3 Atlanta Braves Takeaways from a Friday night win at St. Louis
1. Dansby Swanson
After two more homers on Friday, it’s time to acknowledge the good work that Dansby Swanson doing… a bit unconventional to be sure, but it’s working.
There’s still ample room for improvement: he’s guilty of perhaps trying too hard or making the occasional poor decision on defense (a bare-handed pickup attempt on Friday, plus an air-mailed overthrow of home that preceded the ‘TOOTBLAN’), but I will take errors of ‘co-mission’ rather than errors of ‘omission’.
On offense, Swanson is up to .262 for the season… which we’ll certainly take over his .232 and .238 from 2017 and 2018.
- His strikeouts are down: 18.6% vs. 22-23% over the past 2 seasons.
- His walks are down as well; this is partly due to being switched out of the 8-spot in the lineup and partly due to a more aggressive approach
- Swing rates: down 10% on pitches out of the strike zone over 2018
- Up 2% on pitches in the strike zone
- Contact rate is 3% higher than 2018 for out-of-zone swings; steady (with 1%) for in-zone swings.
- Thus his swinging strike rate is also down… by 2%
Historically, the 2-hole hitter is charged with being the guy who is supposed to move a runner over and into scoring position. He’s a good bat-handler and will both take walks and put the ball in play.
That’s… not exactly how things are working with this Atlanta Braves lineup, but things are still working.
In May, Swanson’s OPS is actually down (to .757) and so is his On-base percentage (.296). Yet his K-rate is way down (22% to 14%) with a higher average.
It’s as if Brian Snitker and Kevin Seitzer have told him “don’t worry about your average – Acuna’s gonna hit… Freeman’s gonna hit… Donaldson’s gonna hit… you just go out there and swing away, too.”
It’s not conventional, but this Dansby 2.0 model is doing enough – he aims to have a career-high in Homers before July (14… now at 10) and is part of a lineup that’s just pounding the ball right now.
Next. Who's your Stars?. dark
The Atlanta Braves are 10th in the majors in homers and 4th in the National League (74), and this year Swanson isn’t just a pretty glove.