How Brian Dozier Put Together a Season for the Ages

Yes, it’s true that this is the year of the second baseman. As a group, second basemen are putting up better offensive numbers than they have in nearly a century, and are outhitting their defensively challenged counterparts in left field for the first time in the history of the live-ball era, dating back to 1920. And yes, it’s true that power across the sport is nearly at an all-time high. The league’s power output has returned to peak steroid-era levels, with this year’s isolated slugging percentage and home runs per plate appearance trailing only the year 2000 as the most power-laden season in the game’s history.

Those trends are real, and they should help shape the way we evaluate hitter’s performances in 2016. But don’t let those trends fool you: Brian Dozier is truly having a season for the ages.

The Minnesota Twins’ second baseman clubbed three home runs against Kansas City on Monday afternoon, bringing his season total to 38. Only Mark Trumbo has hit more homers than Dozier for the season; only David Ortiz has a higher ISO. Dozier’s homered eight times in the last week and has been baseball’s most valuable player in the second half according to WAR. His .298 ISO is the highest unadjusted figure in the expansion era (1961-present) for a second baseman and the highest by any second baseman not named Rogers Hornsby in baseball history.

And while we know to take that unadjusted figure with a grain of salt due to the aforementioned trends, Dozier’s power output is historic even after being adjusted for context:

Not since peak-Ryne Sandberg has a second baseman hit for power the way Dozier has this season, and Dozier’s overall batting line goes toe-to-toe with any line the Cubs’ Hall of Famer ever put up. Last year, Dozier was barely a league-average hitter. Near the end of May, he was batting .199 with a paltry four home runs. Now, he’s muscling up alongside Hall of Famers.

Our own David Laurila spoke with Dozier about his approach last month, and Dozier spoke like a hitter who understood not only how to properly gauge player evaluaton in 2016, but how to properly gauge his own strengths. “You have to figure out what type of player you are — what type of hitter you are,” he said. “Once you find that, you stick with it. You can try to make adjustments throughout your career, but you should never lose sight of your strengths.”

Sticking with his strengths and making small adjustments to maximize those strengths is exactly how Brian Dozier has put his name alongside some of baseball’s all-time great second baseman in the power department. Dozier, of course, is a hitter of extremes. He’s got baseball’s highest pull rate. He’s got baseball’s fifth-highest fly-ball rate. Put those two together, and you wind up with this:

Plate appearances ending in a pulled air ball

1. Brian Dozier, 27.1%
2. Stephen Vogt, 26.2%
3. Nolan Arenado, 24.3%

Nobody pulls the ball in the air more than Dozier. To gain a little more perspective about what goes into that approach and how it works, I present the following image, showing some of Dozier’s tendencies since 2014 (all from catcher’s perspective):

We’ll work across that from left to right. On the left, ground-ball rate, by zone, with red indicating more grounders. The grounders come when Dozier swings away, and low. The air balls come when Dozier swings inner third, and up. Dozier wants the air balls, because of that middle image, which documents isolated slugging. His power output, naturally, is at its highest on those inner-third pitches where he can get the ball in the air. The third image, showing runs above average per pitch, is the culmination of the first two: the outer third is not Dozier’s friend. The inner third is.

We know Dozier’s strengths. Dozier knows Dozier’s strengths. But now, back to his quote about making small adjustments to maximize those strengths:

That’s Dozier’s swing rate by year. In 2014, the first year in which he was an above-average hitter, there wasn’t a clear plan of attack. The swings were kind of all over the place, and even when he did swing inside, he too often swung low. In 2015, he became more aggressive, but he became more aggressive everywhere. Still too many swings on that outer third which led to ground balls and weak contact. And then you see this year. Pitchers are attacking Dozier low-and-away as often as ever, but he’s not biting. Instead, he’s focused all his attention toward that inner third. A pitcher’s approach against a batter only works if the batter lets it.

To put numbers to that image:

Dozier told our own Eno Sarris back in June about the tee work he does to focus on the inside pitch. It’s similar what Carlos Correa does: put the tee as far inside as possible to where you can keep the hands close to your body and still get extension. A related screengrab from the second of Dozier’s three Labor Day dingers:

The pitch is on the inner half, as so many of Dozier’s home runs have been this year. The hands are in close to the body and the barrel is still extended, as they always are. The ball off his bat landed in the seats thrice, as it had 35 times prior. And Dozier’s name crept up alongside a group full of Hall of Famers in the power department, as precisely no one could have expected at the season’s start. It’s good to know your strengths. Even better to act on them.