Why Albies needs to stop hitting so many fly balls

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Enscheff

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After hitting 3 fly balls in 4 PAs tonight, Albies' fly ball rate is going to be over 50%. That is bad, but why, exactly?

Albies has an average FB/LD exit velocity of 90.2 MPH: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard?year=2017&abs=20&player_type=resp_batter_id

That places him in the bottom third of all MLB hitters. Quite simply, he doesn't hit the ball very hard.

According to this chart: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-new-science-of-hitting/

The value of fly balls hit at 90 MPH is very low (look at all that purple).

Albies needs to stay out of the purple area of the chart. He needs to be hitting LDs and GBs with launch angles between about 5 and 20 degrees. When/if his FB exit velocity ticks up closer to 95, he can start trying to elevate more batted balls.
 
I used to hate it when Furcal would hit a homer as there would always be some fly outs to come after, until Bobby would chew him out for not using his speed.
 
Ted Williams used to preach to his non-power hitters that hitting opposite field flyballs is a cardinal sin that leads to easy outs. That has changed somewhat since the days when Ted Williams managed (and wrote The Science of Hitting) due to the increased effectiveness of strength training, but one of the worst things Albies could do is start to envision himself as a power hitter. Reasonable (for his size) power may come with experience, but right now he should be concentrating on "down and hard" as we used to say in the dugout.
 
He clearly sacrificed some contact for added power in the upper levels of the minors, and it worked for him for the most part there. But yeah, that exit velocity isn't good enough to be doing that right now in the majors.
 
Albies is just in a rut right now. He was scuffling abit when called up. He will get it turned around pretty soon.
 
Albies was rushed up just like Swanson, not as egregiously because he did spend significant time at AAA but he was much younger and wasn't exactly killing AAA pitching. And there was no need for it.

He's learning on the job and burning service time. And, considering the Braves already had Phillips and Peterson, both arguably better ML players right now, then it makes it even worse.

These moves are not good baseball moves, management moves or money moves. They are candy for those short on attention, fickle of nature and limited of understanding.
 
When I watched Albies in low-A, he looked to have surprising pop for his size because of his quick hands and knack for barrels, but it played more as line drive and gap power. I'm not sure exactly how to characterize it, but he looked to be more of an authoritative slap hitter, if that makes sense. A lot of good contact, but more playing to his speed than trying to muscle the ball.
 
Julio3000 said:
When I watched Albies in low-A, he looked to have surprising pop for his size because of his quick hands and knack for barrels, but it played more as line drive and gap power. I'm not sure exactly how to characterize it, but he looked to be more of an authoritative slap hitter, if that makes sense. A lot of good contact, but more playing to his speed than trying to muscle the ball.
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If there's anything he could have polished off in AAA, it's finding a happy medium between this and more swinging for power. I don't remember for sure, but his stance and swing has seemingly stayed the same, his approach though has not.

Then again, this dance between average vs pop has often happened in MLB, however in a case like Altuve he was hitting for average before adding the power and he kept both.

Actually I think it might still be in him but mainly in two strike situational. In his first AB against Wainwright in the previous series he was swinging pretty hard early in the count but when he got to two strikes he took some off and got a nice base hit.
 
thewupk said:
I have tons. But he wasn't tearing up aaa and we lost a year or service time. Just hard to understand these moves.
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It's obvious we're trying to compete sooner rather than later... don't wanna bring a bunch of rookies up at same time. Acuna and gohara will be next
 
msstate7 said:
It's obvious we're trying to compete sooner rather than later... don't wanna bring a bunch of rookies up at same time. Acuna and gohara will be next
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And how's that effort to compete too early working out? 68 wins last year, likely less than 75 wins this year, and the emergence of zero solid long term answers for the rotation, the BP, or any other position on the field.

They should have brought Swanson up sometime in the middle of this season, Albies sometime in the middle of 2018, and Acuna up in the middle of 2019.

Instead, we get this...a team that still sucks despite wasting years of control over their most valuable assets. All because they are trying to push the window of contention too fast. And we won't even mention how badly the other "win soon" moves have turned out.

Barves Way!! Must blindly defend their moves!!
 
Enscheff said:
And how's that effort to compete too early working out? 68 wins last year, likely less than 75 wins this year, and the emergence of zero solid long term answers for the rotation, the BP, or any other position on the field.

They should have brought Swanson up sometime in the middle of this season, Albies sometime in the middle of 2018, and Acuna up in the middle of 2019.

Instead, we get this...a team that still sucks despite wasting years of control over their most valuable assets. All because they are trying to push the window of contention too fast. And we won't even mention how badly the other "win soon" moves have turned out.

Barves Way!! Must blindly defend their moves!!
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I don't think the front office is necessarily convinced this team is close to competing. (they clearly aren't close) I think this could stem from ownership wanting to sell more tickets by promoting these "stud" and exciting kids that fans want to see on the field.

I am by no means defending the clowns that make up this front office either.
 
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