The Good That Alex Gordon Got From Being Bad
Alex Gordon, as we know him now, is a top-five outfielder on a team surging in the playoffs. We can’t forget the Alex Gordons who came before, though. Because it was those struggles that minted the current version. In terms of mindset and mechanics, we wouldn’t have today’s Gordon without yesterday’s. And we might be seeing some of the lessons Gordon learned in play with his younger teammates, too.
Because we put more weight on what we’ve seen recently, it might be hard to remember Kansas City’s left fielder once was supposedly a bust. In his fourth season — 2010 — he was sent down and told to learn a new position. In 2009 and 2010, he combined to put up replacement-level stats. Those were tough times. “I struggled early on,” Gordon admitted last year. “There were a lot of expectations, and I struggled early on, maybe tried too hard.”
Google Gordon then and you might have gotten plenty of articles questioning his ability to be a star. Google Gordon now and you get pages of results about his workout regimen. I asked Gordon when he last had a slice of pizza. He said it had been more than a year, and he had it because he “wasn’t feeling good that day.”
This dedication to working out has always been with Gordon, but it has changed over the past few years after the struggles. “In college, in Nebraska, they’re pretty big on working out,” he said. “I do go into the weight room a lot, but I’ve changed my work out since I’ve been playing professional baseball. I’m not crushing weights, I’m doing things that help me on the field, staying flexible, things like that.”
Getting older and wiser has lead to a change in his approach. But those years — 2010 in particular, when he was sent down — led him to hire a trainer. “Now I do lifts that imitate baseball activities,” Gordon said. No more bicep curls, trying to get big. No more heavy lifting.
Changing positions might have also helped him stay healthier, and it has shaped his approach in the weight room. “I was a guy that stayed low in my stance, so going up and down all the time might have hurt my hip or something,” Gordon said. In 2009, he fixed the hip labrum with surgery, and his new position has perhaps allowed him to stay on the field more. He’s averaged 156 games played per season since 2011. Even if you add in Gordon’s minor-league games, he only averaged 127 per season in his first four years.
His subsequent workouts also focussed on the demands of his new position. “My legs are underneath me a lot better now than when I was a third baseman — just running out and back to the dugout, plus all the conditioning you have to do keep your legs underneath you,” Gordon said. “I feel like my legs are in great shape.”
But Gordon has also changed at the plate, and he can also thank the dark years for that. When he first came up, his approach was mostly “see ball, hit ball and try to crush the ball,” as he put it. That led to strikeouts, but not a whole lot of power. “The easiest out in baseball is the lazy fly ball, besides strikeouts,” Gordon said of the lessons he learned back then.
He might have had the stadium to thank for the lack of power. “I got carried away with hitting home runs early on in my career, and especially in a big stadium like Kauffman, there’s a lot of balls that you hit to the wall that don’t mean anything,” he said. In 2014, Kauffman suppressed lefties’ home runs by 16%, just a few ticks more hitter-friendly than Oakland’s consensus pitcher-haven (18%).
Being sent down was a wake up call, but it also gave Gordon a chance to work with Kevin Seitzer, then the Royal’s minor-league hitting coordinator. Part of their work was mechanical, as they worked to flatten Gordon’s swing. “I wanted more plate coverage, and to keep my bat in the zone longer,” he said. As much as you can tell from two blurry GIFs of two swings spread six years apart (2008 on the left, 2014 on the right), it look as if Seitzer was successful:
But another part was mindset. “Now I actually have a plan every time I go to the plate, what I’m looking for and where I’m trying to go with it, and what the pitcher is trying to do with me,” Gordon said. A flatter path, a less pull-conscious approach, and a defensive mindset has helped Gordon to a .356 on-base percentage since 2011 — much better than the .328 number he had after his first four years in the big leagues.
It hasn’t turfed his power at all to change his focus away from selling out for power. Going all out gave Gordon a .161 isolated slugging percentage in his first four years. His new approach has given Gordon a .170 ISO over the past four years. More balls in play (19.8% strikeout rate since 2011, 22% before) and more line drives (20.7% line drives since 2011, 18.7% before) can do that for you.
That better strikeout rate is all part of the plan. “I was striking out a lot because people were getting the outside corner on me and I wasn’t looking to go the other way,” Gordon said. “Now I’m not trying to go up there and slap the ball the other way but now having more plate coverage, it’s helping me out a lot. I’m looking to drive the ball middle, or the other way. But if they come inside, I can still get my bat and barrel inside and pull the ball.” The heat maps agree. Check out how Gordon’s ability to make contact has changed from his first four years (left) to his last four years (right). You can see his contact zone has grown larger.
“Over the last couple of years I’ve tried to cut down on my fly balls and tried to cut down on my strikeouts,” said Gordon, calling attention back to his flatter bat path. “Line drives and ground balls are going to be key in my approach.” Look at what the change has done for several key stats, and you have to agree with Seitzer and Gordon that they found the best approach for Gordon’s skillset.
| GB/FB | LD% | K% | ISO | BABIP | wRC+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-2010 | 0.81 | 18.7% | 22.0% | 0.161 | 0.296 | 93 |
| 2011-2014 | 1.11 | 20.7% | 19.8% | 0.170 | 0.334 | 123 |
All of this wouldn’t have come without the reset that was being sent down and told to learn a new position. “I didn’t want to look at it negatively or have a bad attitude about it,” Gordon said of that time. “I went down to Triple-A, and from day one, I told myself that this was a position that I am going to become a good player at — that’s taking every day bp, playing catch, taking it seriously and trying to get better every day. That’s the attitude I’ve taken the last three years.”
And when it comes to passing on advice to fellow young players tasting struggle in the big leagues, Gordon thought that attitude was as important as work ethic. “The one thing I can tell you is to come to the field and have the right attitude and have the right mindset, and have fun,” Gordon said. “Once you come to the field and it’s not somewhere you want to be or not something you’re having fun with, and you’re worried about how you’re going to do on the field, it’s not going to turn out well.” Maybe we’re beginning to see that right now.
Mike Moustakas: “I am having an absolutely phenomenal time playing baseball right now.” #Royals #ALCS #MLBPlayoffs
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) October 12, 2014
Alex Gordon tries to infuse that mindset into his scouting work, his preparation and his workouts. And when you tell him that he was once again a top player by Wins Above Replacement, he’ll admit some pleasure. “I’m surprised at how well I’ve done, but it’s great to hear those kinds of things,” he said. “As a baseball player, I don’t look to improve at one certain area, I try to be an all-around great player — offense, defense, baserunning. I feel like that’s being a good teammate, being an all-around player.”
And yet none of this would be possible without the dark times he went through just four years ago.
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.
Nice write-up, Eno
Alex Gordon is a classic case study of how WAR fetishizes certain types of players – ones that are above average at a lot of things. But where players such as Gordon are actually very good, WAR makes them out to be great and thus much better than they actually are (see also, “Heyward, Jason”).
Gordon and Heyward’s defensive ratings are much better than ‘above average’ – they are among the league leaders in defensive runs saved. You can question the validity of that specific measure, but WAR isn’t saying that ‘above average at everything’ players are ‘great’ – it’s saying Heyward and Gordon are ‘great’ at defense (and baserunning) – and above average at hitting. There’s a big difference there.
We shouldn’t be taking 1 year samples of defensive data seriously. As critical thinkers, we should know that. WAR doesn’t think like we do (it’s not a person…), it just takes the inputs and makes an output. By doing so, it is in fact saying that certain types of players are great and others aren’t based partly on unreliable one year measures.
Hell, Fangraphs had an article about how Gordon actually hasn’t been any better than he used to be (everyone else just got worse, thus “replacement level defense” dropped). We shouldn’t be elevating the status of some players just because everyone else got worse. Otherwise, I want to go back to first grade and win a spelling bee.
“By doing so, it is in fact saying that certain types of players are great and others aren’t based partly on unreliable one year measures.”
That may be the case, but WAR IS NOT overvaluing players who are ‘above average across the board’. Gordon and Heyward ranking highly because their defensive ranking is much much higher than average (elite even). If they were slightly above average at defense (according to defensive runs saves) – their WAR would have been much lower, and they wouldn’t be considered ‘great players’ on the WAR leader boards.
I actually agree that there are some major flaws in measuring corner OF defense – how Trout LOSES value for sliding over to CF, despite probably not declining much in regards to his ability to run down a ball in the OF (maybe a little, but not 2-3 wins worth of decline). The ‘replacement’ LF/RF can be skewed downwards by guys like Morse running around out there, elevating how good guys like Gardner and Gordon (and Heyward) are.
Anyway, the point is that WAR rewards value where value is had – not ‘bonus’ points for being above average in everything.
Of course we should take one season of defensive data seriously, it’s just less valuable in terms of predicting future performance then one season of offensive data (which when you get down to it, while more reliable then defensive data in terms of future projections, still isn’t all that great).
Since WAR is trying to describe what happened, not how good a player actually is, there’s not a big problem in putting it into the appropriate context.
Also you could change your last paragraph to use “replacement level offense,” add in the name of most players, and make the same arguement given the steady offensive decline in the sport. If you don’t like what WAR is designed to measure (a relative to the rest of the league performance over a single year) fine, but it’s not less reliable then say looking at an offensive players slash line to measure their career, all single year stats are unreliable to a point, otherwise the game would be really, really boring.
Agree for the most part – I’d just suggest maybe trying to have all three OF positions on the same footing when we attempt to measure their defensive performance for a given season. A CF who can cover X feet in the OF should not be valued less than a LF that can also cover X feet in the OF. Yet because the replacement baseline for LF and CF are drastically different, the equally able (and performing) LF gets a WAR bump, even if his performance was no different.
I’m not sure how we would do this exactly – perhaps be measuring the distance an OF travels to get to a ball, then comparing that across all the OF positions, rather than just his particular position. I’m not an expert on this – but it seems to me that the skills required to play the OF are similar enough across all three positions that we should just be measuring them across the same baseline.
Why aren’t you complaining about wRC+?
I’ll agree with you on all points there. You’ll probably get a bunch of downvotes, though. People here take WAR and defensive metrics at more face value than they should.
I just don’t understand defensive metrics, and they tell me things I don’t like sometimes, therefore I shall discount them entirely.
Or maybe I understand that having no error bars and numbers that aren’t reliable until we hit a huge samples is a bad thing. I took a look at the Inside Edge and UZR numbers comparing Cruz and Gordon below. Maybe I do understand them, but have little faith in their rampant exaggerations.
I’ve noticed that any post that is at all critical of WAR gets down votes. Its called the Cult of WAR.
(just watch)
It’s a common error, noted by Bill James years ago, to undervalue players that contribute in a variety of ways, and overvalue players who have one superior skill. Gordon’s power doesn’t show up in the stats because he plays in a park that suppresses left-handed power. Maybe if he hit 40 homers a year but walked less, ran worse, and let balls drop in the outfield you’d mistake him for being better.
If only my needles helped me play defense.
Fine, I’ll bite. Whom does WAR penalize? Which incandescent talents are being overlooked because they are bad at fielding or running or playing games?
Context-dependent performers. WAR is all about being context neutral. Let’s look at a slugger with shitty defense–Nelson Cruz.
All he does is hit HRs. He does a lot of that. HRs have an average run value of 1.4 or something like that. That’s the number used by wOBA and context neutral stats like that.
However, WAR is talking about theoretical wins. As much as they may correlate with real life wins, these wins are theoretical in nature. Actual wins differ mainly because of context, and a HR hitter like Cruz probably has the most effective means of increasing his team’s chance of a real life win due to the nature of a what a HR does–at least 1 guaranteed run, possibly 4. That has game-changing value that context-neutral stats don’t take into account. It’s not what they try to do. But to then discredit the real life accomplishments based on the very repeatable skills of a player because of theoretical context neutral stats is silly. Real life and theoretical value may have some points of differentiation, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss one side entirely.
But let’s look at the defense. Let’s see why WAR loves Gordon and hates Cruz. Cruz had his usual -11 DEF this year, Gordon had a +18.
Cruz had 163 defensive opportunities this year according to Inside Edge. He made 133 of those plays, including every play labeled likely or routine. 15 plays were impossible, so nobody gets those by default. That means he missed 15 balls. that’s less than 10% of the balls he could have made a play on. By the same methodology (adding!), Alex Gordon missed 27 balls that weren’t impossible in about 3x the opportunities. Given the same opportunities, that would be prorated to Gordon missing 27 balls to Cruz’s 45. Yes, Gordon is a clearly better defender, but is a difference of 18 balls worth a difference of 29 RUNS in Fangraphs DEF score? And don’t think that Cruz playing more OF would reduce his UZR, as his entire deduction this year was due to positional adjustments of LF and DH duty–he was allegedly neutral while playing. But those kinds of differences are what increase the WAR of players like Gordon. I’m not even saying that Cruz is good at defense (he’s not), I’m just saying that the magnitude of defensive metrics may be overstated.
While HRs are one of the TTOs, and can thus be more easily used for an example like this (a dinger is always a dinger, regardless of defense and ignore park effects), this is also an example that can be used to any player with a one dimensional and less balanced skillset. Look at what makes them valuable and what that contribution does in the real world, and see if WAR is capturing it or not.
You’re ignoring the value of their ability to throw out runners or prevent them from trying to advance in the first place. Gordon is elite in this category while Cruz is mediocre at best.
You’re also ignoring the negative value that comes from Cruz DHing for most of the year. You can’t just extrapolate his defensive stats because he that didn’t happen. If Cruz had played the field the entire time, his DEF numbers would look better and his WAR would look better, but he didn’t.
@Paul, not I’m not ignoring Cruz’s DH time. The LF positional adjustment is -7.5. Cruz’s overall positional adjustment is -13, accounting for the fact that he spent some time at DH. The thing is, ALL of his negative value this year comes from the defensive adjustment. On raw numbers (no adjustment), he was actually a +1.5 defender by UZR! If he played more LF and less DH, his adjustment would skew more towards an overall -5 than a -11.
Gordon does have an an elite arm, and Cruz has been pretty average over his career. Does a 6 run difference in arm strength and a hypothetical 18 more balls reached justify a 29 run difference?
It’s important to measure all of these small aspects of the game, but we need to stop blowing them out of proportion as if they’re the most important part of the game. Catcher framing is falling into this trap too, as I don’t buy the extremes for a second.
This argument reminds me a lot of watching Manny Ramirez play for Boston. It was only after watching him for years and years that I realized a) he only ran as fast as he had to in order to get to catch a fly ball, and b) his throws to the infield or the plate were uncannily accurate, if not always lasers. Yet I remember Manny’s defensive WAR being below average. Yeah, we all remember him cutting off Damon’s throw in LF, but the fact is, he held more runners or kept them from advancing a base as any of his contemporaries. Was he graceful? Did he have a cannon arm? NO! But my eyes told me he got a bad rap.
Which brings me to a corollary I’ve learned over the years. Show me a team that overvalues above average run prevention at a specific position, as opposed to having above average offense at the same position, and I’ll show you a losing team. The offensive guy gets 4 chances per game to affect the outcome – The defensive guy? Maybe 1 every 4 games, if that. It’s a no-brainer. Give me the hitter every time.
You are so deeply confused about linear weights that you are not even engaging with the arguments for them.
Some remedial reading is in order. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/linear-weights/
@arc Do you have any reading comprehension ability? I barely mentioned linear weights. A good old look into that link of yours shows some Tango reading–hey, a HR is worth and average 1.42 runs! I was close! And weights don’t factor in LI or anything else about the game state besides baserunners! Well I’ll be damned!
The fact that you don’t think linear weights are relevant to your rant betrays the depth of your misunderstanding here. You aren’t even able to identify the arguments for the things you are badly failing to argue against.
Incoherent.
Great article. It really is amazing how he transformed himself after disappointing play his first few years. He also seems to be an excellent role model for KC’s younger players.
What are you doing with your life Bob?
Mainly eating hot dogs.
I believe that should be 2010. (Immaculate post otherwise!)
Hey Gordo! What are you doing talking to that nerd?
Yeah, you should give him a wedgie or take his lunch money!
I am Groot.
Great article. As far as the GIFs, I think if his swing on the left did the same thing as it is doing on the right, he would still be in the minor leagues. Up and away, and inner half are completely different animals. The swing on the right reminds me of the recent top hand roll over Chris Davis went to this year instead of driving it over the left field fence.