The Pirates Are Gerrit Cole-ing Corey Dickerson
One of the bigger stories of the early part of the season has been the ace-level emergence of Gerrit Cole. Freed from the Pirates, Cole has moved on to the Astros and seemingly threatened to throw a no-hitter every start. Cole’s strikeout rate has taken off, and one has been left to wonder why this pitcher didn’t show up consistently in Pittsburgh. On the Pirates’ side, Colin Moran and Michael Feliz have been fine. The club has also overachieved, winning more games than it’s lost. But if anything, the Pirates’ early success makes the loss of Cole more painful. No one likes to see a player improve somewhere else.
Something about going to Houston has allowed Cole to tap into his inner potential. There’s been much conversation about why the Pirates couldn’t pull this talent out. As some consolation, however, the Pirates have sort of done a similar thing to the Rays. Near the end of February, the Pirates picked up Corey Dickerson for a song. The Rays, I’m sure, are content with the early performance by C.J. Cron. But the Dickerson of the present doesn’t look like the Dickerson of yesterday. Cole left Pittsburgh and found a new level. Dickerson arrived in Pittsburgh and found a new level. It doesn’t make up for trading an ace, yet there are reasons why the Pirates are firmly in contention.
Even after trading Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates are third in the National League in wRC+, and third in the league in runs scored. It’s been more than a one-man effort — consider, for example, the rejuvenation of Francisco Cervelli. But Dickerson is right there, more than halfway to last year’s full-season WAR. His wRC+ is up, because his average is up, and his on-base percentage is up, and his slugging percentage is up. This has all happened with his BABIP going down. Dickerson has always been a free swinger, and the Pirates haven’t discouraged that — he’s still swinging at more than half of all pitches. What’s important is what those swings have accomplished.
Go back to Gerrit Cole for a second. This year he’s struck out an unbelievable 42% of his opponents. Last year, his rate was 23%, meaning we’re looking at a current improvement of 19 percentage points. That’s an astonishing change for something as otherwise stable as strikeout rate. That’s a number that tends to hang around where it is.
Last year, Corey Dickerson struck out about 24% of the time. The year before that, he struck out about 24% of the time. The year before that, he struck out about 24% of the time. This year? So far this year, Dickerson has struck out about 10% of the time. That’s an improvement of 14 percentage points.
Backing that up, Dickerson’s contact rate on swings is better by more than nine percentage points. There are 185 players who’ve batted at least 100 times in each of the last two seasons. Dickerson owns the second-biggest improvement in strikeout rate, and he owns the single biggest improvement in contact rate. Dickerson is getting the bat on the ball, in an era in which strikeouts are increasingly expected and increasingly forgiven. He’s making contact without sacrificing the rest of his profile.
This plot shows Dickerson’s entire big-league career in rolling 30-game chunks. You can see how his current contact ability stands out.
Dickerson hasn’t been even close to this since early 2014, when there were fewer strikeouts, and when he played in Colorado. We’re seeing a changed player, and that’s because…we’re seeing…a changed player. A shot from 2017:
And from 2018:
Dickerson has seemingly worked to reduce his leg kick, to the point at which it’s sometimes just a toe tap. It’s not quite that simple; Dickerson sometimes still uses a leg kick, and, last year, he sometimes didn’t. But after watching a whole lot of video, the leg kick was certainly more present a year ago. Dickerson is now using it more sparingly, as he keeps his mechanics simpler. Now here’s another shot from 2017:
And from 2018:
This appears to be another part of it. Maybe it’s hard to tell, but in the picture from 2017, Dickerson is holding the bat all the way down at the knob. In the picture from 2018, you can see some bat below the hands. In other words, Dickerson is choked up, and that’s in advance of the first pitch of an at-bat against a non-flamethrower. In certain two-strike situations, Dickerson chokes up even more:
The idea here is pretty easy to understand. This is fundamental baseball: Choking up improves bat control, which improves contact. It can also, in theory, improve selectivity, because the swing is faster, giving the hitter an extra split-second to wait. The downside is that you might sacrifice some power, or you might sacrifice some ability to cover the outer half. If choking up worked well for everyone, everyone would do it. But changes work differently for different players. Joey Votto chokes up almost all the time. From watching video, I know that Dickerson choked up sometimes in 2017, but now he’s doing it much much more, and not only with two strikes. Contact is Dickerson’s priority.
And this has been of by far the greatest help against fastballs. Travis wrote about Dickerson’s fastball problem in February, after the trade. Against heat, and high heat in particular, Dickerson was often getting exposed. This plot of whiff rates should speak for itself.
Dickerson isn’t missing fastballs anymore, not like he did. In terms of contact rate against fastballs, last year Dickerson ranked in the third percentile. He currently ranks in the 77th percentile. Dickerson has shored up that vulnerability, all by simply shortening his swing. His exit velocity hasn’t really suffered. His isolated power hasn’t really suffered. Dickerson just looks better. He’s even played a fine defensive left field, after the Rays had concluded he was probably more of a DH. The Rays saw the traits they didn’t like. The Pirates saw the traits they could work with. Dickerson is probably always going to be an aggressive swinger, but that doesn’t make him a problem by itself.
There have always been change-of-scenery trades. And there have always been trades where one team just likes a given player more than the other one does. The only difference now is that teams are making more data-driven decisions. With Gerrit Cole, the Astros figured they might have an angle the Pirates didn’t realize. And with Corey Dickerson, perhaps the Pirates saw something the Rays didn’t. The Rays designated Dickerson for assignment because he was a player they thought they understood. With all of this newfound contact, Dickerson defies that understanding.
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.
Great writeup, Jeff. The Point of Pittsburgh looked at this last week, too. It’s really amazing what Dickerson is doing, for however long it lasts.
http://www.thepointofpittsburgh.com/corey-dickerson-and-his-refined-batting-eye/
A lot of free-swingers have trouble with strikeouts, but something I marvel at with Dickerson is that he avoids strikeouts *by* swinging freely. This, of course, requires his particular contact skill on pitches off the plate which most players can’t boast, but he’s been using that free-swinging and contact ability to extend at bats, and turn would-be empty outs into production.
He’s also a lot stronger than I realized. That doesn’t hurt.
And the way he plays the game is delightfully weird, so I love watching him.
Looks like Dickerson has had a pretty dramatic turnaround on defense as well. His best DEF for any of the past four seasons is -5.8 runs. And this year he’s tops among OF at +4.8 runs. Is this just a SSS issue, or is there a change in approach on defense too?
Pure speculation, but aren’t the Pirates known for having a pretty advanced analytic approach when it comes to player positioning on defense? That could be part of it.
Eye Test, but to me it looks like he does it with good fundamentals and positioning. Not one tool jumps off the page but I’d also say none of the tools are a problem, either.
It also probably helps that he’s no longer playing in a dome for half his games. The Trop might be pitcher-friendly, but I wouldn’t call it /fielder/-friendly with the weird catwalks and the white roof and also some strange angles in the outfield corners.
I don’t think Coors does outfielders any favors with defensive metrics either. Plenty of extra hits fall in as outfielders play deep attempting to cover huge gaps.
^ Point. Not to mention the low air pressure makes the balls fall differently than at any other ballpark. An easy line-out in most parks might carry straight over your head at Coors.
A lot of this is a bunch of early season OF assists due to everyone thinking his arm was bad.
As a Pirates fan in the city, it’s exasperating to hear fans drone on and on about Cole. It was never going to pan out here. He had zero interest in being here. The list of pitchers who found greatness (or goodness) under Ray Searage is very long, so even if Searage made a mistake with Cole, he still is a plus column for his overall work.
As for Dickerson, he is locked in. His line drives on Sunday were beautiful pieces of hitting.
Seems to me like Cole’s decline coincided with the little disagreement between him and the team about what his Pre-Arb salary should be. I realize it makes NO SENSE for a player to sabotage his own future earnings just to try to get out of a situation they don’t like, but it’s an awful big coincidence.
I can’t be the only person who got the sense they were watching a guy pitch who had little to no interest in being there the past 2 seasons.
On the possibility of his lack of success being associated with a bad relationship with the FO, it doesn’t have to require an intentional act of sabotage on the player’s part in smite. Simply having disdain for them could cause him to never heed any good coaching advice that he would listen to from someone he liked and respected (or was associated with an organization that he liked and respected). Getting the drive to put in real effort for the benefit of someone you don’t respect can also turn into a bigger negative motivator than the individual financial incentive to be good. Analagously, one may never be motivated to be the 7-to-8-figure CEO for an amoral Fortune 500 company, but finds great success and motivation for the thriving NPO that only marginally creates a livable income for him/ herself. It, like in the hypothetical situation you created for Cole not performing due to disdain for the Pirates org, is not an intentional act of sabotage. Merely an anecdote to highlight how there are different primary motivators for different people.
That’s not saying there’s an absolute causative relationship between the two factors or even a legitimately plausible one, of course. It could easily be that, like others have discussed, Cole’s skillset and psychological state wasn’t the right one for the Pirates coaching staff to maximize.
All you say is easily summarized in the last sentence. and I’m not an editor by profession.
To say it was never going to pan out here is ridiculous. I’m a Pirates fan as well. I saw what happened. You know why he was angry and not interested in being here? Because we made him pitch away from his skillset. He never liked having to throw his sinker. Yet he did almost a fifth of the time because the organization wanted him to. So it’s a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy. He was outwardly vocal towards how we handled pitchers. If we would have just let him do the things he excelled at like mixing in his slider/curve more often and not pitch to contact with his sinker, I have a feeling his time in Pittsburgh wouldn’t be seen as “What Could Have Been?”
And look, I’m not hating on Ray Searage. He’s been phenomenal. But I also think he’s at his best when he works with true reclamation projects – Liriano, AJ Burnett, Edison Volquez, Charlie Morton, Melancon, etc… Simply put, if you have a broken car, you might need to replace its engine, but if you have a Mustang whose engine is humming, packed with horsepower, just get it on the road and let it marvel you.
Very well said. They seem to want pitchers to all fit into one box with the same template. As you said, maybe that works for guys with lesser stuff, and maybe it helps get more out of fringey guys like Kuhl and Trevor Williams. And those veterans you mentioned all had good stuff that had gotten sidetracked for one reason or another (they seemed to all have issues with walks, or at least Volquez, Burnett and Lirano did), so going back to fastball command almost seemed to hit the reset button. But yeah…certainly seems like it stifles guys with elite stuff. Hoping it doesn’t happen with Taillon or Mitch Keller.
Or Glasnow
Yes, although that guy has a whole mess of issues. Word is, he’s started throwing a slider in an effort to get some sort of third pitch. I’m hoping it helps.
So Cole had no interest in staying here long term…what does that have to do with how he didn’t tap into his potential in Pittsburgh? Cole didn’t tap into his full potential here because the Pirates pitching model has fast become outdated. The emphasis on pounding the zone with fastballs worked for a while and helped rejuvenate some veterans, but when the game adapted, the Pirates didn’t. If you want further proof, look at Charlie Morton who looks like a CY candidate in Houston and he’s approaching his mid-30’s. Teams more than ever are de-emphasizing heaters and using breaking stuff more. I’ll bet Taillon is better when he leaves as well.
I know this isn’t quite what they’re meant for but…Dickerson—as a leftfielder—has amassed the highest UZR and second highest UZR/150 in MLB so far. Even “fine” LF might be an understatement!
Obviously he’s been taking pointers from Steven Brault.
Was really disappointed at the time when the Rockies traded him, but Marquez and McGee have definitely made the club better.
Based on the images, looks like maybe Dickerson is surprising pitchers this year by hiding in the shadows.
“No one likes to see a player improve somewhere else.”
Tell me about it
Sincerely,
Longtime Mariners fan and rememberer of Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, Luis Valbuena, Adam Jones, Jason Varitek, Derek Lowe and oh-so many others that should never have been traded (or at least should have netted something of value in return…) players in navy and teal.
Now I want to make a Mariners team out of players they traded away that had success like that…
Only go MLB: The Show 11 though, sadly, but all of them ARE in it….
Any word on Branson’s work as hitting coach? As a whole the Pirates have not necessarily been outstanding on offense during his tenure, but there have been some prominent breakthroughs by individual hitters.
Dickerson had a great first half in 2017. So let’s not get too carried away with the new approach. I wonder how much the hitters background at PNC Park may influence those strikeout numbers for both Cole and Dickerson. If hitters are seeing the ball better then it is reasonable to suggest the number of K’s will go down.