Extreme Makeover: The Jarren Duran Edition
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Another way to express the same thing: Duran’s wOBA is .440, which is magnificent. But Savant’s xwOBA stat thinks he’s “earned” nearly all of that with his quality of contact: .417.
Savant also shows that he's getting a lot of infield singles, which makes sense with his sprint speed (85th percentile!!) and probably isn't all due to luck.
I'm not sure you're interpreting that chart correctly. I think the marks show where the ball first made contact with the ground, not where it was fielded. I suspect all of those "infield" hits actually went through to the outfield. Particularly the double that is sitting more or less on the first base bag.
Yeah, you're probably right. A double on a ball fielded in front of the first base bag should've tipped me off.
Still, though. Kid's got wheels.
Are his prior years so up the middle (granting the very SSS here)? Was he shifted prior to 2023?
After his home run to center today I asked myself “has he pulled a ball at all this year?”
The answer is basically no. Talk about an extreme up the middle - oppo approach. When he first added power it was very much pull side.
His entire profile is just completely different. Rare to see stuff like this.
The answer is basically no. Talk about an extreme up the middle - oppo approach. When he first added power it was very much pull side.
His entire profile is just completely different. Rare to see stuff like this.
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I’m not as experienced with creating the spray charts, but I assume this is outs as well. Is there a way to only show a chart of hits? Curious many of the low number of pulled actually ended up hits.
Yes! Thank you. Definitely strengthens what SouthernBoSox said, basically 4 hits on pulled balls.
Here is Duran's 2022 spray chart, outs included. Definitely not as pronounced with the oppo approach.
Attachments
The ball hit the ground near the first basemen but presumably kept rolling after that.
that makes sense, but none of the singles were ground balls then?
Not trying to be difficult (I don’t have to try), just trying to get a better handle on this
A spray chart reflects where each batted ball first struck the ground (or a glove in the case of outs). It's safe to assume that most if not all base hits that show in the infield actually made it to the outfield, especially if they went for extra bases.
Holy crap, even I'm not old enough to remember him! Never hoida him either.
One of my favorite old baseball nicknames. Not quite as good as Death to Flying Things Ferguson or Pebbly Jack Glasscock.
Ages ago after the team joined the Mariners minor league system, the Everett Aquasox were looking for a nickname and posted a notice on SABR-L:
It may have been for the team mascot but I sent in the suggestion of Fergie for Death to Flying Things Ferguson. It wasn't chosen but they did send me a team cap:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/-EAAAOSwmPFckADt/s-l400.jpg
It's really difficult to explain how different he is overall. It's like they acquired a total different player. Swinging at strike, up the middle other way line drives, taking walks, AND - maybe the biggest difference no one is mentioning - plus center field defense.
It's hard to over emphasize how important of a development this has been. Going from have nothing but question marks in center and hoping Ceddanne Rafaela figures it out, they might have a core level center fielder on the cheap for 6 seasons.
Brutal? Many MLB players strike out at a similar rate and do fine. It's the new normal.
Yes. And it beautifully illustrates how often player development is nonlinear. We fans have to stop making snap judgments on young players based on 100 or 200 plate appearances.
I didn’t catch the full game last night as I flipped to the C’s, but there was one PA last night that stood out to me, I guess it must have been his 1st.
Hard throwing pitcher, I think he went down 0-2 immediately, and where last year he probably Ks immediately, he instead worked it to a 2-2 or 3-2 count, fouled off a bunch of pitches, and ended up seeing a good number of pitches to help get Wheeler’s PC up. Ended up with a shallow flyout but the fact that he hung in and ended up getting some decent pitches to hit out of such a pitcher’s count situation felt a lot different than what we had become used to.
Was he doing any of this in the minors? I can't tell from bREF which has pretty basic minor league stats. If it was always in him but just not showing up in the bigs, that's normal. If he was NEVER this guy and some switch came on where he adopted a whole new approach... I mean, that's baseball, but it's still remarkable.
Yeah we are an impatient lot. Two years ago before Kike' settled in as the regular CF Duran was tearing it up in WOOstah. Everyone was screaming at Bloom to get him up here and we know how that worked out. Now on the flip side, the frustration here came from every aspect of Duran's game. Aside from what we saw at the plate, he has what some call elite speed, but he was a poor base runner. As a defender his ability to track the ball off the bat and take good routes to the ball was shaky. He took heat for his non vax status and got crushed for his handling of questions about it as well. Fair or not it became part of a growing list of reasons not to like the kid and the Tapia little league home run only added fuel to the fire.
The guys who survive as plus players in the majors with that type of K rate mostly have elite power. I also might dispute “the new normal” claim. It’s true that players strike out more now but 30% is still very high in the current environment. I’d bet less than 10 qualified hitters last year had K rates over 30%.
If Duran is going to morph into a serious power threat, then I’d have less problem with the K rate. That said, Duran’s K rate has come down steadily since I made that post. When I looked yesterday he was down around 25%. His at bats have been fun to watch recently. He really seems like he’s on a steep learning curve in a positive way right now.
Been waiting on Duran to qualify for full savant metrics and they just came out.
They are siiiiiiiccckkk
They are siiiiiiiccckkk
I’ve been checking these constantly waiting for him to qualify. These match the eye test, he’s smoking the ball, has much improved defense, and of course is fast as fuck
According to Rosenthal, Pedey got to Duran during spring training:
https://theathletic.com/4503697/2023/05/10/mlb-red-sox-jarren-duran-yankees-rangers/?source=user_shared_article
Yah. That sounds like Pedroia. One of the reasons i feel he will be a coach some day. Baseball is his life and he is the type of player who wont be able “escape” from baseball even after retirement
Not suggesting that it didn't happen, but seems like a rather small window of opportunity given that Duran spent the majority of spring training with team Mexico
Just because it was simple doesn't mean it was obvious. Sometimes it takes a fresh eye to catch something or suggest a simple change.
Possibly. The only story I can think of where the coaching staff has made a significant improvement is with getting Yoshida to change his stance slightly, but that turned him into what he's always been.
It would be encouraging if the coaching staff actually helped some of the younger players be better hitters. Thusfar though it seems that Turner's presence in the hitting meetings is being credited with a lot of the success batters are having.
I mean, I don't doubt they do stuff, but they seem singularly unable to help AAA guys make the jump to the majors. Which is going to happen more often in the future.
Weird thing to say. We're still waiting on Casas, but Wong, Valdez and Duran all seem to be hitting pretty well?
Equally weird you didn't notice we just discussing how Duran responded to a spring training suggestion by Pedroia.
Weirdo.
Yeah, but I think that's because it makes for a better news story. We heard the same thing about JD for years.
"Gritty veteran goes above and beyond and takes a younger player under his wing to teach him cool hitting tricks" is a good story. "Coach performs competently at the job he was hired to do," not so much.
I am reminded of Dalbec and Schwarber. https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2021/09/29/new-report-kyle-schwarber-bobby-dalbec/
I love the sharp liners he hits just a little off the fielder and how he motors into 2B with a double < 5% of MLBers can get. Awesome!
I'm not sure if he's gotten faster, or hes just learned how to be a better baserunner, but he definitely didn't use his speed in such a game changing way before this year. 6 steals in 22 games, and I don't remember any of them being even close to being thrown out.
And for reference. The double in question
https://www.mlb.com/video/raisel-iglesias-in-play-no-out-to-jarren-duran?partnerId=web_video-playback-page_video-share
streamable
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Raises (not begs) the question as to could he be called out for wandering with the base is his hand? Or is he free to advance?