Andrew Benintendi Is a Batted Ball Profile Chameleon

The ongoing conversation as to whether a hitter can control where they hit the ball has always confused me. As a hitter, you tailor your swing for a specific batted ball profile and come to an understanding of the types of pitches you can handle and the types you cannot. Within that context, your swing might be malleable enough to produce different types of hard contact, but if it isn’t, then you have a plan for where adjustments can be made. From that perspective, a hitter has every bit of control over where they’re going to hit the ball, even it’s more of a long-term endeavor.

On the other hand, there is the dilemma of hitting what you get, and from pitcher to pitcher, that will vary. Each pitcher has a different plan of attack, whether it’s in the pitches themselves, command of specific areas of the zone, arm slot, etc. Most hitters have limitations, and it’s the job of the pitcher to pitch to those limitations. A hitter can have a specific set of strengths that can’t be bent much at all, but then there are hitters who can change their strengths, or more specifically their batted profile, to cater to where they are playing.

In any specific matchup, it might be hard to execute on that plan. For example, we often think about situational hitting and moving runners over or trying to hit a sacrifice fly. That is difficult to do if you don’t get the pitch to do it or don’t have the motor skills to control your body with a changing set of pitch speeds and locations. But when zooming out and looking at batted ball profile, some hitters can change with time. One example of that is Andrew Benintendi.

Like others, Benintendi was probably a beneficiary of the juiced ball era, but one thing that he did incredibly well during his stint in Boston was pepper fly balls off the Green Monster in Fenway. Take a look at a few of his swings from 2018:

These balls weren’t scorched, but they played perfectly into the park’s dimensions and let Benintendi take advantage of a skill he had in his swing to hit long fly balls to left center field. In the second clip, you can see Joey Gallo tail off from attacking the fly ball almost immediately. In another field, he might have given it a run, but in Fenway, it’s an automatic double. This type of hit was vintage Benintendi, something his opposite field fly ball rates in Boston further illustrate:

In 2018, Benintendi hit 42.7% of his fly balls to the opposite field — the second-highest mark of his tenure in Boston. In 2019 and ’20, that rate fell to 38.3% and 37.5%, respectively. That might not seem like a drastic difference, but when you have over 400 batted balls in a season, a couple of percentage points is over a dozen batted balls. In other words, those are missed opportunities for doubles off the wall.

Benintendi was traded to the Royals before the 2021 season, looking to bounce back from a rough pandemic year, and his power recovered in Kaufmann Stadium: 17 home runs with a .166 ISO, the second-highest full season mark in his career behind only 2018. He wasn’t drawing as many walks as he did earlier in his career, so his batted balls were the main source of his improved production. In fact, his batted ball profile recovered to showcase what propelled him in Boston.

Benintendi’s rate of opposite field fly balls came back strong, nearly equaling his 2018 mark at 42.4%. That 2021 season was the first in his career where he didn’t just buy into opposite field fly balls, though; he also sold out on hitting the ball in the air to all fields. His rate of fly balls to the pull side jumped up to a mark that he hadn’t reached since his rookie campaign: 23.7%, after fluctuating between 17–18% from 2018 to ’20.

That contributed to the home run recovery, but even with the extra power, Benintendi’s production was still just average. He needed his pitch selection skills to match up with his resurgent batted ball profile — something he talked about in an interview toward the end of spring training in 2022. Improved plate discipline could have a multi-beneficial effect on any hitter, and it seemed to do exactly that for Benintendi; in his first 390 plate appearances, he slashed .320/.387/.398, which was good for a 126 wRC+. He was hitting more ground balls than was ideal, but his uptick in opposite field fly balls (53.4%) made up for his overall decrease in fly ball rate. In other words, he was able to mitigate hitting fewer fly balls by being more accurate with where he hit them.

After the Yankees acquired Benintendi at the trade deadline, Joshua Diemert of Pinstripe Alley speculated that his new stadium could be a problem for him. In terms of square footage, Kaufmann has more area in the outfield than any other park, which lets a hitter like Benintendi play with all that space through a combination of line drives to all fields and long fly balls. Realistically, only elite outfield combinations can cover all that space. Yankee Stadium, though, wouldn’t be quite as forgiving, as it’s in the bottom four of outfield square footage. Not ideal for Benintendi, right?

Benintendi played just 33 games in the Bronx before going on the shelf with a season-ending hamate bone fracture, but in that time, he completely morphed as a hitter… again!

As you can see, his fly ball and pull rates shot up by about 10 percentage points each from his time with the Royals. Additionally, he completely changed his line drive profile to account for the short porch in right field; you don’t need to hit them high to get them over that wall just 314 feet away. His 111 wRC+ and batted ball profile change suggest he could be a productive hitter with this style as well.

What does this mean for Guaranteed Rate Field? I’d expect to see a middle ground between the two 2022 versions of Benintendi. I know this exercise has some holes, but if you take Statcast’s Expected Home Runs by Park and look at his projected career totals, Guaranteed Rate is fourth on his list at 106 home runs, compared to his actual career total of 75. His knack for low fly balls hit to the pull side and high fly balls hit to the opposite field is a good fit for his new home in Chicago. And if his previous stops have shown anything, it’s that he will make the necessary adjustments in his swing to play with the particular dimensions of his park. It’s not surprising he picked this field, as it will allow his power to send balls over the fence instead of deep into gaps.

This is a unique skill that most hitters don’t have in their bag of tricks; it takes a high level of understanding of your own body and swing to pull off something like this. When you don’t hit the ball all that hard, there is less room for error, but one way to make up for that is being adaptable and willing to change. For that reason, I will always be fascinated by Benintendi, and I’m excited to see what he does in the next five years in Chicago.