Reds June 2023 thread

[CJD]

(06-15-2023, 09:30 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I'm starting to get mildly concerned about DLC. He was electric his first 3 or 4 games, to say the least. Since then he just doesn't look confident at the plate.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe he's a bolt of lightning as a prospect. But perhaps he needs a couple days off? Maybe he's feeling too much pressure?

In his first series, he was 4 for 11, 2 BB, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 3 R, 1 SB and 6 SOs

In his second series, he was 4 for 11, 3 BB, 0 2B, 0 3B, 0 HR, 2 RBI, 4 R, 2 SB and 4 SOs

In his third and most recent series, he was 0 for 12, 1 BB, 0 2B/3B/HR, 0 RBI, 2 SB and 5 SOs.

Notably, at least 2 of his 8 hits in the first two series were infield grounders that he legged out.

To put it bluntly, he was never going to keep up the pace he was on through his first 2 series. It's not ideal that he went O-fer in 3 straight games, but it's still an incredibly small sample size and his strikeout numbers have not gone up through the series.

And, to be perfectly honest, several strikeouts on him are bullshit. 5 of his strikeouts were on 3-2 pitches and at least 3 of those were borderline calls that Elly intentionally took because he was anticipating the walk. I think his height is working against him because an unhittable ball for him (below the knees) would be a strike against someone like McLain, who is almost a foot shorter than him. 

He's going to have to adjust to those low strikes and start swinging at them. Of his 15 total strikeouts, 6 of them are looking, but 4 of his 5 SOs against KC were looking, all of which are in the bottom of the zone (or in some cases, just out of the zone). That tells me that pitchers have identified that low pitches are consistently being called strikes against him that he believes are balls. 

I think he'll adjust to this and start swinging at those low strikes.

The good news is he always seems to start slow whenever he joins a league, and then takes off. For example, in 2023, he hit .195/.233/.415 in 41 April at bats but then, in May, he hit .347/.460/.743 in 101 at bats. Then we called him up in June.

Last year, he hit .254/.288/.476 in April in Dayton (63 ABs)
Then he hit .311/.367/.600 in May (90 ABs)
Then he hit .313/.383/.625 in June (96 ABs)
Then he hit .344/.400/.844 in the first half of July (32 ABs)
He was promoted Chattanooga in mid July and hit .220/.238/.439 in the second half of July (41 ABs)
But then in August, he hit .355/.425/.688 (93 ABs)
He cooled down a little in September, only hitting .286/.322/.411 (56 ABs) but the trend seems clear to me.

He enters a league, hits ~.200 to .250 for about a month, then he starts hitting ~.310 to .350 from then on.

Given the leap from AAA to MLB is considered the largest jump by far (the only competition is the jump from A+ to AA), I think EDLC may take a little more time to adjust, but I think he will, based on his history in the minors. He will figure out how these MLB pitchers are pitching him and adjust. 

I think Cowboy was talking either last night or two nights ago where they seem to pitch him in reverse of what most other hitters get. The give him off speed and breaking balls early, see if he'll dig his own grave and then hit him with put out fast balls when he's expecting breaking balls (possibly why he watches so many fastballs at the knees for strikeouts). 

If he doesn't dig his own grave with the early off speed/breaking balls, the pitcher seems content to just walk him, hence his fairly high walk rate (6 walks in 40 plate appearances, 15%)

If he can adjust to that style of pitching and start looking for fastballs late in the count, his batting average could explode, which may force pitchers to start giving him fast balls earlier and then it'll all normalize.

At least that's my hope :)

I think EDLC is the victim of Matt McLain haha. McLain came up and was hot and has stayed hot, currently leading the team in batting average. Most rookies struggle and McLain just...hasn't. EDLC had a bad series. It'll be interesting to see how he handles the weekend in Houston.