Jared Walsh Has Simplified Things
Best known for being developed as a two-way player, Walsh has finally tapped into the power that he’s displayed throughout his minor league career. A 39th-round pick back in 2015, Walsh quickly moved through the Angels organization, powering his way through each minor league stop. He posted a .237 ISO during his minor league career, though all that power came with plenty of strikeouts. He made his major league debut last September, struggling through 87 plate appearances and five appearances out of the bullpen. A strikeout rate over 40% really hampered all of his efforts at the plate, and those relief appearances all came in mop-up duty where his 26.1% walk rate could do little harm.
The biggest difference has been a noticeable change to his swing mechanics. When Walsh first came up in 2019, his swing was noisy as though he was trying to use his entire body to generate power. He certainly noticed the problems — borne out in his strikeout rate last season — and worked hard to fix them at the alternate training site this summer. Using his teammates Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Albert Pujols as inspiration, he went about adjusting his hand load. Here’s how he described this process to Jeff Fletcher of the OC Register:
“I had a lot going on. It worked sometimes, but it wasn’t consistent enough. There were some timing issues that I kind of realized when I got called up last year that I wanted to address. As hitters, we build habits, good and bad. For me it was trying to be more direct to the ball, a little more efficient, and stuff like that.”
Here’s an example swing from 2019:
And here’s an example from this season:
[embedded content]The difference is stark. Instead of all those moving parts in his pre-swing load, he’s much quieter in the batters box now. He’s still relying on a big leg kick as a timing mechanism, but everything else about his swing is smoother and more direct. Very little movement is wasted.
The result of these changes has been a 10-point increase in his contact rate, moving it from well below average to above league average. He’s reduced the amount of swing-and-miss in his game, particularly on pitches in the zone, by simplifying his swing and being more direct to the ball. His contact rate on pitches in the zone went from 76.3% to 89.2%. Simply making contact with the ball more often has helped unlock all of his raw power that he had displayed throughout his minor league career.
On the surface, it looks like his approach at the plate hasn’t changed much beyond the increase in contact. He’s still chasing pitches out of the zone at the same rate, a little above league average, and his overall swing rate is only a little higher. But when you break down his approach by pitch type, you can see that he has been more refined. He’s been far more aggressive on the fastball, increasing his swing rate against heaters by 10 points.
On breaking balls, he’s decreased his chase rate from 41.9% to just 22.0%. He’s chasing more fastballs and offspeed pitches instead, so his overall chase rate is unaffected, but he’s able to make contact with those types of pitches more often. The net effect is a significant reduction in swings and misses on pitches out of the zone. When combined with his improved contact rate on pitches in the zone, you can see why his strikeout rate has fallen from 40.1% to just 14.3%.
All these adjustments and changes to his swing haven’t affected his ability to hit for power. His underlying metrics last year were actually pretty encouraging, but he had little to show for it. Those skills are still intact this year.
| Year | Avg EV | Max EV | Avg EV FB/LD | Hard Hit% | Barrel% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 91.3 | 109.7 | 93.3 | 50.0% | 13.6% |
| 2020 | 88.9 | 112.8 | 94.1 | 39.7% | 13.2% |
Even though his average exit velocity has dropped slightly, he’s still making hard contact on balls in the air regularly and his barrel rate is unchanged. He’s also increased his max exit velocity from good to great, something that could indicate a significant increase in performance if the season were longer. He isn’t selling out for power by pulling everything either. Here’s his spray chart grouped by exit velocity.
He’s showing an ability to hit for power to all fields. Last year, he was pulling more than half of the balls he put in play. That’s dropped to 45.6% this year. A third of his fly balls he’s hit this year have left the park, a rate that’s bound to drop. But all the underlying metrics indicate that he should continue to mash the ball as long as he’s able to make contact with it regularly.
With Albert Pujols under contract for one more year and Shohei Ohtani likely taking the bulk of the playing time at designated hitter, Walsh’s future role is a little uncertain. He could serve as the designated hitter on days that Ohtani is pitching if he ever returns to the mound. And if the Angels are serious about trying to make a run at the postseason again next year, giving Pujols regular playing time probably isn’t a good idea. There isn’t a guaranteed full-time role for Walsh, and while there will be at-bats to be found here and there, he could force the Angels hand if he continues his impressive adjustments.