The new year is upon us, and baseball is set to return to something resembling its pre-coronavirus self, but our time for reflection is not yet at an end. Let’s check in with a couple players looking back on (very) recent touchstones in their respective careers…
- Shogo Akiyama had to make major adjustments to his swing during his first season with the Cincinnati Reds. The Japanese import explains the changes he made in this video linked to by Bobby Nightengale of The Enquirer (via Twitter). Essentially, Akiyama attributes his struggles at the plate to a timing issue, something he remedied by delaying his front leg lift. The change appeared to work. After producing just a 46 wRC+ with a triple slash of .192/.280/.247 in 83 plate appearances across 24 games in August, Akiyama rebounded with a 135 wRC+ over the rest of the regular season. Over 79 plate appearances in September and October, Akiyama slashed .317/.456/.365, helping the Reds into the playoffs.
- As a minor league free agent this winter, former Orioles’ right-hander David Hess jumped quickly at the opportunity to join the Tampa Bay Rays, signing a minors deal early in December. The Rays made their pitch to Hess on the first day of free agency, writes Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. Said Hess, “One thing the Rays have built a track record of is developing guys and being specific in who they’re looking for, and so when they came in that quickly, we right away knew how serious they were. That meant a lot to us. That was just something, them being the first team and how interested they were, that tipped the scales in their favor in a pretty good way.” Hess owns a 5.96 ERA/6.41 FIP in 190 1/3 innings spanning three seasons in his career.
Ohtani had to modify his leg kick when he came here, too. The remarkable thing is these guys doing it at the MLB level.
Agreed. It would be hard enough to make that change in the minor leagues. To be able to make that change at the MLB level is amazing.
Didn’t realize Akiyama had such a productive September/October. He could be an interesting sleeper candidate next season.
everyone or at least some were expecting him to play big. Talking bout sleeper!
I remember when I 1st started playing yahoo fantasy in 2017, Marcel Ozuna was in the FA poll lol I realize that Miami’s line up then, was loaded with Stanton, Yelich if I’m not mistaking Realmuto, Bour, Dee Gordon, and Ozuna…..man did he ever paid off for me….I end up winning it all that season on my league with my best trading partner facing me off for the tittle….of course, he came in 2nd.
By the way, I have a league of my own that I manage as I’m the owner of course…we currently have 12 teams….very competitive and I believe I got one guy already that wants to join…..we are drafting from scratch.
Anyone interested, can drop me an email or a note here with your email address so I can send the formal invitation with the link……I’ll advise you in advance that is ver very competitive!
If your league was as desirable to join as you claim, then you wouldn’t need to post a comment here in order to get new players.
He used the word competitive, not desirable. Baseball fan needs baseball fans to join fantasy baseball league?! Not in my neighborhood.
For starters it’s already full and quite frankly, I’m glad that an idiot like you is saving me the trouble. You wouldn’t have last a week in there anyways as we have 0 tolerance for morons!
I don’t need any body I already got 12 very competitive managers….I was doing this in case someone is looking to join a league. But clearly, people’s brain in this board, it’s the size of a peanut. All you do is follow sports, drink yellow water until you puke, and often forget about the great thing in lives.
Mr. VERY COMPETITIVE LEAGUE doesn’t understand post-hype sleepers? smh
Because Mr. competitive league got better things to do rather than to come here and post trash….I think the only schmuck here is you!
David Hess, the next Ray’s relief stud? Could be…
Hess is a disaster. He’s not a strikeout pitcher by any means (6.8Ks per 9) so you’d think he’s a pitch to contact, ground ball specialist but he allows way too many HRs to be that. His career average is 2.4 HRs allowed per 9 innings with a shocking 3.2 HRs/9 in 2019 (28 HRs in 80 IP!) If the Rays are able to turn him into a useful bullpen piece then they have the best pitching coaches / program in the MLB by far.
I have nothing against David Hess but I just don’t see how any team can salvage him. He was right to take this offer though. Tampa does have a great track record of turning average bullpen pitchers into stars. In this case, maybe they can turn a well-below average pitcher into an average one? Good luck, Mr. Hess, I’d love to see you prove me wrong.
Agreed Dorothy. Hess doesn’t excel in any department when it comes to pitching. I followed the link thinking there’s something I missed with his numbers, but nope. He just said they contacted him first and have a reputation when it comes to pitching.
They are probably planning on shuffling young arms and want a steady AAA rotation piece. At least that’s the only thing I can think.
Rays did a pretty good job with Tyler Glasnow and that was simply by getting him to ditch his two least effective pitches.
Also keep in mind that Hess is coming from the O’s, not the organization with the best track record with their pitchers. Cough *Jake Arrieta and Dylan Bundy*
shogo will win batting title
thanks for the laugh
I thought Shogo was a no-go, but he made me look like a Bozo after his 2nd half. He could be a Top 10 lead off hitter this year if he continues the positive adjustments at the plate. He has a great eye, doesn’t strikeout too much, steal bases easily and should hit 40+ doubles this year if he gets enough ABs. He won’t hit for much power (HRs) but he’s definitely a .400 OBP candidate if he puts together a consistent season. He should have solid trade value at the deadline as well if the Reds are out of it.
even more impressive with Akiyama is over his last 53 plate appearances he hit .340 with an OBP of .462 — clearly the adjustments he made worked and if he continues to hit like that going forward he’s going to be quite the offensive threat next season. The only thing that’s a bit curious is that he didn’t hit a single HR after averaging about 20 a year in Japan. If he can manage to adapt a little bit more and add even just 10-15 HR pop to his bat… he very well could eatblablish himself as one of the better offensive CF in baseball going forward.
Of course, Senzel might be the regular starting CFr.
Unfortunately that’s probably true. Senzel has been a major disappointment. #2 overall pick, plays like a solid 4th OF.
I had suggested a Betts for Senzel/Greene trade. I liked that a lot for the RS, and a whole lot less for the Reds. However, in retrospect, if I knew that their rebuild and window of contending was only going to be one year, the trade would’ve made a lot more sense for the Reds.
Senzel/Greene for one year of Betts? If I’m understanding you correctly, a big NO THANK YOU.
As for Senzel being a major disappointment, he’s still young, he quickly converted from the IF to become a very good CFr, and with a bit of good health will probably breakout in a big way.
Plus CFrs are few and far between, and Senzel may yet prove to be one. In the meantime, he’s hardly a major disappointment.
And who is your CFr if you trade Senzel? Akiyama’s days as an everyday CFr are pretty much behind him.
It was a theoretical. I’m still not sure why they moved Senzel off of 2B. The only hope of it happening was that the Cincy GM made some very strange moves.
Sample sizes are always humorous to me:
Over 79 plate appearances 317/.456/.365
Over 122 plate appearances .348/.385/.713
When you get caught up on sample sizes, you pay a guy with a 9.8 career WAR 64 million over 4 seasons.
Talking bout moose ? Way more goes into signing a player than career war. In reds case, since they are the worst franchise in baseball, they have to over pay and beg. Kuechel sat out the beginning of season and took a prorated 1 year deal instead of signing in cincy while castellanos has an opt out after every season. Yeah it’s a bad contract but got to do what u got to do to sign players.
Spot on about shogo though. He was a projected 4th outfielder coming over, still is while senzel/winker should lead off- shogo proved he’s one of best lead off hitters in league over 80 at bats. Lolz
Actually that was Castellanos’ first month with the Cubs.
I’m a Cubs fan, I remember everyone wanting the Cubs to re-sign Castellanos and throwing out ridiculous numbers to re-sign to boot. You have to keep things in perspective when looking at stats. All the Castellanos love was going on and people saying “oh look what happens when X,Y,Z” trying to find a pattern. I pointed out Starlin Castro and Kyle Schwarber both had better second halves than Castellanos and no one was lining up to give them massive contracts and sometimes guys just go on an amazing hot streaks, like Aquino.
I’m not sold on the Akiyama stats.
In August, he had a .527 OPS, with a .259 BABIP. In September, he had a .821 OPS, but with a .392 BABIP. If you normalized both months to a .300 BABIP, his respective OPS’s would be .609 and .637.
That’s more consistent. It’s possible that he hit the ball harder, but he still has -0- HRs in both months. He had a lot of walks in September, but without power to back that up, pitchers will challenge him more.
With Bell’s ridiculous outfield rotation Shogo never had a fair chance to play enough to learn and adjust. He’s a good hitter. If the opportunity to play in a 162 game season is presented Shogo will be the stud at the top of the lineup. Quite frankly, you have to be a moron to take any of the performances of the 2020 season as an indicator as to how anyone will perform. It was a 60 game season. No opportunity to adjust. The Reds offense will be just fine if we ever get back to a 162 game schedule.
I couldn’t agree with you more about performances of 2020. Players didn’t have much of a train up leading into the season, they didn’t get a lot of time to “figure things out” once the season began and there were really not enough off days for guys to get rested.
I think Kris Bryant and Christian Yelich are prime example of 2020 being a perfect storm for them. It’s not like all the sudden these guys forgot how to hit a baseball. They are just two guys that never really got it going for various reasons.