Jason Heyward, Hard at Work
The easiest yes you’ll get in sports is by asking anyone on the field if spring training should be shorter. They agree almost unanimously. The players especially think so, since they’ve been working all offseason, too. The days of coming into town 15 pounds overweight and stepping on the mound or to the plate for the first time in months — those are long gone. Players have been working since after Thanksgiving, and maybe even earlier in some cases.
Players like Jason Heyward, who just came off the worst year of his career with the bat, might have been working even harder. There’s so much to prove. At least in Heyward’s case, the problem might be obvious and the solution seems to be in hand. At least theoretically.
Look back over Heyward’s career, and his weakness is glaring and obvious. Sure, he doesn’t do amazingly on pitches on the outside corner, but neither does the league. But, while the league has a nice large hot spot down the middle, Heyward’s is small. It’s small because that weakness on the inside part of the plate pushes so far into the zone.
Consider this heat map from last season. It depicts Heyward’s isolated slugging by pitch location.
If it’s easy enough for us to identify this relative weakness, you can expect that major-league pitchers are aware of it, too. The data certainly suggests they’re aware of it. Last year, there weren’t many hitters who saw more inside fastballs than Heyward did.
| Player | OPS Inside | Results | % of Pitches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yasiel Puig | 1.086 | 582 | 45.1 |
| Jose Abreu | 0.669 | 1188 | 44.0 |
| Adrian Beltre | 1.003 | 1044 | 42.7 |
| Jason Heyward | 0.386 | 973 | 42.7 |
| Ryan Braun | 0.565 | 888 | 42.2 |
| Matt Holliday | 0.424 | 651 | 41.7 |
| David Freese | 0.836 | 858 | 41.6 |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 0.640 | 967 | 41.5 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 0.500 | 380 | 41.5 |
| DJ LeMahieu | 0.840 | 1060 | 41.1 |
You can see he didn’t do much with those pitches either. That .386 OPS was the 12th-worst OPS on the inside third of the strike zone among the 238 players with at least 100 pitches seen on the inside third this year. He does not like the ball there.
It’s worth pointing out that he hasn’t always had this problem. There was, of course, 2012, when he hit 27 home runs. That year, his heat map looked like this.
Looking for explanations, you immediately think of mechanics, because Heyward has had famously wiggly hands and a complicated swing. So let’s look at a 2012 swing:
And now a 2016 one:
What leaps off the virtual page for me is how close to his body his hands are tucked in that 2016 clip. If you’re that far in, your first move has to be away from your body. And then back. That creates another step, and more time in between the beginning of your swing and contact. That could hurt you, especially on pitches inside.
The good news is that Heyward knows all of this. And he’s gone to work. Early images from his offseason hitting sessions seem to suggest that the change in his swing is stark. Twitter user Corey Freedman put one of those practice swings up against a 2016 season to highlight the differences.
best I can do rn. Hard to find a longer side angle from 2016 showing full swing/load. pic.twitter.com/NbNK4E4WzJ
— Corey Freedman (@corey_cubs) December 20, 2016
You’ll notice, from the side, that his hips are clearing faster and more aggressively. That might be easier in the offseason against a soft tosser or off a tee, but he’s also made it easier on himself by not being as closed off before he starts his swing. His hips are more parallel to the plate than before, more open before he starts. It also looks like his bat ‘wraps’ less — it’s less parallel to the ground as his swing starts.
What’s most interesting to me, though, is that he’s added an early move with his hands, before he gets into his load. Watch the very beginning of this video.
We’ll call that a change in hands slot. Heyward is bringing his hands down, that’s true, but he’s also pulling his hands away from his body. Paradoxically, that might make him faster. Yes, it’s another move in a complicated swing, but it’s a move that will set him up so that the first real move — the first move in his swing designed to actually strike the ball — that first move will be towards his body. He’s eliminating the need to push his hands away from his body during the swing by setting his hands up further away.
He won’t know if it’s working until at least spring training, and even then, it’ll take time to familiarize himself with this new swing, to learn at which moment to pull the trigger. And so maybe spring training will be just long enough for Heyward. Even if he has been working all offseason long.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Eno knows pitchers. Eno knows hitters. Eno knows how to write a great article.
In a vacuum this may seem like potential progress, but as a Braves fan I’ve been watching Jason Heyward make dramatic swing changes ever since his first year. He’s crowded the plate, he’s backed off. His setup has been straight up, he’s been in a deep crouch. He’s had busy hands and then they’re quiet. And now this drop in his hands before load? I think it’s all become overwhelming, and he no longer has a natural, “I don’t have to think about it” swing. Count me among those that feel Jason Heyward just might be a broken hitter.
Couldn’t agree more with this. I was at his first game when he homered off Zambrano. That swing was VICIOUS! Ever since his rookie year I have felt his swing looked more and more awkward and it hasn’t fixed the inevitable skull a ball straight into the plate and out toward 2nd base.
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I watched almost every at bat of the playoffs last year and I was convinced that Jason was deciding to swing/take before the pitch was thrown. If you saw what he was taking and what he was swinging at…it was atrocious. He’ll only be a good defensive 4th outfielder in 2-3 years and he still got paid.
Is it just me or do they write about Jason Heyward WAYYY too much on this site?
It’s just you
So much talk about a bad player maybe it is just me. Hell, why not write more articles about BJ Upton trying to get his swing back right?
You seem to be conveniently forgetting his 118 wRC+ from 2010 to 2015 while he was arguably the best defensive OF in the world.
Right….um ….late inning defensive replacement 4th outfielder in 2-3 years like I just said…so you’re actually arguing my point…and his past numbers wont have a leg to stand on after a few years of Ender Inciarte defense.
Even if I agreed with your assessment (which I don’t, or at least not your cavalier certainty of it), Heyward still commands vast resources from one of the most prominent teams in baseball. So even if he was on track to be a 4th outfielder in 2 years, that in itself would be a noteworthy story.
It would be noteworthy only for the fact that any team that has him on their bench will be paying him 20 mil.
Realizing in advance that you’re probably not prepared to listen and/or change your mind on this, I’ll bite:
Jason Heyward had an interview during his rookie year about his plate discipline (which has generally been above average throughout his career) in which he stated that he can usually tell if it’s going to be a fastball, breaking ball or changeup by watching the spin of the ball. A lot of big leaguers do, but it’s still an asset and I strongly doubt that facet of Heyward’s game has eroded. Jason Heyward is a big human being with some very long levers and a busy swing that has gotten pretty complicated likely due to years and years of tinkering for an answer. It’s much more likely that his mechanics are a mess, and much less likely that pitch recognition has gotten categorically bad. A simple look at his Z-swing rates debunks that.
I’ll always root for Heyward to pull it together. He’s a very likable guy. He also played high school baseball for Henry County High School in McDonough, GA. I was on the fire department with them during his high school days and got the check out his games. It’s also safe to say that most of Braves Country is pulling for him.
That was actually really insightful thx…however did you see him swing at pitches that were in the dirt? or watch a mid 80’s change-up float right over the middle of the plate? So was he watching the spin of the ball as it bounced up to the catcher for a swinging strike?
“It’s also safe to say that most of Braves Country is pulling for him”
This is true.
Heyward is noteworthy because hitters don’t suddenly break like this. He was a phenom in his rookie year and was expected to be a superstar for many, many years (J-Hey Kid). If 2016 Heyward is the best Heyward has left, it’ll be one of the biggest collapses in baseball history, especially with the contract he signed.
yeah he dropped 50 points in wRC+ from 2015-2016, that’s pretty interesting.
And Harper dropped 85!
I give this article 5 stars.
Been watching Heyward for a couple of years and last year he was slightly dropping his back shoulder as he swung resulting in his hands dipping below the ball. Would explain his popups and weak contact. Sometimes he doesn’t even fully load. Watch Joey Votto once he loads and before his bat begins moving. He doesn’t dip his hands a centimeter. His hands look fast enough to me. His problems appear more along the lines of mental paralysis. He obviously has a lot of movement and pulls the trigger slightly late a lot. Also telling to me is that he seemed reluctant to make mechanical adjustments all last year despite spiraling downward most of the year.
I’d have to imagine it is tough to change swing mechanics mid-year. There’s probably a reason he waited until the offseason. You have to consider that no one wants to fix Jason Heyward as much as Jason Heyward does.
Good stuff. Hoping that they started early enough that he can clear his head in time for the regular season. A lot has been made of this being sort of a mental issue, where he loses confidence and starts tinkering. Maybe the World Series swagger will help?
While I do not like his swing from last year, the way he jumps at the ball in his new swing is pretty bad also. In a way it sort of reminds of what Bryce Harper does. And while Bryce Harper is an elite hitter, I would not say he has an elite swing.
I remember Pete Rose saying you can do several things as a hitter but never to alter your batting stance: scoot forward or backward in the box, towards or away from the plate, and choke up more or less. Your swing is what got you to the bigs, don’t mess with it.
My playing experience topped out as a back of the lineup 2nd baseman on the freshman B team, so I am by no means a swing expert, so take this FWIW. Watching about 90% of Heyward’s at bats last year, I noticed that, even when he squared the ball up, it wasn’t going anywhere. It appears as though even when he hit the ball on the button, his swing was all arms and no leg drive. His midsection appeared to buckle and butt jutted out a bit leaving him without proper balance. He wasn’t falling away from the plate per se, but he lost his foundational support to drive the ball hard. My guess is that he either consciously or unconsciously did this to try and clear room on inside part of the plate. Or he simply gave up trying to hit for power, and instead focused on making solid contact. Either way, even when he hit the ball on the screws, he hardly did any damage unless it found a line or gap. I don’t know how many times I thought he had squared a ball up only to see him weakly line out to the second baseman or fly out short of the warning track. I don’t think he was ever a high EV guy, but hopefully the fixes he makes to his swing will get his EV back to what it once was.
“His pop-up to fly-ball ratio is poor…His average fly-ball exit speed is ugly compared to his peers, as is his 59 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score.”
another predictable apology post for heyward’s collapse – oooh, he’s working hard – wow!
Curious. Is there any thought to the idea that the face guard he wears may be affecting his vision and hitting stance? Seems from the video comparisons of 2012 to 2016 he has turned his head slightly so both eyes get a better look at the pitch in 2016. Wouldn’t such an adjustment carry through to his upper body and hips?
Former MLBer Tom Paciorek blames Heward’s problems on his limited time using wood bats. Heward grew up playing many years in the elite Cobb County baseball leagues outside of Atlanta and using aluminum bats allowed him to catch up and power the inside pitches. He only played 2 seasons in minors with only 13 PA’s in AAA before he made the Braves roster as a 20 year old. That rookie season was his most productive offensive season of his career. After that MLB pitchers have been able to exploit his inability to hit inside pitches. He was never given the chance to struggle and adjust in the minors where he dominated the lower levels. At this point after 7 seasons in the majors, I don’t see him being able to correct this. His bad habits have been ingrained and solidified ever since he picked up a bat to play little league and excelled.