Struggling hitters can find reason for optimism by diving into the numbers

Cincinnati Reds' Joey Votto (19) is hit by a pitch in the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves Friday, April 8, 2022, in Atlanta. Votto entered play this weekend hitting below .125. (John Bazemore/AP Photo)

You can find the numbers anywhere, just as there’s a myriad of places to find opinions about why offence is down across the major leagues.

So, I wondered: does it matter to a scuffling hitter (I loathe using “slumping” until the season is well underway) that he might have more fellow travellers than usual among his peers? Does company make misery any better?

Sort of. As Toronto Blue Jays assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense told us on Blair and Barker“It’s natural for anybody in a game where there are so many numbers attached to it to compare themselves and try to find comfort in something.” Well … sure it is.

Thank heavens, then, for the ability to take refuge in analytics, right? “One hundred per cent,” said Mense, noting that anything that can be “parsed as a positive,” is fair game in trying to keep a hitter’s head up. No wonder, then, that when Dante Bichette talked about son Bo’s stuttering start, he referred to underlying numbers such as average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage, both of which suggested that hard luck had played a role. Interestingly, few young players on the Blue Jays profess less interest in stuff like that than – you guessed it – Bo Bichette.

Dave Hudgens, who for part of his three years as Blue Jays bench coach moonlighted as an assistant to hitting instructor Guillermo Martinez, has been handed a new role in 2022 as “hitting strategist,” a position explained by our Shi Davidi in this spring training read.

I asked him whether hitters in an early-season funk spent much time wondering how much is them and how much is the ball or pitching technology. “Maybe when they’re sitting around and somebody mentions it to them,” he said, shrugging. “When they come in here, they’re thinking about their swing and their approach.

“The numbers are down across baseball and there are probably reasons for it, but right now I think most of us believe it will all catch up when summer comes around. Right now, you try to focus on staying with what works for each player and what you are trying to do as a team. You don’t jump around and say ‘Oh, I’ll try this. I’ll try that.’ You stick with what you know and the types of players you have and you stay confident with your work and preparation.”

But like Mense, Hudgens believes that in addition to being instructive and prescriptive, there can be mental gold mined from the current array of technological and analytical weaponry. “Maybe it’s just rationale, but if you look at, say, barrel percentage and exit velocity … decisions in the strike zone … see all the ground balls you’re hitting … you can find cracks in the armour. You know guys have always been told, ‘Hey, you’re hitting the ball hard but right at people. It’s coming around.’ Now, we have real numbers to back it up.”

I’ve always thought that more than anything else a good hitter needs to be an eternal optimist. That it takes a special individual to be carrying an 0-fer over five days and remain convinced that the next pitch is an opportunity for a turnaround. In a sport that allows you to fail two-thirds of the time and still put you in its hall of fame, everybody should have the right to their own analytical silver lining.

HIT AND RUN

• It isn’t his fault he has a team of skillet-gloved fielders, but I have to think Joe Girardi’s on thin ice as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. He wasn’t hired by president David Dombrowski, has already seen the general manager who did so – Matt Klentak – turfed in favor of Sam Fuld, the club didn’t guarantee his 2023 option, and – well, there was that whole collapse on Thursday night. Dombrowski isn’t afraid to move quickly: In 2002, his first year as Detroit Tigers president, he fired manager Phil Garner and general manager Randy Smith after just six games. Dombrowski assumed the GM’s role and Luis Pujols – formerly a Montreal Expos coach on Felipe Alou’s staff – managed the team the rest of the way.

• The Seattle Mariners want to win in 2022, but that didn’t prevent them from letting prospects Matt Brash and George Kirby go head-to-head in spring training for a starter’s job. Brash, from Kingston, Ont., won but after lasting just five innings total in his last two starts he’s been sent down to Triple-A Tacoma and told he will only make it back to the majors this season as a reliever, even though his long-term future is as a starter. Sounds like a plan, eh, Nate Pearson?

• Make book on this: The whole Trevor Story and Boston Red Sox thing isn’t going to work out. Story was called out by Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe for not showing up to fall on his verbal sword this week after he was roasted by Fenway Park boo-birds for a four-strikeout game. Story said he’d retreated to the batting cage, apparently unaware that he was in demand. Uh-huh. Few writers any more have Shaughnessy’s power to skew a fan-base’s perception of a player and Story has already heard comparisons to free-agent bust Carl Crawford, who signed a seven-year, $142-million deal in December 2010 and was dumped after hitting .260 over 161 games. The guess here is no city is giving thanks for expanded playoffs the way Boston is giving thanks: In the last 20 years, only four teams have lost 16 of their first 26 games like the Red Sox and gone on to make the playoffs, and only the 2007 Colorado Rockies went to the World Series.

• Mense said Santiago Espinal’s increased muscle has had psychological as well as practical impacts. Espinal’s glove is his calling card – he is second among American League second basemen in outs above average and defensive runs saved – but he also leads the Blue Jays in doubles and is third in extra-base hits. “It’s allowed him to know that if he puts his best swing on a ball, it will put the ball over somebody’s head or over the fence,” said Mense. “In the past, he would really have to get into something to put the ball over a head or wall. So, when he goes to the plate, he knows he can take chances.”

THE ENDGAME

Brilliant read by ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez on Jose Ramirez’s contract negotiations with the Cleveland Guardians that reinforces not only that he came this close to being a member of the Toronto Blue Jays but that he had a whole group of handlers telling him he should refrain from signing an extension with the Guardians and focus on his new team. Now, nothing’s ever done until it’s done (see: Michael Brantley and the Blue Jays), but industry sources say three of Randal Grichuk, Cavan Biggio, Alejandro Kirk and Pearson would have been the package. Yes, they were willing to deal without Gabriel Moreno or Orelvis Martinez being involved. I’m generally all for a dude doing right by his team and like the idea of a whole career being with one team and, yes, I’m content with Espinal as my every-day second baseman. But, man, Ramirez in this lineup …

Jeff Blair hosts Blair & Barker from 10-noon ET on Sportsnet 590 The Fan as well as Blue Jays Talk.

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