07-17-2023, 11:15 AM
(07-17-2023, 08:40 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I am cautiously excited about the prospect of adding CES to this lineup. He has big power, gets a lot of hits and can play 1B or 3B.
It feels like I'd be selfish to expect yet another rookie to come up and immediately become an impact bat, but I think he's capable of providing just that.
The one area of concern in his game is his chase rate. For 2023, his chase rate is 43%. As in, he has swung a 43% of the pitches he has seen that are out of the zone.
The MLB average for 2023 is 31.7%, with the average since 2015 being 28.4%.
It was even higher in May, when he was swinging at almost half of the balls outside the zone (49%) but since June 1st, his chase rate has been 38%. Still high, but it shows that he is swinging at fewer balls than in the beginning of the year. He went through a slump in mid June that he has since broken out of and I suspect that slump was caused, at least partially, by a new approach in which he stopped swinging at so many balls outside of the zone.
The good news is that even with a high chase rate, his chase contact rate was also very high. In fact, on June 12th, Baseball America wrote an article dubbing him "The Minors’ Best Bad-Ball Hitter" due to his high chase contact rate.
I don't have the exact numbers because I don't have a baseball america membership, but I've heard podcasters talk about this as well, so even if he swings at more balls than he should, he also makes contact and gets hits off of those balls as well.
It'll only get harder in the MLB, so I'm hoping he doesn't start slow with a lot of strikeouts, but we'll just have to wait and see.
I think India is going to be in trouble if his bat doesn't wake up soon.
The team definitely wants him and views him as a starter, but you can't justify wedging his bat into the lineup as the young studs continue to flow in from Louisville.
If it were up to me, I'd give him more days off. He's played more than anyone on the team, and he looks tired. Give him a breather 2 or 3 times a week and let him take a crack at DH. He's still a major asset when at full strength. It would be bad business to let him waste away on the bench for too long and decrease his value.
