Atlanta Braves: how much of this outburst from Swanson is sustainable?

The Braves missed out on a real opportunity to beat Thor last night, but were still able to go toe-to-toe with the Mets for 12 innings. Now at nearly 20 games into the season, how much of this is ‘real’ for the long haul?

The Atlanta Braves are now 11-8. I frankly don’t know which is more surprising at this point: that 11-8 mark, the Phillies at 12-7, or the Nationals at 10-10.

Bur the question I want to check on this morning is this: how sustainable is this start? I don’t know how many positions I’ll end up checking on, but let’s start with the one that is perhaps the most refreshing to see: Dansby Swanson‘s rejuvenation.

What Happened Here?

The difference with Dansby Swanson’s hitting, thus far, has been like night and day. He exudes a confidence at the plate that simply wasn’t there for much of 2017, and that’s showing – not just in results, but also in the Statcast numbers.

“Barrels” per baseball event – 2017: 3.0; 2018: 6.9
Hard hit balls – 2017: 31.7%; 2018: 43.1%
Exit velocity/Max – 2017: 107.6 (note this was over the entire year); 2018: 108.0
Exit velocity/Average – 2017: 86.9 mph; 2018: 91.2 mph
Exit velocity/Grounders – 2017: 83.8 mph; 2018: 88.1 mph
Exit velocity/Ball in the air – 2017: 91.5 mph; 2018: 95.1 mph

Clearly, Dansby is driving the ball with authority. But some will point to his .429 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) to suggest that he’s hitting into an extreme amount of luck so far.

BABIP Denier

I am not a believer in the concept of BABIP and luck. My take is that you make your own luck when you drive balls hard. Ergo, more barrels, more hits… and a higher BABIP.

In contrast a low BABIP will be correlated to weak contact… balls are easier to reach, easier to field for the defense. This philosophy also applies to FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) on the defensive side of the field, but that’s another topic.

While Swanson was struggling last year, his BABIP was .292 with a .232 batting average… about a 60 point differential.

This season – so far – he’s hitting .342 with a .429 BABIP… an 87 point difference. Part of that difference is made up with strikeouts: despite the early hitting successes, he’s still punching out about 22% of the time (his rate is slightly more than last year).

He’s also walking less: 5% of the time vs. 10.7% last season. This means he’s putting more balls in play, which is working right now because he’s hammering them. You’ll occasionally hear some Statcast data onthe subject, but it doesn’t take a stat geek to figure out that hard hit baseballs will lead to more hits.

There are 186 title-qualified batters in the majors right now: on average, their BABIP exceeds their average by 44 points. The leader is the A’s Matt Olson, with a staggering 177 point differential… which kinda goes with his 38.4% K-rate. Ian Happ is next at 160 points and a 47% K-rate.

Interestingly, everybody in the Top 20 for BABIP differential has a higher strikeout rate than Swanson – except for himself – he’s #19. But all of them are hard hitters, too. In addition to Olson and Happ, there’s names like Villar, Sano, Moncada, Cespedes, Pence, Gattis, and Judge.

While I’m here, Ryan Flaherty is #26 on that chart with an 82 point BABIP/AVG difference. You know how hard he’s hitting the ball, too… especially when he’s ticked off (Phillies, Alex Anothopoulos, etc.).

But with all of that, the question here is this: can Swanson keep this up?

His minor league numbers suggests the possibility that ‘adjustments’ may have occurred at various levels over his short minor league career:

2015 rookie ball and 2016 in High A: .289 and .333. Easy enough for an advanced hitter.
2016 in AA: .261 for the tougher league. Probably should have stayed a while longer.
2016 in the majors: .302, which itself might be the anomaly.
2017 in AAA for 2 weeks: .237, but that was while scuffling for the year. Likewise .232 in the majors.
2018: back with a vengeance: .342 so far.

We’ve seen this with good hitters at times: if they work to make the correct adjustments, they tend to come back a few months or a year after laying an egg and then demonstrate a large turn-around.

But what’s the adjustment? That’s where Swanson’s presto-chango stat lines still have me curious: sure, Spring numbers are generally useless, but he didn’t hit well at all in Florida this Winter. Like ‘Mendosa line’ bad. Yet suddenly a switch flipped and now he’s 9th in hitting in the majors.

Numbers are… not that different?

Brooks baseball does a wonderful job with hitter zone profiles and summaries of their styles. They point out – overall – that Swanson exhibits:

an ‘above average likelihood to swing and miss’ vs. breaking balls
a ‘high likelihood to swing and miss’ vs. offspeed pitches

He is hammering fastballs, though.

Swanson’s hitting zone profile for 2018 shows that pitchers are often still trying to beat him low and outside – easily the highest single pitch location rate thrown to him (12%).

This season, he’s already seen 57 pitches out there, swung at 15 and whiffed on 10. Those are higher rates than we saw in 2017.

So he’s not being pitched differently and not being more selective… what’s the difference?

I see fly ball rates up – by only 2%
I see ground ball rates down – by roughly the same 2%
line drive rates? Actually slightly down (0.4%)
He’s pulling the ball more (up 6%) with hits to center way down (8.5% reduction), though oppo-field socks are up close to 3%
Soft contact is down 4.2%… that’s all fangraphs data, though statcast seems to suggest he’s perhaps been better than that.

The best suggestion I have here is that he’s seeing the ball better and early success has in turn led to better confidence in his swing.

On his swing results, Swanson is actually swinging at more balls outside the strike zone (up 7-8%) – that’s commonly where he’s being pitched, as noted – but making better contact with them (up 4.3%). He is getting a higher percentage of balls in the strike zone than last year (up 3.4%), but making slightly less contact… even while swinging more (up 4%).

So he’s clearly being more aggressive (the fewer walks would tell you this), yet getting better results, especially in terms of seeing more solid contact.

Can he keep that up?

Confidence is a fragile thing, but with some successes against better pitching (e.g., the single off Syndergaard last night), that should continue. The numbers don’t seem to support a .342 average, but even if he went .280 for the rest of the year, that would put him in the mid-.280’s for the year and that would be an impressive comeback that seems to have arisen merely from little more than a more aggressive approach.

I would like to see him do a better job of laying off balls that are off the plate (though I do recall a couple of occasions when an umpire refused to allow him to do so by calling outside pitches as strikes). That would force more to be thrown in the K-zone, where he hits even better.

Next: Joey Bats... hits.

So this seemingly could go either way. More walks might lead to even better hitting, but the aggressive stance is producing results… so don’t mess with a streak?

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