Corey Dickerson Is Hunting Endangered Game

The Rays are big fans of Corey Dickerson. You don’t have to just take my word for it. Consider that the Rays exchanged a valuable trade commodity to get him. And since Dickerson has joined the roster, the Rays have at times gushed over his swing and his approach. They love his natural aggressiveness, and they love the way the ball comes off of the bat. Dickerson is skilled, for a purely offensive player, and if anything the Rays would like more hitters like him.

Dickerson is a great individual indicator of the Rays’ move toward a more aggressive lineup. As they say, Dickerson goes up there prepared to take a swing. Okay, now, think about aggressive hitters. Think about aggressive power hitters, and how they succeed, and how they fail. Dickerson has seen new opponents in a new league, but what they’re doing might in one sense not be surprising at all. Provided you forget about Dickerson’s background.

I didn’t actually set out to write this. I was writing about Jason Heyward, and when I looked at a certain spreadsheet, I noticed that Heyward this year has been seeing more fastballs. But I had a whole list at my disposal, and every list with a top has a bottom. Compared to 2015, Heyward’s fastball rate has gone up. The same could be said of, say, Kole Calhoun, and Angel Pagan. Yet compared to 2015, Corey Dickerson’s fastball rate has gone down. Way down. Down, in fact, more than anyone else’s. Dickerson’s rate is down more than 11 percentage points, from about 66% to roughly 55%.

This early in the season, unbalanced schedules can have something to do with that. For example, Christian Yelich‘s fastball rate is down, but so is Giancarlo Stanton‘s, nearly as much. Tons of Royals are seeing lower fastball rates. So are some Orioles. But I don’t think this explains Dickerson. Steven Souza‘s rate is way up. So is Logan Forsythe’s. So is Desmond Jennings‘! We have Dickerson at -11 points, and the nearest regular Rays player is at +1 point. As an alternative measure, I looked at the pitchers Dickerson has faced to this point. Their average fastball rate is very nearly the league-average fastball rate. What this indicates to me is something deliberate, something strategic. Opponents haven’t wanted Dickerson to see so many fastballs. They want to use his aggressiveness against him.

You might wonder about the fact that Dickerson used to play half the time in Coors Field. Maybe his old fastball rates used to be higher because pitchers didn’t trust secondary stuff in Colorado? But last season, his home and road fastball rates were essentially identical. The season before, he saw more fastballs on the road. So this doesn’t help, and we go back to the hypothesis. Pitchers now want to be less fastball-friendly. They figure Dickerson might be hunting fastballs, so they want to make those same fastballs more scarce.

The usage is down across the board, covering righties and lefties and all situations. First pitch? Dickerson ahead? Dickerson behind? Fewer fastballs, no matter what. And this is probably related to the fact that Dickerson is also making a career-low amount of contact. His contact rate is down about 10 percentage points, to the 60s, where it becomes more difficult to produce. If you’re going to be a helpful player with that many swings and misses, you need to be hitting for power. Thankfully for Dickerson, he’s sitting on an ISO closer to .300 than .200.

That’s one of the things, here. Pitchers have adjusted to Dickerson, but he still has an above-average wRC+, even with a pathetically low average on balls in play. Dickerson has done well to take advantage of the hard pitches he has still seen. All but one of his extra-base hits have come against hard pitches. All but four of his hits overall have come against hard pitches. Alternatively, look at Dickerson’s pitch-type run values. He’s been about six runs above average against fastballs and cutters, and about five runs below average against everything else, giving a gap between the two of +10.4 runs. This is one of baseball’s very biggest gaps in the early going. Gregory Polanco leads the way at +13.0, but Dickerson isn’t far behind, and he’s got way fewer plate appearances.

Dickerson isn’t yet succeeding against secondary stuff. And he hasn’t yet had to. He might actually be doubling down on his fastball hunting. This is where Baseball Savant and Statcast can come in handy. Dickerson has a history of hitting fastballs in the air. But last season, in terms of batted-ball speed against fastballs, Dickerson ranked in the 31st percentile. In the early going this season, in the same statistic, Dickerson ranks in the 94th percentile. His average exit velocity here is up eight ticks, and that’s a substantial leap. It’s too early to be totally locked in, but what it could indicate is that Dickerson is looking for fastballs now more than ever, and that’s why pitchers have worked him as they have. As a Rockies player, he might’ve been more balanced. Aggressive, but balanced. With the Rays, it looks like Dickerson wants fastballs, and pitchers have picked up on that. No one yet is “winning,” but there’s time left to go.

It’s kind of the damnedest thing. Through last season, Dickerson was fantastic against secondary stuff. He was one of the league leaders. Now it’s like he’s a similar hitter, but also a very different hitter, with a very different game plan. Dickerson didn’t see all that many secondary pitches with the Rockies because he hit those pitches. He was aggressive, but he wasn’t so vulnerable. Now you could say he’s more classically aggressive. At least, based on the attack.

If you want information on a hitter, you can look at how he’s hitting. If you want more information on a hitter, you can look at how he’s being pitched. Those numbers aren’t going to lie to you, because they’re all in the business of trying to win, those 30 teams, and almost every at-bat is important. What pitchers are telling us is that Dickerson suddenly looks like a fearsome fastball basher. If that’s true, then we’ll see if Dickerson does enough fastball bashing to make up for everything else. I didn’t expect to get here, based on Dickerson’s own history, but what fun is the expected?





Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.

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Dick Monfort
7 years ago

I’m surprised there’s any game to hunt at all in Tampa. Had to be a culture shock coming from Colorado.