I thought some dedicated threads re: How things went in 2023 might be useful. (I'll let someone else do the post-mortem pitching thread.)
Overall, it was a disappointing year re: hitting. At the end of the day it seems the majority of the players left something significant on the table. Not that they sucked (in some cases) but that they didn't trend the right way, or fell apart at some point. As far as the mainstays went, we had reasonable expectations for most of them:
Players who should have stepped forward but did not/mildly regressed:
Players who absolutely cratered offensively:
Players who were called up: either did well then cratered, or just failed (SSS or not):
Players who were average/positive call-ups:
Players who were failed rehabs/acquisitions (e.g., signed/acquired for unrealized potential.)
Players who were positive rehabs/acquisitions:
Players who Improved, Held Fast, or were Bright Spots:
I think the above is a pretty strong indictment of the field staff/hitting coaches.
First off, the caveats: I don't expect miracles. I don't expect the coaching to rehabilitate everyone. I expect some positives and some negatives. I know they don't control injuries, and there will always be a player that's resistant to the message/method other players embrace. It's a long season, and players will slump and recover, etc. etc. etc.
Yet here. . .I think the only positives that the hitting coaches seem to have their fingerprints on are Casas and Duran. And it's notable they're both kind of freaks - Casas in terms of his batting eye, and Duran in terms of his speed. And even so, Casas had a very long adjustment period, so given the suck-fest everywhere else in the lineup, you have to wonder if Casas's adjustment period mightn't have been shortened. But at least he didn't slump later - so that remains a strong positive. Duran hit well, slumped at the ML level and came back. I think Duran's the best feather in the hitting coaches cap. It's what you want them to do (or preside over) - fixing hitters, getting what they can out of them.
As noted above, everyone else seemed to backslide substantially or mildly, apart from two vets from outside the system (Turner and Duval).
Particularly disappointing was the inability to get Yoshida or Story back on track later in the season. Or unstick Hernandez or Arroyo. Or get Devers and Verdugo to take a step forward. I mean, slumps and streaks aside, these are years where they should be plateauing or growing as hitters, not trending downward after 162 games.
(Which is why I think it's absolutely insane they want to go around again with the same field staff. They don't really have a track record of hitters flourishing under their watch.)
I'm open to the possibility that more sophisticated number crunching might tell a different tale. But the season writ-large seems highly suggestive, if not conclusive, to me.
Anyone want to have a go at it?
Overall, it was a disappointing year re: hitting. At the end of the day it seems the majority of the players left something significant on the table. Not that they sucked (in some cases) but that they didn't trend the right way, or fell apart at some point. As far as the mainstays went, we had reasonable expectations for most of them:
Wong/McGuire should have been just under league average, with McGuire hitting and Wong showing power/speed.
Casas should have been an offensive plus.
Arroyo/Mondesi should have been league average.
Hernandez/Chang/Story should have been average to plus. (With Chang a clear minus and Story offsetting that.)
Devers should have been a major offensive plus.
Verdugo/Duvall/Yoshida/Refsnyder should all have been positive offensive contributors of one degree or another.
Turner a bit of a candidate to regress, but at least an average DH.
Instead, I'd say that the only expectations that were met were: Casas and Duvall. IMO, Turner slightly over-performed, and the main offensive plus in the OF turned out to be Duran, who had been written off by most (including myself) as a AAAA type player. Pablo Reyes turned out to be a great-pickup, but the rest (SSS Abreu excepted), be they opening-day roster players, expected replacements, stop gaps, callups, or traded-for players, ranged from mildly to majorly disappointing, considering their careers to date.
We can look at it this way.
Players who should have stepped forward but did not/mildly regressed:
Devers. His age 26 season (this one) had a lower OPS and OPS+ than his 3 previous full seasons.
Verdugo. His age 27 season (this one) had a slightly higher OPS. . .but by OPS+ he's been trending mildly down for 3 seasons now.
Yoshida. I'm putting him here due to his second-half fade to black.
Wong/McGuire. Seem to be in the same "bottom quartile" of expected results.
Urias. Bounced back from his MIL experience, but again, short of his better years.
Players who absolutely cratered offensively:
Story. Yes, there was injury, but his approach was not optimal when he came back.
Hernandez. Awful. Went on to hit much better in LAD.
Arroyo. Two years of just-above league average OPS+ to an 80.
Refsnyder. 143 OPS+ to 87. Some might be less than ideal platoon use? Overall, a huge step back.
Alfaro. Yes, a stopgap, but just terrible as opposed to prior years.
Tapia. Same.
Chang. Never great, somehow worse than before.
Dalbec. Same.
Players who were called up: either did well then cratered, or just failed (SSS or not):
Dalbec, Rafaela, Hamilton. (Alfaro and Tapia could go here also.)
Players who were average/positive call-ups:
Valdez, Abreu.
Players who were failed rehabs/acquisitions (e.g., signed/acquired for unrealized potential.)
Mondesi, Tapia, Alfaro, Chang (?), Urias(?)
Players who were positive rehabs/acquisitions:
Pablo Reyes.
Players who Improved, Held Fast, or were Bright Spots:
Improved:
Casas. And even there he had a long transition to being a ML hitter.
Duran. Revamped swing in minors, then slumped and recovered at the ML level.
Held Fast/slightly improved:
Turner. Vet from outside org, kept career pattern, but beat aging curve.
Duval. Vet from outside org, kept career pattern (to extent there is one, but 2023 wasn't a great leap forward.)
Bright Spots:
Abreu. SSS. Hot bat straight from the minors.
Maybe Valdez? Relatively SSS, but basically the league-average bat as expected.
Maybe Pablo Reyes? He was certainly useful, but it's hard to say whether he improved or just had opportunity.
I think the above is a pretty strong indictment of the field staff/hitting coaches.
First off, the caveats: I don't expect miracles. I don't expect the coaching to rehabilitate everyone. I expect some positives and some negatives. I know they don't control injuries, and there will always be a player that's resistant to the message/method other players embrace. It's a long season, and players will slump and recover, etc. etc. etc.
Yet here. . .I think the only positives that the hitting coaches seem to have their fingerprints on are Casas and Duran. And it's notable they're both kind of freaks - Casas in terms of his batting eye, and Duran in terms of his speed. And even so, Casas had a very long adjustment period, so given the suck-fest everywhere else in the lineup, you have to wonder if Casas's adjustment period mightn't have been shortened. But at least he didn't slump later - so that remains a strong positive. Duran hit well, slumped at the ML level and came back. I think Duran's the best feather in the hitting coaches cap. It's what you want them to do (or preside over) - fixing hitters, getting what they can out of them.
As noted above, everyone else seemed to backslide substantially or mildly, apart from two vets from outside the system (Turner and Duval).
Particularly disappointing was the inability to get Yoshida or Story back on track later in the season. Or unstick Hernandez or Arroyo. Or get Devers and Verdugo to take a step forward. I mean, slumps and streaks aside, these are years where they should be plateauing or growing as hitters, not trending downward after 162 games.
(Which is why I think it's absolutely insane they want to go around again with the same field staff. They don't really have a track record of hitters flourishing under their watch.)
I'm open to the possibility that more sophisticated number crunching might tell a different tale. But the season writ-large seems highly suggestive, if not conclusive, to me.
Anyone want to have a go at it?
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