FG on Fox: What’s Wrong With Yasiel Puig’s Swing?
It seems like forever ago now, but earlier — in this very season! — Yasiel Puig was probably the hottest hitter in baseball. A blistering month of May lifted his OPS into four-digit territory, and articles like, say, this one were getting written:
We’re talking about a guy who, through this point in his career, has been a better hitter than almost all of the greatest hitters of all-time. And he seems to be getting better. The story of Puig’s rookie year focused heavily on the parts of his game that reminded everyone of Manny Ramirez. Perhaps we shouldn’t miss out on the fact that he’s hitting like an in-his-prime Manny Ramirez as well.
Nothing about that block quote was wrong. Nothing about that article was wrong. Puig was an absolute terror, and he was showing signs of getting even better. Earlier — in this very season! — Puig looked like one of the very most valuable players. But the minute you try to predict baseball, it shapeshifts into something unrecognizable and mean, and now articles like, say, this one are getting written:
OK, enough. Enough waiting for the Golden Boy to become an overnight sensation or last year’s overnight sensation to get going again.
[…]
It’s time to start Andre Ethier in center again.
You probably don’t need to get caught up, but I’ll catch you up. Puig at the end of July: .958 OPS. Puig since the start of August: .523 OPS. That .523 OPS comes with zero homers and three doubles, each of them separated by more than a week. Puig drove in a run the other day. It was the first time he’d done that since August 15. There are luck-slumps and there are performance-slumps, and right now, Yasiel Puig is stuck in a performance-slump that everyone’s noticed.
Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.
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.
Same thing happened to Cespedes over time. Hmmm.
This is the thing. No one knows what goes in in the Cuban League. Could he have been a serious PED user back then, then quit when he got to the States? Is he a bit less strong, a bit less quick, a bit slower to recover from muscle fatigue and minor injury? Circumstantially, the evidence fits for both of them.
Hmm very interesting thought. I’d be interested to see what Jose Abreu’s sophomore campaign looks like.
I think his back leg looks much stiffer through contact in the earlier swings. If you watch his right knee, it seems to buckle and throw his upper half off balance in the more recent swings. Watch his belt line and you can see his lower half collapsing (much more obvious in the 2nd gif).
He is slower in getting his hands back on the preload, thus either not completely getting his hands ready if he rushes the preload or if a complete preload takes place he is slow on the swing which brings the ground ball outs.
Nice article. I know that it is all random, but Puig had had this odd pattern of good month, bad month, that he had been doing every month of his career until this month, when it became good month, bad month, bad month. Is there any way to see if there is anything to that pattern, I know some analysts would just say it was the league adjusting, then him, but I don’t buy it when that’s the storyline for the first 8 months of his career, you don’t go from hitting like Barry Bonds to hitting like Bobby Bonds Jr month to month like that just due to adjustments, bad luck I can see, and randomness, but do you see anything else?
See Kal Daniels.
I suffered from injury related slumps my entire career.
Sincerely,
Kal “Glass” Daniels
fatigue
Two words. Mark Mcguire.