A Very Necessary Zack Cozart Follow-Up

Every year we go through the same routine. A previously unimpressive player has a couple great months and we wonder if we’re observing something new and meaningful or if it’s simply random variation and the regression monster is coming. I haven’t done a thorough analysis, but I’d imagine a larger percentage of articles written on sites like this during the first months contain the sentiment “This sure looks new and interesting, but it’s just too early to tell.”

Frequently, we don’t follow up on these analyses. There’s simply too much going on throughout the game and there usually isn’t much to add to the original article other than thumbs up or down. Last year, one such article that actually merited a follow-up was this one concerning Zack Cozart’s best 40 games. After three seasons of well below-average offense, the slick-fielding shortstop was crushing the ball into late May. I pointed out that Cozart seemed to have developed a new approach that generated harder contact and more pulled fly balls, which was supported by some comments by Cozart himself regarding a conversation he’d had with Barry Larkin during Spring Training.

Three weeks after the article appeared on the site, Zack Cozart suffered a nasty right-knee injury and was sidelined for the remainder of the season. That meant I would have to wait more than a full calendar year to approach a sufficiently large sample to determine if Cozart had really improved or if we were looking at some well-timed good fortune. Thirteen months after Cozart’s knee gave out, we have our answer: Zack Cozart can hit.

You can summarize Cozart’s 2015 improvements by looking at his walk and home-run rates, both of which have carried over to 2016:

Zack Cozart, Old and New
Split PA 1B% 2B+3B% HR% BB+HBP% BABIP HR/FB% wRC+
2011-2014 1799 15.6% 5.2% 1.8% 5.2% 0.276 6.7% 74
2015 214 14.0% 5.1% 4.2% 7.5% 0.258 12.9% 104
2016 335 13.4% 6.9% 4.2% 7.2% 0.273 13.5% 105

A good defensive shortstop who runs the bases well is going to have a job as long as he isn’t a terrible hitter. That more or less described Cozart before 2015. Now, though, he’s now combining those skills with a .316 OBP and .215 ISO. A good defensive shortstop who runs the base well and produces league-average offense is a borderline All-Star.

Looking more closely, Cozart’s adjustment in favor of pulling the ball in the air isn’t quite as pronounced in 2016 as it was a year ago, but his general shift toward trying to crush the inside part of the ball remains. Not only has Cozart added 80 more games of this level of performance to his resume, but it’s particularly compelling that he’s doing so after a very long layoff due to a serious knee injury.

Everyone has a career year and players will tell you that they go through stages where they are simply seeing the ball well or their swing mechanics are really in sync. Cozart’s situation represents a compelling argument in favor of him having truly become a different hitter, as it seems like all of his 2015 gains would have been disrupted if they were simply the product of timing.

We’re now 549 plate appearances into the new Cozart, and while that might not be enough if his gains came in the form of BABIP or UZR, I’m comfortable given that his gains have come in the walk and power departments over two seasons separated by serious injury.

Many of you probably find Cozart interesting right now because he’s a trade candidate in a market that isn’t exactly flush with impact players. He checks all the boxes: plays for a bad team, will be a free agent after next season, and has a small enough salary as to allow almost any team to absorb his paycheck midseason. Given that he’s a good defender at short, he’s an option for essentially every contender that needs a middle infielder and even teams that have essentially fallen out of the race but are close enough to contend next year.

But I’m interested in Cozart for a different reason. Cozart is fascinating because he’s a player who suddenly improved well after his major-league debut and beyond that window of time we consider to be a normal development stage. These kinds of adjustments are fascinating, especially for hitters, because it’s difficult to imagine that improving significantly as a hitter could be this straightforward.

Lesser amateurs and minor leaguers work tirelessly to find their way into the big leagues, and big-league hitters are constantly trying to improve, yet somehow a player might reach his age-29 season before someone makes the exact right suggestion to revolutionizes his game. We talk all the time about how teammates, coaches, and front offices are working to help players capitalize on every possible scrap of talent, but the right answer still eludes them in some cases. If Cozart can go from a 74 wRC+ career to a 105 wRC+ guy because of an off-the-cuff comment by Barry Larkin, imagine what other talent is lurking out there that we can’t see.

Cozart, like a number of examples before him, is a reminder that the difference between barely MLB-caliber and borderline-star-level performance is razor thin. Cozart didn’t learn any new skills or change his training regimen. He merely started going to the plate with a slightly different mindset and goal in mind.

I wouldn’t bet on Cozart sustaining his full five-win pace for the foreseeable future, but his improved power and elevated walk rate should hopefully earn him a solid arbitration bump for 2017 and a nice deal beyond that. He will still have to fight off aging and a league that will learn to pitch him differently, but for in short term Cozart has turned himself into a legitimate offensive contributor.





Neil Weinberg is the Site Educator at FanGraphs and can be found writing enthusiastically about the Detroit Tigers at New English D. Follow and interact with him on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44.

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Lunch Anglemember
7 years ago

Re: Larkin’s and Cozart’s comments: what is the “inside part of the ball” that he’s trying to crush?