the way for him before that window opened may be part of the plan. Might also help us understand why we are watching Ozzie right now.

We can disagree with them, but maybe our goal should be to understand what they are thinking and why rather than just call them idiots without understanding.
 
mfree80 said:
I get what you are saying, but I think it is also possible that he needed to go through this cycle at some point. We can argue about when the team will actually be competitive, but if they thought it might be next year, then getting this out of the way for him before that window opened may be part of the plan. Might also help us understand why we are watching Ozzie right now.

We can disagree with them, but maybe our goal should be to understand what they are thinking and why rather than just call them idiots without understanding.
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But Coppy has told us what he was thinking or more specifically not thinking. He told us the thought of promoting Dansby last year never crossed his mind.
 
nsacpi said:
But Coppy has told us what he was thinking or more specifically not thinking. He told us the thought of promoting Dansby last year never crossed his mind.
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Coppy couldn't have been more clear about distancing himself from the Swanson promotion without coming out and actually saying, "I don't think we should have promoted him".

And now they traded a viable option for 3B and moved a viable player from 2B to 3B just to clear a spot for Albies. I'm going to give Coppy the benefit of the doubt that he also didn't want Albies up yet.

These are moves done by a group of people desperate to show proof that their rebuild is "working".
 
nsacpi said:
But Coppy has told us what he was thinking or more specifically not thinking. He told us the thought of promoting Dansby last year never crossed his mind.
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We all read way too much into off the cuff comments made by Coppy, and all people closely connected to the team. I suspect that half the time, they walk away from interviews and say "why the crap did I say that like that?"

I just don't believe they did that without discussion and some pretty good analysis. There is so much "smoke and mirrors" in all of their comments, yet, we latch onto them and try to read their real thoughts from every comment. sometimes they play us, and sometimes they just misspeak.
 
mfree80 said:
That fact that they don't include us in all their discussions doesn't mean they don't have them.
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And the blind defense of the FO continues. Different day, same old stuff haha.

Please let us know when we can start taking the FO's comments seriously about things like whether or not they expect to contend and what they really think about particular prospects. Thanks.
 
Enscheff said:
And the blind defense of the FO continues. Different day, same old stuff haha.

Please let us know when we can start taking the FO's comments seriously about things like whether or not they expect to contend and what they really think about particular prospects. Thanks.
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Yup. Anyone who disagrees with you must be blind. I just believe they don't tell us everything they are thinking about, and sometimes say things to draw attention away from their actual intentions. Trying to make some important meaning out of every off the cuff comment seems a little silly.

I guess if that makes me blind, then so be it. No need to try to discredit me for that belief.
 
mfree80 said:
Yup. Anyone who disagrees with you must be blind. I just believe they don't tell us everything they are thinking about, and sometimes say things to draw attention away from their actual intentions. Trying to make some important meaning out of every off the cuff comment seems a little silly.

I guess if that makes me blind, then so be it. No need to try to discredit me for that belief.
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It's all good. Just please be sure to let us know when we can start taking their comments seriously. Thanks.
 
Enscheff said:
Coppy couldn't have been more clear about distancing himself from the Swanson promotion without coming out and actually saying, "I don't think we should have promoted him".

And now they traded a viable option for 3B and moved a viable player from 2B to 3B just to clear a spot for Albies. I'm going to give Coppy the benefit of the doubt that he also didn't want Albies up yet.

These are moves done by a group of people desperate to show proof that their rebuild is "working".
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Disagree. Albies was hitting in AAA and there was essentially no question that he was going to be the opening day 2B next season even if that isn't "optimal." If that was in stone, there was no advantage to leaving him down really.

Very different from Swanson, IMO, which i always hated.

Brandon Phillips is sort of a non factor. He's not under contract and was never going to be allowed to block Albies. With team out of contention the possibility Phillips was better option no longer mattered.

Sean Rodriguez was cost cutting and risk containment for a team that wasn't contending.

Maybe a signal too that they will carry Matt Adams as their primary bench bat. Maybe not though as they still need to trade him I think if they can.
 
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