Why Rosie Isn't Right

 

I'm not at all worried about the 21% K-Rate... That's not bad. But it would be nice to see the walk rate up a little... He'll never get to 8-10%, but if he can go from 4% to 6%, that would be significant. 

To be fair, it's more like 24.5% in the Majors... 

If he doesn't learn to stop swinging at pitches way outside the zone, I have to imagine that number will climb, as pitchers simply won't throw him strikes.  

I am not following the “why”. Do you think that the ball to the face has impacted his vision long term? His biggest issue is a strike zone discipline issue, which I suppose could be brought on via a vision induced recognition issue.

But I suspect it is more of the recognition issue and another failure of the Twins to work through that with a player in the minors and gearing him up for MLB success. For example, in 2014 he started in high A, went to AA, and then the fall league. He compiled a .674 OPS with a .286 OBP across 350 AB’s. Based on those numbers he started 2015 in AAA and was with the Twins in early May.

I just re-read the article and had a chuckle about the early comp to Bobby Abreu. His career .395 OPB, 18% k rate and 14% BB rate could not be more of a polar opposite to Eddie Rosario

I never heard the hit in the face by a baseball story regarding Rosario. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy.

My brother when he was about 8 got a pitched ball in the face because he was standing in the batter's box looking for a sign from the third base coach. He never played another game. When on to a success career as a face transplant surgeon. The sentence before this one is a lie. The others are true.

Correlation isn't causation. I watched Rosario lean across the plate to wave at what would've been ball four the other night. A defensive, traumatized hitter doesn't do that. One might look at MLB daily meal money allowances versus those in the minors and correlate increased meal money to increased strikeouts, i.e., Rosario got greedy as he progressed to MLB. BS, too.

He's still better than Buxton and the best CF option in the system. At least he's got the talent, hopefully the discipline comes in time.

Carl Crawford is a good comparable (minus his crazy early speed.)  He barely walked in his Rays' years.  And he was alright.  As long as he puts the ball in play at a .300+ clip, I see no issues

Crawford struck out a lot less and swung at balls outside the zone less after his first season.

In his first 4.5 years he had 14.7%, 15.4%, 12.1%, and 12.2% k rates. His o swing was 42%, 36%, 33%, and 33%.

Eddie’s k rates have been 24.9% and 23.8%, o swing’s 47.1% and 46.1%. Eddie had some luck the first year and benefitted from a smaller sample in his first year. If he doesn’t drastically cut down on the o-swing like Crawford did he simply will be getting himself out and not see any pitches to hit. The book is out on him. Why throw a strike when he will swing at every other pitch out of the zone?

Crawford struck out a lot less and swung at balls outside the zone less after his first season.

In his first 4.5 years he had 14.7%, 15.4%, 12.1%, and 12.2% k rates. His o swing was 42%, 36%, 33%, and 33%.

Eddie’s k rates have been 24.9% and 23.8%, o swing’s 47.1% and 46.1%. Eddie had some luck the first year and benefitted from a smaller sample in his first year. If he doesn’t drastically cut down on the o-swing like Crawford did he simply will be getting himself out and not see any pitches to hit. The book is out on him. Why throw a strike when he will swing at every other pitch out of the zone?

He played in 122 games last year, almost had 500 ABs and his stats are nearly identical from last year's "smaller sample size" to this year.  Slightly improved actually, which is progress, slight but progress none the less.

Crawford struck out a lot less and swung at balls outside the zone less after his first season.

In his first 4.5 years he had 14.7%, 15.4%, 12.1%, and 12.2% k rates. His o swing was 42%, 36%, 33%, and 33%.

Eddie’s k rates have been 24.9% and 23.8%, o swing’s 47.1% and 46.1%. Eddie had some luck the first year and benefitted from a smaller sample in his first year. If he doesn’t drastically cut down on the o-swing like Crawford did he simply will be getting himself out and not see any pitches to hit. The book is out on him. Why throw a strike when he will swing at every other pitch out of the zone?

Crawford was also in his 5th season in the Majors by the time he was Rosario's current age.  

He played in 122 games last year, almost had 500 ABs and his stats are nearly identical from last year's "smaller sample size" to this year.  Slightly improved actually, which is progress, slight but progress none the less.

I was thinking last year was the 80 game suspension year. The frustrating thing for me is if he can hit .270'ish while swinging this wildly, he could be a very good, borderline elite player if he reined in his srike zone discipline. He would walk more and get better pitches to drive.

Holy cow, you lost me at the last line.  You don't think he's that far off from being a Bryce Harper type? 

Is there perhaps a different Bryce Harper I'm not aware of? One that didn't win the MVP while hitting .330/.460/.649 with 42 home runs at age 22

I'd argue those are the same k rates and o swing rates, well within the margin of error, as it were, to judge his  process. IMO, he needs to figure out that o rate, I don't know how well that can be taught, or not.

If we only had a left handed veteran with great plate discipline, around another three years or so to discuss hitting.....

Or a coach who struck out 10.2% of the time during a 21 year, HOF career.

I don't think Jeremy's intent was to blame the ball to the face for Rosario's approach.  In general, looking at splits is interesting because we think it is telling us something about a specific change.  In this instance a ball to the face seems less arbitrary than say May 1 or June 15.  But, there are too many other variables to consider this as the definitive change that resulted in the current version of Rosario.  

It seems to me the Twins have valued BA above other offensive statistics for a long time.  I'm sure that played into Rosario's change as much as anything. 

I was thinking last year was the 80 game suspension year. The frustrating thing for me is if he can hit .270'ish while swinging this wildly, he could be a very good, borderline elite player if he reined in his srike zone discipline. He would walk more and get better pitches to drive.

Agreed. Dude can drive balls that are over the plate no doubt. It is frustrating watching him flair at terrible pitches.