Tom Verducci on how JK is primed for a breakout

[Donn Beach]

This is an argument that everyone seems to lean on and I just don't agree. The ability to recognize pitches is a physical talent (vision). The ability to hit a major league off speed pitch is a physical talent (hand eye coordination). Kelenic does not have the talent to do either one of those things. This idea that if somehow he can just relax and empty his brain he is somehow going to magically obtain those talents is ludicrous. There are thousands of people who can hit a fastball a long way but don't have what it takes to be a major league hitter. Jared just happens to be one of those people. The idea that its all mental is hogwash.

Its in degrees, Teo is hitter than can hammer fastballs but has a difficult time with breaking stuff. It took time to be productive. I believe there is an aspect of learning involved. A hitter doesn't have to be good at it but just learn to deal with breaking balls enough to be able to get to fastball counts

Well he hit .100 on Curveballs and .029 on Sliders so definitely needs to kick it up a few notches to match Teo who hit .242 on curveballs and .178 on sliders...

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderbo ... SEA&min=10

What was Teo hitting against them when he was 23?

Teo can still struggle against them, from a slump he had last season

Only 14 players are seeing a higher percentage of curveballs and sliders than Hernandez, who’s hitting .129/.156/.161 against breaking balls this season. Across MLB, pitchers are throwing fewer fastballs than ever, a counterintuitive reality in an era when the average fastball is a record 94-m.p.h. And against Hernandez, they’ve taken it to an extreme.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sports ... on/sn-amp/

[D-train]

Sometimes you have to tip your cap to a pitcher who can throw a curve or a slider for a strike. JK has alot of strike out looking at bats.His walk rate with the wilder pitchers would improve if he could lay off the junk, but he seems to lock up and watch hittable pitches go by only to swing at junk…That to me suggests he is guessing and that is not letting the pitches come to him. That to me is mental

Yes, the mental side is still a factor, I just don't think it is the biggest one.

[Captain 97]

Sometimes you have to tip your cap to a pitcher who can throw a curve or a slider for a strike. JK has alot of strike out looking at bats.His walk rate with the wilder pitchers would improve if he could lay off the junk, but he seems to lock up and watch hittable pitches go by only to swing at junk…That to me suggests he is guessing and that is not letting the pitches come to him. That to me is mental

He is guessing because he doesn't have the physical ability to see a pitch, recognize what it is and react fast enough to get the bat squarely to the ball. That has nothing to with him being a headcase. Vision, reaction time and hand eye coordination are physical tools.

[Captain 97]

Its in degrees, Teo is hitter than can hammer fastballs but has a difficult time with breaking stuff. It took time to be productive. I believe there is an aspect of learning involved. A hitter doesn't have to be good at it but just learn to deal with breaking balls enough to be able to get to fastball counts

Well he hit .100 on Curveballs and .029 on Sliders so definitely needs to kick it up a few notches to match Teo who hit .242 on curveballs and .178 on sliders...

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderbo ... SEA&min=10

What was Teo hitting against them when he was 23?

Teo can still struggle against them, from a slump he had last season

Only 14 players are seeing a higher percentage of curveballs and sliders than Hernandez, who’s hitting .129/.156/.161 against breaking balls this season. Across MLB, pitchers are throwing fewer fastballs than ever, a counterintuitive reality in an era when the average fastball is a record 94-m.p.h. And against Hernandez, they’ve taken it to an extreme.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sports ... on/sn-amp/

Teo hit .230 with a .774 OPS when he was 23. Kelenic hit .141 with a .534 OPS. last year.

[D-train]

I bet this is what JK feels like vs. average MLB sliders...

[Donn Beach]

Well he hit .100 on Curveballs and .029 on Sliders so definitely needs to kick it up a few notches to match Teo who hit .242 on curveballs and .178 on sliders...

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderbo ... SEA&min=10

What was Teo hitting against them when he was 23?

Teo can still struggle against them, from a slump he had last season

Only 14 players are seeing a higher percentage of curveballs and sliders than Hernandez, who’s hitting .129/.156/.161 against breaking balls this season. Across MLB, pitchers are throwing fewer fastballs than ever, a counterintuitive reality in an era when the average fastball is a record 94-m.p.h. And against Hernandez, they’ve taken it to an extreme.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sports ... on/sn-amp/

Teo hit .230 with a .774 OPS when he was 23. Kelenic hit .141 with a .534 OPS. last year.

I know he hit better than JK, my question
was how he hit breaking stuff

[Donn Beach]

This is an interesting article, it's about Teo developing as a hitter. Its like two steps, first in 2019 he adjusted his swing, I didn't understand the relationship between a swing and being able to hit breaking balls, he explains it.

.Just three weeks following his demotion, Hernandez returned to Toronto with altered swing mechanics. As Shi Davidi reported in June of 2019, and as you can see in the split screen below, Hernandez switched from a leg kick to a quicker toe tap, and lowered his hands in his initial setup (though there were times in 2020 when the leg kick returned). The end result was a quieter pre-swing routine—from his bat to his hands to his lower half—and the change seemingly got his swing fired up a split-second sooner.

That split-second can be the difference between squaring up a good fastball or fouling it off, and it can also be the difference between identifying a breaking ball or realizing what’s coming too late. As Hernandez alluded to when speaking to Davidi, recognizing breaking pitches was important to his success. Once he returned to the majors, that pitch recognition started paying off.

“If you don’t have the rhythm, you don’t have your approach, you don’t have your timing, you don’t have anything,” Hernandez explained to Davidi. “You’re always going to feel late for pitches, you’re not going to see any spin on it. That was the key.”

Then when he graduated to an elite hitter it was planning an at bat. Again, I've never really understood that and he explains it again.

That's more involved but it's interesting

If you’re surprised by Hernandez’s openness on this front, you’re not alone, but he says he’s confident in his varied approaches and aware that adjusting to pitchers is a never-ending process

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sports ... te/sn-amp/

[GL_Storm]

This is an interesting article, it's about Teo developing as a hitter. Its like two steps, first in 2019 he adjusted his swing, I didn't understand the relationship between a swing and being able to hit breaking balls, he explains it.

.Just three weeks following his demotion, Hernandez returned to Toronto with altered swing mechanics. As Shi Davidi reported in June of 2019, and as you can see in the split screen below, Hernandez switched from a leg kick to a quicker toe tap, and lowered his hands in his initial setup (though there were times in 2020 when the leg kick returned). The end result was a quieter pre-swing routine—from his bat to his hands to his lower half—and the change seemingly got his swing fired up a split-second sooner.

That split-second can be the difference between squaring up a good fastball or fouling it off, and it can also be the difference between identifying a breaking ball or realizing what’s coming too late. As Hernandez alluded to when speaking to Davidi, recognizing breaking pitches was important to his success. Once he returned to the majors, that pitch recognition started paying off.

“If you don’t have the rhythm, you don’t have your approach, you don’t have your timing, you don’t have anything,” Hernandez explained to Davidi. “You’re always going to feel late for pitches, you’re not going to see any spin on it. That was the key.”

Then when he graduated to an elite hitter it was planning an at bat. Again, I've never really understood that and he explains it again.

That's more involved but it's interesting

If you’re surprised by Hernandez’s openness on this front, you’re not alone, but he says he’s confident in his varied approaches and aware that adjusting to pitchers is a never-ending process

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sports ... te/sn-amp/

But according to posts from earlier in this thread, you either have the ability or you don't, and there's no such thing as working on weaknesses or improving. So more than likely Teo is full of shit.

[D-train]

Of course you can work on stuff and get better but the whole point is the gap between JK's performance and the average hitter. It seems too massive to overcome by just working on stuff. It is like a .284 hitter like Julio hitting almost .400 next season. Nobody expects that but the majority of M's twitter are going to shocked is JK isn't suddenly and average hitter. It is bizarre level of Cognitive dissonance.

[GL_Storm]

Of course you can work on stuff and get better but the whole point is the gap between JK's performance and the average hitter. It seems too massive to overcome by just working on stuff. It is like a .284 hitter like Julio hitting almost .400 next season. Nobody expects that but the majority of M's twitter are going to shocked is JK isn't suddenly and average hitter. It is bizarre level of Cognitive dissonance.

But you see I don't think it's actually that massive. I do think that the level of pitching we have now in the major leagues is such that it can appear that way. But we're in an era where almost every team has one or more players in their lineup, on a daily or near-daily basis, with sub-.200 batting averages.

I don't mind pessimism about the player. It's hard not to have doubts at this point. I have my own. But I think the level of certainty that he's done is wrong. And if he does turn the corner, the upside is huge. He'll be a lot more valuable to the Mariners as a 50 bat vs. righties than Andrew Benintendi will be to the White Sox, or Wil Myers to the Reds.