It’s a shame spring training stats don’t matter. More than a handful of Pirates have to wish their seasons started a couple weeks sooner, or if a couple of these hits would have waited until next week to land.
Kevin Newman is batting a mind-boggling .714. Ke’Bryan Hayes has nine extra-base hits, tied for third in all of baseball entering play Sunday. Adam Frazier now has 10 extra-base knocks and is batting .553. If they could keep some semblance of this going into the regular season Thursday, the offense could get started on the right foot.
Then there is Bryan Reynolds. Results wise, he isn’t keeping up with some of his teammates, but a .317 average and .965 OPS are both really good. It just doesn’t stand out when compared to those other hitters.
“When you have those two things happen, it can get overlooked,” Derek Shelton said, referring to Newman and Hayes’ performance. “But it’s definitely not overlooked in our clubhouse or in our coaching room.”
Yes, they’re spring results. Those don’t matter. What might matter is that Reynolds has made consistently hard contact over the past month.
Reynolds has 21 batted balls in Statcast parks this spring. A dozen of those have been hit hard, meaning an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher. That’s a 57.1% hard hit rate. In 2020, he had a 38% hard hit rate. In his rookie season, it was 41.6%. Yes, it’s a microscopic sample size, one that might not be entirely accurate because we don’t have data on his full batted ball profile. But that has to mean something, right?
This is the first year Major League Baseball has installed Statcast in some minor-league parks, so we can’t check to see if there’s a correlation between quality of contact in spring training vs. the regular season, but it can only be a good thing that he’s clobbering the ball right now. If nothing else, it’s an encouraging first sign that Reynolds can put that sophomore slump behind him and rebound in 2021.
Perhaps just as important is that Reynolds is hitting secondary offerings well, too. Five of the 12 hard hit balls were either breaking or offspeed pitches, with another two being cutters that might be misclassified sliders. In the past, Reynolds has relied on crushing the fastball to make his hard contact:
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Baseball Savant
It’s common enough for hitters to tag the fastball better than a slider or curve, but Reynolds has had stretches where he’s hit either breaking or offspeed stuff just as hard as a heater, or really not hard at all. Right now, he’s doing the former.
We’re probably delving a little too deep into small sample sizes for spring training games here, so let’s close this point with just a thought for Reynolds this year. Since he’s a switch-hitter, he’s going to be seeing a lot of changeups, especially from starters. If he can time up the breaking and offspeed stuff and hit it hard, he’s going to bounce back fine.
Actually, that’s what Reynolds’ 2021 season is going to come down to: Timing. It was off last year, and it showed in his slashline.
“My main focus has been being on time and getting ready really, so when I’m in that good position, the rest happens for me,” Reynolds said recently.
I recently did a Mound Visit that explored Reynolds’ timing problems last year. Give that a read if you want to see how his swing got out of sync last year.
Getting it back in sync isn’t an exact science. It plagued plenty of Pirates hitters last year, not just Reynolds. Things can snowball in a hurry if something is off.
What’s different this year? Well, don’t underestimate the value of actually having a full, mostly normal offseason and spring training. There also may be a slight mechanical tweak in play. Maybe. Reynolds and Shelton both said this weekend that Reynolds hasn't made a change in approach, but if you compare the last swing of his 2020 season...
To how it has looked this spring...
There are some noticeable differences, especially in how he holds the bat. Reynolds is holding it much more vertically this spring while waiting for the pitch, rather than having it rest on his shoulders. It looks like his hands are a little further away from his body, too.
Now this isn’t completely new for him. In fact, this was one of the first mechanical changes that he tried last season after stumbling out of the gate, but he didn’t stick with it the whole year. It didn’t do much to turn his slump around, but then again, his problems were more deep-rooted than just hand and bat positioning. Since that mindset goes both ways, moving his hands and changing how he holds the bat in the set position isn’t going to be the catalyst for a breakout either, but it could play a part in his timing.
Reynolds is the guy in the outfield. Gregory Polanco is almost certainly gone after this year. Anthony Alford, Travis Swaggerty, Oneil Cruz and Jared Oliva could all be parts of the future outfield and could claim a spot as soon as this year, but each comes with some level of uncertainty.
Reynolds, even after last year, is still the safest bet to be in the outfield for the next competitive Pirates team. So far this spring, he’s showing signs that his swing is in the right spot, and that he can again establish his position with the team going forward.
