Christian Encarnacion-Strand

[CJD]

(03-04-2023, 12:47 AM)guyofthetiger Wrote: A loud bat is a good thing when making contact. Let's just hope there isn't much air in the swings fanning the fans.

He's a very young player, both in age, 23, and in terms of actual experience playing baseball. He played in Junior College for 2 years, transferred to Oklahoma State and played there for 1 year and then was drafted in 2021 and played a small piece of 2021 and then 2022 in the minor leagues.

All told, he has had just 144 minor league games and only 56 non-JUCO college games in his career. So he's still got a lot to learn.

In those 144 minor league games, he's hit .317/.376/.588/.965 with 33 doubles, 36 home runs and his strikeout rate of 25.5% is high, but in today's MLB it's only a few points above average. The strikeout percentage leaguewide in 2022 was 22.4%. All he really needs to do is shave those strikeouts down by 1 every 2 weeks and he'd fall right in line with the average (26 weeks in a season, 13 fewer strikeouts over those 144 minor league games, close to a full MLB season, would be a strikeout rate of 23.0%.)

And then he is hitting the cover off the ball in spring training this year. 17 ABs, 11 hits, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 5 R, .647/.611/1.846. Small sample size, weak competition etc etc, but the numbers are pretty astonishing.

It's a long shot, and even more so considering his limited time in the minor leagues, but he has a shot at making the roster out of spring training after being a non-roster invitee. He's playing that well.