Finally! Official Hot Stove League Thread

[D-train]

Kramer knows greatness when he sees it.

Ok now that is actually encouraging. When you finish the season 5-51 you need a massive overhaul to your swing and approach. Not saying it is going to work but it has a better chance of working that going the definition of insanity route.

[Coeurd’Alene J]

Kramer knows greatness when he sees it.

Ok now that is actually encouraging. When you finish the season 5-51 you need a massive overhaul to your swing and approach. Not saying it is going to work but it has a better chance of working that going the definition of insanity route.

That is encouraging, I’m not sure getting overloaded with swing thoughts is his answer…. He is already a certified head case with seemingly a short fuse to go along with it. It’s so crazy…He looks to be the perfect baseball player. He either is the most unlucky mlb prospect with a bat in his hand when it comes to recognizing pitches OR
A. It’s in his head
B. His vision needs correction
C He over thinks the at bat see A for answer
D He never had the bat ability.. it was all hype
E stay tuned 2029 will be the year he puts it all together

[D-train]

Kelenics closest comps remain Jesus Montero (once he got to the Mariners) and Carlos Peguero with some Mallex Smith and Jeremy Reed sprinkled in.

His upside is Mike Zunino which is acceptable as a catcher, but is still bad as a corner outfielder. Zunino's career .681 OPS is equal to what AJ Pollock put up in 2022 that earned him a platoon role.

His downside is.. Kelenic.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx? ... &sort=16,d

Not seeing Montero really, his first mariners season wasn't terrible, .260/ .298/ .386. I think what was more concerning at the time was witnessing what a poor catcher and athlete he was. But from then on his hitting went off the rails.

Maybe comp was not accurate. What I had been curious about were players that had at some point made fairly significant improvement in their production. It was interesting looking over some of the names he came up with. You're going to say it has nothing to do with JK, he is too far gone, fine with me.

If you do enough research you can find a few guys that started off poorly like Moseby and went on to have a pretty good career. The only flaws with this is none of them have been as bad as JK. If JK hit .233 so far nobody would be down on him. And more importantly it ignores the HUNDREDs, maybe even thousands that started of poorly and continued to suck before being kicked out of baseball.

[Donn Beach]

He reported ahead of his third MLB season with an overhauled swing and an assortment of handwritten notes detailing its intricacies

That's what I found odd, what's there to write down about a swing?

[D-train]

He reported ahead of his third MLB season with an overhauled swing and an assortment of handwritten notes detailing its intricacies

That's what I found odd, what's there to write down about a swing?

yeah kind of reeks of desperation.

[D-train]

This guy posts this of JK striking at on an eye level pitch with guys on 1st and 3rd and no outs and just gets hammered by the groupies for it. lol

[ddraig]

He reported ahead of his third MLB season with an overhauled swing and an assortment of handwritten notes detailing its intricacies

That's what I found odd, what's there to write down about a swing?

I can see it now. JK calls time and steps out of the box. Then he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his notes to consult them before taking his next pitch.

[GL_Storm]

From what I understand, you can break hitting ability down into these sub-components:

1) Bat Control (sometimes called bat to ball skills)
2) Bat Speed
3) Pitch Recognition
4) Swing Mechanics
5) Approach/Mental Stuff

I don't think Jarred completely lacks any of these but it's possible the bat speed has been a tick off because of how jacked up he's been. He may also not recognize certain pitches as quickly out of the pitcher's hand as other players do. But there were signs last year of improvement and I think there is a fair amount of statistical evidence that pitch recognition improves over time, at least marginally. And a marginal improvement might make all the difference. I'm not sure how you would measure it exactly, but the way I've been thinking about it is something like how a 3% improvement could mean improved outcomes on 3-5 pitches in roughly a week's worth of games. But then those outcomes, if you could measure them, could also be attributed to other factors like swing changes, improved approach, etc. All of these things are tied together so if there is an overall improvement, it's probably a result of a number of factors.

At any rate, during spring and throughout the season, I'll be watching his actual results, obviously, but looking much more closely at in-zone contact percentage, average exit velocity, and the various "rate" stats like chase rate, k-rate, whiff rate, and BB-rate. I'll also be watching closely if he's making better contact low in the zone.

[Seattle or Bust]

New swing:

Old swing:

Seems to be less lean back on the new swing to center the swing out and hit more liners. He has problems swinging over the top of pitches so keeping his swing more centered vs upper cutty seems to be a strategy. He's also not releasing the bat to a right arm finish... must be to stay on pitches more and not let his body fly open.

[D-train]

I think it is simple as this. The level of hand eye coordination required to hit even minor league breaking ball is incredible. I mean think about it. A hitter's eye has to see a pitch the split second after it leaves the pitchers and notify the brain of its spin and position and then the brain has to make a million calculations predicting where the ball will be when it gets to the plate and then the brain has to notify the body to swing that bat in such a way that it will hit the ball perfectly. All in a split second. JK has mastered this. Unlike any of us and unlike 99.9% of the population he can hit minor league pitching and hit it well.

But once he goes up a level he eyes and brain and body aren't capable of making the same calculations because the become more difficult because the the sharper breaking balls. That is my theory and I am sticking to it.