There will always be truths to baseball. One of those will be that players should not swing at bad pitches and should swing at good pitches. There is more nuance to that and I encourage you to read Rob Orr’s piece on that and the metric SEAGER that he created to measure it. It is fairly obvious that contact quality is highest on pitches in the zone (particularly the center of the zone) and that contact quality is generally lower on pitches out of the zone.
The hitter under the most scrutiny this spring was Johan Rojas. In the majors in 2023, Rojas got away with a high BABIP, but showed limited power, low underlying on base skills, and a proclivity for strikeouts. It was unsustainable, and everyone knew it and it reared its ugly head in the postseason.
The Phillies have tackled it in a bunch of ways that are all going to sound very familiar. They have revamped his swing to better engage his lower half. They made it quieter and he might be moving to a more two strike swing in all counts approach. They have also worked to cut down on his chase, as he swung at 38.8% of the pitches he saw outside of the strike zone, and made contact on only just over half of those swings. Putting aside the swing itself and the lack of contact quality, we can quickly see in the data from Statcast tracked games this spring how Rojas responded on chasing less.
| 2023 MLB | 2024 Spring | |
|---|---|---|
| Swing % | 52.8% | 40.7% |
| Contact % | 74.7% | 83.6% |
| Zone% | 54.6% | 43.3% |
| Z-Swing% | 64.4% | 53.8% |
| Z-Contact% | 85.8% | 88.6% |
| O-Swing% | 38.8% | 23.5% |
| O-Contact% | 52.5% | 76.9% |
Swing rate is down overall, though the zone rate of Spring Training pitchers was also fairly abysmal so we have to break out by in zone and out of zone. As the out of zone swing rate decreased, the out of zone contact increased indicating he is likely chasing pitches well off the plate less. He is swinging less in zone as well, but let’s put a pin in that as well. We can further small sample size his spring to before a minor league game where he worked on his swing to one after (the event is detailed by Alex Coffey in an article this week).
| 2/24-3/10 | 3/13-3/25 | |
|---|---|---|
| Swing % | 49.2% | 33.7% |
| Contact % | 78.% | 89.3% |
| Zone% | 44.8% | 42.2% |
| Z-Swing% | 66.7% | 42.9% |
| Z-Contact% | 85.0% | 93.3% |
| O-Swing% | 35.1% | 27.1% |
| O-Contact% | 69.2% | 84.6% |
We can see Rojas not swinging to a level of passivity over the final two weeks of spring training. We also see his contact rates spike as well. This is all sort of an extreme of what Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh did last year in just cutting down on chasing by not swinging, and hopefully cutting down on poor contact and zone miss by also not swinging at pitches in the zone they were going to do anything with. Now something those two have done and where they also need to improve is on doing damage on those swings and hunting pitches in the zone to do damage on.
Being patient is good, but being passive is not. In the zone, a hitter needs to hunt pitches to do damage on and then hit them hard. Rojas showed two different types of contact this spring on pitches in the zone and out of the zone, but equally poor results on them. I have not removed bunts, but in the zone he hit balls with an average exit velocity of 77.9 MPH and a launch angle of 0.4 degrees. Out of the zone it was 78.1 mph and 23.9 degrees. That is essentially ground balls and popups, neither of which is going to lead to production. Rojas was not swinging at pitches in the zone and he was not squaring them up. That is the biggest risk the Phillies are taking. His new swing still needs to get timed up in order for all of this work to actually matter.
Then there is swinging at the right pitches and not being too passive. There are bad pitches in the zone to swing at, but not swinging at pitches in the zone is a double edged sword. It can put you behind in the count, leading to less opportunity to do damage and it is leaving a current opportunity to do damage on the table.
| Pitch Type | Swing % | Z Swing % | O Swing % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fastball | 42.1% | 51.1% | 30.6% |
| Breaking Ball | 37.8% | 57.1% | 29.0% |
| Offspeed | 40.0% | 75% | 16.7% |
There is some definite small sample size at work here, but it also looks like a hitter being too passive, especially on fastballs in the strike zone.
Rojas hit .170/.214/.264 this spring, it is clear he is still a work in progress, but it is important to see the shape of the improvements and where the next steps are for him. Everyone I have ever talked to about him praises his work effort and makeup, but this is going to be a grind to get his offense to where it needs to be. The Phillies are betting on the improvements he has already made coupled with force feeding him MLB at bats will get him to where he needs to be. If there is reason for optimism just look at the other young players who have gone through very similar transformations and to the team as whole that has picked each other up out of these slumps. If that optimism pays off it won’t be in April and May, but September and October where it is needed most.
Rojas is one of the best centerfielders I’ve ever seen, certainly the best in a Phillies uniform since Garry Maddox. Balls hit to CF go there to die. I never get tired of seeing him glide to the baseball.
Agree that they should just be patient. of course it would look a lot better if the rest of the lineup would crank things up, making his struggles at the plate seem like less of an issue.