The Old School Approach Failed José Ramírez
Nearly three months into this season, José Ramírez was one of the worst hitters in the game. On June 24, Ramírez had played in 77 games, come to the plate 328 times, and put up a 66 wRC+ which ranked 153rd out of 160 qualified batters. Only good baserunning and decent defense kept Ramírez above replacement level. Since June 25, Ramírez has come to bat 172 times and put up a 143 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR, with both figures ranking among the top 25 players in the game. Before the season, Ramírez was projected for a 138 wRC+ and 6.3 WAR, so he went from one of the worst hitters in baseball for half a season to nearly the exact player he was projected for the last quarter of a season. While slumps and streaks invariably have a lot of contributing factors, it certainly seems like Ramírez spent the first part of the season not trying to crush the game and simply flipped a switch in late June.
The dates used above aren’t exactly arbitrary. On June 25, I wrote a post entitled José Ramirez Isn’t That Far Off. In that piece, I discussed a few different theories behind Ramírez’s struggles, including too many fly balls at poor angles and failures in attempting to adjust to the shift. Ultimately, I went down a plate approach rabbit hole and concluded Ramírez was swinging and making contact on too many pitches when behind in the count instead of just looking and swinging at pitches he could drive. I concluded with this:
Ramírez simply isn’t commanding the strike zone like he used to, and it is showing up in increased swings on breaking and offspeed pitches out of the zone. Ramírez needs to be able to hunt for those fastballs in the plate, and to do so, he has to be able to avoid the breaking stuff. He hasn’t done a poor job of that relative to other players, but part of what made Ramírez a very good hitter was getting in favorable counts and taking advantage. The league might have caught up to him a little bit, but the problem appears to be more on Ramírez’s end and swinging at pitches he didn’t used to. That also means the issue could be fixable. Bad luck has certainly played some role in Ramírez’s big drop, as it might not be as bad as it appears, and if Ramírez can control the plate like he has in seasons past, he just might turn things around.
Ramírez has certainly made me look good over the past couple months, but we can take a closer look at the analysis from June and see if the reasoning still fits. First, let’s look at Ramírez’s swings by count type compared to last year, the early part of this season, and his recent hot streak.
| Ahead | Behind | Even | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 49.5% | 37.0% | 30.3% |
| Thru 6/24/19 | 50.0% | 46.6% | 35.1% |
| Since 6/25/19 | 53.5% | 52.0% | 30.8% |
He’s swinging at more pitches when ahead in the count, which is good, and he’s been more selective with an even count, but he’s also swinging even more when behind in the count. That doesn’t exactly help my theory. Ramírez’s walks are still down at around 6% and his strikeouts are at 15%, so he’s not the master of plate discipline he was a season ago when he walked 15% of the time and struck out in just 12% of plate appearances. Despite the increase in swings of late, he’s actually seen fewer pitches behind in the count than he did earlier in the season and more plate appearances have ended when Ramírez has an advantage.
| Ahead | Behind | Even | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 48.9% | 22.0% | 29.1% |
| Thru 6/24/19 | 37.8% | 30.5% | 31.7% |
| Since 6/25/19 | 41.2% | 29.7% | 29.1% |
The jump isn’t quite up to last season, but Ramírez has done a better job of attacking while he’s ahead. The change in results has been the biggest factor in Ramírez’s return to his old form.
| wOBA | wOBA Ahead | xwOBA Ahead | wOBA Behind | xwOBA Behind | wOBA Even | xWOBA Even |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | .480 | .447 | .249 | .242 | .350 | .324 |
| Thru 6/24/19 | .384 | .427 | .205 | .245 | .235 | .292 |
| Since 6/25/19 | .538 | .486 | .244 | .249 | .355 | .275 |
Not a whole lot has changed for Ramírez when behind or even in the count, but he’s now crushing the ball when ahead in the count, and having a greater proportion of plate appearances ending with him ahead helps make an even bigger difference. Even in looking at Ramírez’s swings behind in the count, we can get a sense of a changing approach. The heatmaps below show where Ramírez was swinging at pitches when behind in the count from the left side earlier this season compared to the last few months. Click here for the full-size version.
The Cleveland third baseman is swinging at more pitches in the middle of the plate and appears to be making a more concerted effort to also hit pitches on the inside part of the plate. That’s not just true when behind in the count. Look at how the change in pitch location of his swings has moved inside.
As for why he would want to make this change, we might think it is because Ramírez is trying to the pull the ball a lot more. That’s exactly what has happened, with a 48% pull rate on June 24 jumping up to a 63% pull rate in the games since. The spray chart below shows where he’s hit the ball on pitches in the middle of the plate and middle-in.
Early in the season, we see a bunch of balls headed the opposite way and a bunch of fly balls that don’t go quite fair enough. When he was getting the opportunity to pull the ball hard, he wasn’t taking advantage. Now he is. Since June 25, Ramírez has a wOBA of .643 and xwOBA of .503 in those locations compared to .213 and .292, respectively, in the early going. To see, how this works, let’s look at Ian Kennedy throw a 92-mph fastball right down the middle.
Doesn’t it look like Ramírez is almost purposefully late and trying to hit it the other way? Kennedy throws that pitch two-thirds of the time, so it shouldn’t have caught the batter off guard. Here’s a very similar pitch from last week.
While the timing of Ramírez going off is fortuitous given my article, I would never be so bold as to think Ramírez saw my article and changed his approach. The answer is much more logical.
… beat the shift. We spoke about not trying to beat the shift and just let it rip. He also acknowledged he’s been popping up a lot because he tries to go the other way and then gets beat inside.
— Rafa Nieves (@mlb_agent) June 25, 2019
I discussed these tweets with Ben Lindbergh on Effectively Wild at the time and we noted how unusual it was for an agent to publicly indicate he had been working with the player to help him. Devan Fink wrote about Ramírez’s struggles with the shift, and Ramírez’s agent acknowledging that Ramírez was trying to beat the shift by going to the opposite field and that he talked with him about pulling the ball, and that he then immediately started pulling the ball seems pretty compelling evidence.
Ramírez altered his approach to try and beat the shift, an approach some broadcasters implore players to take, and it failed miserably. Ramírez went away from his strength to try and pick up so-called easy hits and he lost his power and didn’t even get those easy hits. Hitting the ball is an extremely difficult task, and Ramírez had been very successful beating the shift by hitting the ball very hard, often over the fence without concerning himself with to the opposite field. Now that he’s embraced his old shift-beating ways, Ramírez is back to being one of the best hitters in the game.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
This is just a phenomenal article.
It’s…. fine.
I loved this too–was curious how many other people thought, “How come J-Ram’s agent had better advice than anyone on the CLE coaching staff?”
The next time someone tells you players should try to beat the shift by going the other way, point to Ramírez as an example of why that might be bad advice.
Players who cannot beat the shift have a significant weakness that is going to reduce their production all things being equal. All things are not equal. Players have to come up with individual plans that work for them. If a player is more productive with a glaring weakness, then so be it.
What shocks me here is this was not done after a month of flailing around. If he is trying and failing to beat the shift and he is failing at everything else, you would think that would have been a sign that it was not working. It should not have taken until late June to figure this out.
Related, my belief is shifting will get greatly reduced over time as hitters come up through the minors trained on how to beat it. Free hits are free hits and hitters are better off, typically, with a standard defense than a shift. But there will always be players who cannot do it properly, and they are only going to survive if they can mash well enough to overcome giving up many hits every year. Apparently Ramirez is of the latter breed, at least for now.
To me Ramirez should’ve been a case where he just took to bunting to beat the shift. When he came up at least he was a good bunter. Keep the swing the same but drop a bunt down every now and then when it makes sense.
I doubt Ramirez wasn’t trying to make changes with his approach earlier this year, though odd that his agent said he talked to him in June and he was still trying to beat the shift. I thought it was more like the shift got in his head a bit, he tried to adjust and it didn’t work but then his timing was just off until he finally figured it out.
Yeah, in Ramirez’s case, dropping an occasional bunt should make a lot of sense… especially since he’s also a good basestealer too.
Great article. Another reminder that the optimal approach to hitting is subjective on a player-by-player basis.
“You don’t just learn to hit the other way. If I’m slapping singles down the line, am I still Joey Gallo? Am I still productive? I can’t try to play to that, because it’s not me, and I like to play in the major leagues. I get paid to drive guys in and hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
If someone told Jose to try and beat the shift, that person should not be coaching in the big leagues.
If Jose decided to try and do that himself, his coaching staff should step him to show him why that’s not a good idea for him.
Either way, this reflects poorly on the Cleveland coaching staff. As someone who’s hopelessly watched Ty Van Burkleo’s hitters bunt their way to sixth in sacrifices in all of baseball (Van Burkeo’s teams have always been at the top of the league in bunting), it’s not hard for me to imagine TVB is part of the problem here.
Maybe he just finally listened to his agent. But if nobody told him this before, yikes.
This is a great article. One thing of note is that the Indians’ broadcast team mentioned last week that Jose’s improved timing has also been an important factor in his second half resurgence at the plate. If you watch the first clip against Ian Kennedy, the leg kick is much less balanced/rhythmic than it is in the second clip. He was rushing himself at the plate, probably a result of everything you wrote about above. Nice to see him having success again.
is it possible to look at how many balls he has been in front of and hit foul as a result? I’m a CLE fan and he is out in front of so many pitches all the time its insane
Is there Statcast data available on foul balls? They definitely seem like an interesting signal on a hitter’s approach and timing.
Go check out his Rolling Launch Angle graph on Baseball Savant. MAJOR swing change launch angle wise
oh hey imagine trying to hit homeruns.
aaron judge tho, turned himself into the very large jeter with more k’s
This is great
Imagine being one of the best players in baseball and then changing your approach to try to beat the shift?!!! I’m glad he’s back.
He had a baby and came back from paternity leave with that big-time daddy energy. This is the only valid explanation.
The main thing I see is that Ramirez isn’t chasing as many ball outside of the strike zone.
“Doesn’t it look like Ramírez is almost purposefully late and trying to hit it the other way?”
I cannot agree with the concept of intentionally swinging late, except if the batter retards his hip rotation,–such as Boggs and Gwynn–which is not apparent in the film clip.
Let’s say he’s intentionally trying to let the ball travel a foot deeper.
A 90mph pitch travels one foot in less than a hundredth of a second.
It’s not plausible that a hitter can intentionally delay his swing-timing by one hundredth of a second.