Tim Anderson’s Second, Quieter Breakout
Winning a batting title on its own doesn’t quite win you the household name status that it once did. Ask the casual fan the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the name Tim Anderson, and there’s a good chance it’s the time he pimped the living daylights out of a homer off Brad Keller in 2019 and was subsequently plunked for it. Only after a repeat visit to his highlight reel and another exhausting discussion about baseball’s unwritten rules would they get around to saying he was last season’s American League batting champion, with his .335 average leading all major league hitters.
For a guy who previously held a career batting average of .258, that was a surprising development, but it wasn’t as though he’d suddenly turned into an MVP candidate. Anderson virtually never walked, and hit for only average power, meaning a near-.400 BABIP could still only get him to a 3.5 WAR season. That’s nothing to sneeze at — it put him in the 78th percentile of all batters who made at least 300 plate appearances last season. But there was good reason to believe that was probably his ceiling.
That brings us to another surprising development — Anderson has gotten even better. He’s once again in the batting title discussion, with a .333 average that trails only that of Cleveland’s Franmil Reyes (.336) in the American League. But he’s also running an on-base percentage of .372 and a whopping .579 slugging percentage, helping him to 1.5 WAR that ranks 19th in baseball. Of the 18 players ahead of Anderson, Paul Goldschmidt and Anthony Rendon are the only ones not to have logged at least seven more games than him.
As you might expect, the most apparent change here is in Anderson’s power. In 2019, he produced a career-high ISO of .173. This year, that number is up to .246. That’s thrilling, but it’s also a bit misleading. In just 27 games, an outlying cluster of positive results could throw off the entire data sample. Anderson has hit six homers this season, which would put him on pace for more than 30 if he played close to the ordinary 162-game schedule, far above his previous career-high of 20. Five of those homers, however, came in a span of just nine days, and all were hit against the Tigers. In fact, he hit three of them off of Matthew Boyd. Fortunately, he still knows how to get his money’s worth watching a cool dinger:
Kick rocks, Keller. Unfortunately for Anderson, though, he doesn’t get to spend the whole season facing Detroit southpaws. Against non-Tigers opponents, Anderson’s ISO falls to just .116. That’s not to discredit Anderson — those six games counted, and they account for 22% of his season so far — but it does illustrate the impact that just two series can have on someone’s numbers in a season like this.
Another bad sign for Anderson’s ability to sustain this power surge is his groundball rate. When he first made the majors, Anderson had a lot of trouble lifting the ball, but he was able to work his groundball rate down under 50% in each of the last two seasons. This year, however, that number has leapt all the way back up to 59.1%, the fifth-highest mark in baseball. That’s decidedly not great news, but it also isn’t a sure sign of trouble — throughout his career, Anderson’s groundball rates have fluctuated wildly, meaning there’s a good chance a reversal is on the horizon at any time:
Getting back to elevating the ball could be a huge step in keeping his slugging percentage up, because even with all the reasons I’ve given for why we shouldn’t buy into his power numbers just yet, there is no doubt Anderson is hitting the ball harder this year than he ever has. During his first two full seasons in the big leagues, he was always near the bottom of the league in exit velocity. Even last season, when he blossomed into a good contact hitter, his exit velocity remained below average, finishing in just the 31st percentile of all hitters. This season, he has added another tick to how hard he hits the ball, bringing his exit velocity all the way up to the 69th percentile:
This isn’t the sort of thing that’s been elevated by him crushing a few balls over the span of a couple weeks, either. By our batted-ball data, Anderson owns a Hard-Hit% of 55.7% — the 10th highest in baseball, placing him squarely between Mike Trout and Juan Soto. That quality of contact has made Statcast a believer in his improvement, even with a sky-high groundball rate. Virtually across the board, its expected statistics have Anderson as a better hitter than he was last year, with the two-year improvement from 2018 truly jaw-dropping:
| Year | Barrel% | Percentile | xBA | Percentile | xSLG | Percentile | xwOBA | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 4.7 | 24th | .228 | 13th | .367 | 18th | .279 | 4th |
| 2019 | 5.1 | 23rd | .295 | 92nd | .471 | 59th | .337 | 51st |
| 2020 | 9.1 | 69th | .290 | 74th | .505 | 76th | .357 | 65th |
Anderson didn’t spend this offseason turning into Aaron Judge, just like he didn’t spend the previous offseason suddenly turning into Tony Gwynn. But he has improved, rather convincingly and consistently, after spending the earlier stages of his big league career swinging one of the weaker bats around.
Even Anderson’s plate discipline numbers show evidence of growth. His walk rate has improved somewhat, from 2.9% to 5.0%, but at this stage of the year, that only amounts to one or two additional walks than we’d have expected. The more encouraging stuff is under the hood — Anderson’s swing rate, still an aggressive 54.1%, is 4.4 points lower than last year, with a large portion of that drop occurring on pitches outside the zone. His zone swing rate has dropped just two points this season, while his chase rate has fallen by 6.5 points. In particular, Anderson seems to have become quite adept at recognizing change-ups, and backing off of them:
The same warning signs against buying into Anderson’s emergence as a star hitter exist today as they did last year. His batted ball luck is still ridiculously good, as he’s followed a .399 BABIP last year with a .390 mark this season. His power looks a bit flukey, and he swings too much. For a second-straight season, this doesn’t look like it should be working. And yet, Anderson is thriving, now more than ever. You’re free to wonder how long he can keep this up, but I’d hate for you to miss out on what he’s doing now.
Tony is a contributor for FanGraphs. He began writing for Red Reporter in 2016, and has also covered prep sports for the Times West Virginian and college sports for Ohio University's The Post. He can be found on Twitter at @_TonyWolfe_.
He also looks better defensively. The numbers are better, but unreliable in such a small sample size. But to my eye he looks smoother, more reliant on technique and less on athleticism. His bad throws aren’t as far off the mark, so the first baseman can field them instead of watching them sail by. He looks more like an actual, adequate, professional, middle infielder, and not some high school kid playing short stop just because he’s the best athlete on the team.
What else is your eye picking up, MikeS?
Manny being Manny?
Is DJLM still not qualified? I thought he was close, if not qualified again post-IL stint.
He’s not eligible yet, but he will be soon if he stays off the IL.
I’ll drop the obligatory “he didn’t play baseball until high school” comment.
I’m not mocking the comment either, as it provides some context. Even when he was first called up it was painfully obvious he relied on pure athleticism, but he isn’t that guy anymore.
Yep. He’s on a similar developmental track as Lo Cain. Anderson’s best baseball should come in his late 20’s when he is both polished and still freakishly athletic.
Entirely possible. LoCain was nowhere near as good as Anderson at this age though. I don’t know what you consider fun, but I think it is fun to think of how we would have celebrated his skillset in say, the 90s where nobody cared about plate discipline.
Go a bit further and point out that he went to a community college to play basketball and baseball. Then a bit further to where he puts himself into the first round in his first year of committing to baseball while playing at a CC!
TIMMY!!
Cool to see somebody zig when the league zags. TA is a unique player and I hope he continues to confound the BABIP gods.
Lots of guys zag… lots of guys defy the BABIP gods as well. Its not that unique… the most unique thing is for FG to point to the success of a player that defies the models.
I had read before – and don’t know if it was here – that Anderson attributed his success last year to not trying to pull the ball all the time, and instead just make the best contact he could and trust his natural strength to take care of where it went. He went from a 45% pull rate in 2018 to being more evenly split in his hit distribution in 2019 – all while his hard/med/soft contact stayed roughly the same from previous years. If any player is going to get the results from hitting ground balls that Anderson got in 2019, step one would be spreading the ball around somewhat evenly.
So my first thought is just that this season Anderson is trying to pull the ball again, but is doing so more selectively/successfully. He had always been advertised as having good strength, and as Tony notes, he’s just flat-out hitting the ball harder so far this year. But yeah, he is pulling the ball more (and hitting in the opposite direction less) so it kind of lines up that there’s be a hard-hit increase.
I’d really love to know if there’s some type approach change behind what what Anderson is doing this year, whether it’s just the result of luck/coincidence or if he’s actually trying to be selective about what he does. Because, I mean, if Anderson figured out how to have success hitting the ball on the ground in 2019, and then in 2020 he’s figuring out how to be selective when pulling the ball/putting the ball in the air – good lord he’s going to be an exciting player.
Everybody changes their approach year over year. These days, people just want to read a paragraph about it. If a guy made a change and it didn’t yield results none of us would care. Just enjoy the results.
The other thing contributing to his breakout, going back to last year, is that he’s hunting and punishing sliders. You can see the results in pitch type values, but the process was illuminated to me on a broadcast replay of one of his homers. Anderson initially set up farther back in the box, signaling to the catcher that he’s looking fastball, and then took a big step closer to the pitcher once he was set. That 1) influenced a slider to be thrown and 2) set him up well to hit the slider, which he did, out of the park.
This may be something the White Sox as a team are doing, hunting hanging sliders. They’re second overall in value (both total and per pitch) against sliders after the Padres, and Luis Robert and Anderson are #1 and #2 in total value produced vs sliders among qualified hitters, with Grandal checking in 12th.
Robert in particular is seeing a ton of sliders, second in % seen after Baez, with Eloy checking in third. Pitchers can get Robert out with sliders if they execute it, but if they don’t, he hits it to the moon.
Yeah – throwing a slider to Robert is pretty much a two outcome event.
Robert seems to be a mistake hitter right now. He flails at a lot of good breaking stuff, but if you throw him a hanger, especially one on the inner half of the plate…good lord, that one he hit 2 nights ago was amazing. I just started laughing the moment he made contact.
Lots of guys have had good careers as mistake hitters. He’s 23 with 151 MLB PA. If he learns and evolves as a hitter even a little he’s going to be great but even if he doesn’t, the power and defense make him an above average major league ball player. The thing is, he did that at both AA and AAA last year. He started off slow for a couple of weeks, then took off. It is obviously going to take longer to do that with major league pitching, but there is reason to be very, very optimistic.
I tend to agree to some extent, but there is also the reality that players who realize immediate success in this era often don’t develop much at all. Proclaiming someone to be a superstar when they are not predictable doesn’t lead to much development. There was a time when only special players (presumably with good heads on their shoulders) got the opportunities but that isn’t how it works this decade. Its a race to get them up and folks like us cry when they are not rushed fast enough.
I don’t know how a team would accomplish that feat under any circumstances. When you acknowledge that they don’t even practice together I think it is less likely. Its more likely that they are facing bad sliders.
Never forget the man who is arguably the AL MVP wasn’t a top 70 most valuable asset in the trade value series.
On a very team friendly deal too. Kind of odd.
Good news that series has no bearing on reality.
It was very big of fangraphs to run this article so that you could spike the football. You’re also underselling. There are easily way more than 20 HM players and then the best of the rest. Him not making the list remains baffling. Him not even being mentioned almost seems like some sort of mistake.
Yeah.. its the same player, skills and tools as 2019. I don’t know how you can talk about his unusual development without talking about his background and development. He is as raw as any player could possibly be and be in his position. He started playing baseball full-time very late and was always aggressively promoted… yet never failed. Funny how guys are able to fix the problem of too many ground balls so easily. At some point you may learn that it isn’t a real concerning problem – just bad analysis. Ironically, the only people missing out on what Anderson is doing are the people that don’t watch baseball to start with. For the rest of us he has put up gaudy numbers for a long stretch. The best hitters don’t fit the models because they are special.
I think this is all interesting but one thing that was not mentioned is his splits vs LHP. Sure this is SSS, but ALL his positive numbers have come vs LHP and his numbers vs RHP are pretty bad . Consider also that in 2019 there wasn’t any real difference in his splits. But this year OPS vs LHP 1.748 and vs RHP = .657 make it look like something is going on. I feel like a lot of what you pointed out is due to facing a large portion of LHP that he (for whatever reason) can handle very well (Boyd, Hand, Duffy),
If we take away his success, he’s not as good! Brilliant.
Not my point. I’m just pointing out that whatever he is doing differently is not showing up in his numbers vs RHP. So if there is some sort of change in his approach, swing etc, why is it only showing up in a positive way vs LHP?