One among my favourite articles to put in writing is the “you gained’t imagine how this man is succeeding” piece. You’ve seen me – and loads of different writers – break it out again and again. Perhaps it’s a reliever with a bizarre pitch, or a starter with a blazing fastball who’s nonetheless succeeding with secondaries. Maybe it’s a hitter excelling due to a novel method, or a slugger altering his recreation to prioritize one thing he didn’t earlier than. In any case, it’s enjoyable to subvert expectations, and it makes for a very good story in addition.
Spare some thought for the gamers who succeed by doing precisely what you suppose they’re doing, although. They may not garner as many headlines, however that doesn’t make what they’re doing any much less actual. I’ve a selected instance of this as we speak, somebody I hoped to put in writing about within the former model. I went searching for the one bizarre trick that made him tick, however I couldn’t discover one. Brent Rooker is succeeding with one extraordinarily regular trick: Each time he involves the plate, he tries to hit a house run.
Right here’s a consultant Rooker swing:
Right here’s one other:
You’ll discover just a few issues immediately. He swings laborious – his common swing velocity matches Bryce Harper and Matt Olson. He additionally swings with a pronounced uppercut. Most hitters hit extra house runs on excessive pitches, due to the legal guidelines of physics. Rooker doesn’t have a single homer within the higher third of the strike zone this yr; he’s both annihilating pitches down the center or lifting low balls over the fence.
This isn’t a swing designed for optimum contact. Amongst certified hitters, Rooker’s contact price is the second-lowest within the majors. Even for those who widen the pattern to incorporate everybody with 200 or extra plate appearances, he’s within the backside 10. As an alternative, as you may anticipate from that uppercut form, it’s a swing designed to carry the ball. Rooker makes his greatest contact on upward trajectories. His squared-up price is at its highest between 10 and 40 levels, with a reasonably constant sample:
His method mirrors his outcomes virtually completely. Rooker is twelfth in all of baseball with regards to house runs per plate look within the final two years, fractionally behind Kyle Schwarber and Yordan Alvarez. He boasts the ninth-lowest GB/FB ratio; if he hits the ball on the bottom, it’s accidentally. He has the fourth-highest strikeout price; his all-or-nothing method results in its fair proportion of nothing.
The one shocking factor about Rooker’s recreation is how unsurprising all of it is. He’s not fooling anybody with what he’s doing. He’s not even altering his method all that a lot, the way in which that almost all hitters do. He’s swinging at 71% of strikes total, a bit extra steadily than the league does as an entire (67%). When he will get to 2 strikes, he amps up his aggression, however not by as a lot as you’d anticipate. He swings at 84% of strikes, lower than the league (88%). His contact price ticks down in two-strike counts, whereas the typical hitter’s goes in the wrong way. When his again is towards the wall, Rooker merely modifications his recreation by lower than most do.
The results of that constant method is that Rooker strikes out fairly a bit when he reaches two-strike counts. Of the two-strike pitches he’s seen this yr, 27% have resulted in a strikeout, the eighth-highest mark within the majors. A unique method would seemingly result in fewer strikeouts: Rooker doesn’t attain two-strike counts significantly usually, he simply doesn’t ease off the gasoline as a lot as most hitters do when he will get there. He places much less emphasis on defending the plate and slows his swing by lower than the league common.
If that have been all that was happening, I’d say that this plan was a foul concept, however there’s a payoff right here. When Rooker does join with two strikes, he’s doing loads of harm. The league as an entire places up poor manufacturing on contact in two-strike counts. It’s for an apparent cause, specifically that for those who’re swinging defensively, you hit with much less authority. In two-strike counts, hitters have produced a .344 wOBACON, as in comparison with .370 in all different counts.
Rooker has a .493 wOBACON in two-strike counts. That may even understate his manufacturing; he’s produced the fourth-best xwOBACON (.529) in two-strike counts, behind solely Aaron Decide, Giancarlo Stanton, and Harper. The remainder of the highest 10 is an inventory of fearsome hitters: Rafael Devers, Shohei Ohtani, J.D. Martinez, Gunnar Henderson, Riley Greene, and Ronald Acuña Jr. Rooker isn’t their equal total, however he’s getting outcomes like theirs by taking his “A” swing extra usually, even when a miss means a strikeout.
Is that this keep-it-simple method working? It actually will depend on what you imply by working. Regardless of the ghastly swing-and-miss numbers and the pile of strikeouts, Rooker is doing higher than the league as an entire by way of two-strike manufacturing. As measured by run worth per 100 pitches, he’s barely higher than common, whereas the league is, naturally, precisely common.
It seems that Rooker’s power-on-contact ability makes up for his mountain of strikeouts. He’s third in all of baseball by way of wOBACON (manufacturing on contact) for the reason that begin of 2023, behind solely Decide and Ohtani. This isn’t a matter of some flukish luck on batted balls, both; he’s fifth in xwOBACON, the model that makes use of launch angle and exit velocity as a substitute of noticed outcomes. If you happen to’d favor barrels per batted ball, he’s eighth within the league. These aren’t cheapie homers. This isn’t a case of some house runs sneaking over the wall and making him look good. The facility’s actual.
There’s no must get too fancy in decoding these outcomes, as a result of they match virtually precisely with what you’d anticipate from his course of. In fact the man who swings laborious and tries to place the ball within the air does properly when he connects. In fact the man who accepts additional misses in disadvantageous counts to maintain taking full swings seems to be good when he makes contact.
Typically what you see is what you get. That simply leaves one query: Can pitchers provide you with a counter to Rooker’s method? One apparent avenue to pursue is to pitch him excessive within the zone. He does a lot better on pitches within the backside third due to the form of his swing. The issue with that’s apparent, although: Do you actually wish to feed the man who swings out of his footwear a gentle weight loss program of fastballs? Most pitchers throw fastballs excessive and secondary pitches low to match the trajectory of the pitches. Excessive breaking balls aren’t extraordinary, however they’re uncommon. Rooker may be a low-ball hitter, however he’s a robust man who takes huge swings, which makes him a fastball hitter too. Miss low along with your up-in-the-zone four-seamer, and he’ll make you pay.
The most effective answer that pitchers have provide you with is staying away from Rooker normally. He sees fewer fastballs and fewer strikes than the typical hitter, which makes nice sense. However that comes with downsides. Rooker is strolling 9.9% of the time this yr regardless of his contact points. The walks and homers imply that his strikeout price is extra of an annoyance than an issue.
It seems like there have to be some trick right here, however there simply isn’t. Positive, Rooker is working the next BABIP than you’d anticipate, but when it declined by 50 factors, he’d nonetheless have a wonderful batting line. Positive, good huge league pitchers can benefit from his swing, however once they don’t, he’ll make them pay. Our projection programs peg him for a batting line anyplace between 20% and 30% higher than league common the remainder of the yr, which is true consistent with his 2023 season and his profession numbers.
Sure, it seems that swinging for the fences with plus energy works similar to you’d anticipate it might. That ability has served the A’s properly for the previous two years – and realistically, it’d serve another person properly in three weeks or so. Nook outfield and DH will each be sought-after positions on the commerce deadline, and the A’s are clearly sellers. Rooker gained’t be a free agent till after the 2027 season, and he hasn’t even hit wage arbitration but. It’s not all sunshine and roses for a possible acquirer – Rooker has little defensive worth and is already 29 – however the pitch is straightforward right here: What you see is what you get, and what you see has been nice for 2 years working.
