Cardinals sign Dexter Fowler

[Padsfs]

if heyward is his pre-2016 self, he and his contract are perfectly fine.

of course, if he is 2016 heyward from here on out, it's a disaster.

Heyward's BABIP dropped 60 points from 2015 to 2016. He was a career .309 BABIP hitter prior to 2016 (when he BABIP'd .266, 12th worst in baseball) If he gets a normalized BABIP in 2017, he's hitting .270/.350 and putting up average offense. That doesn't explain his power drying up though, or thinking that it will return, but he could improve to where he's not a liability.

[Padsfs]

I found it interesting Matheny did not attend the dinner with Flores and Mo and Fowler after Fowler got into town.

Did we know this?

Matheny gushed about Fowler during the winter meetings. Maybe he was out of town.

[MrCrowesGarden]

[salukifan2]

if heyward is his pre-2016 self, he and his contract are perfectly fine.

of course, if he is 2016 heyward from here on out, it's a disaster.

Heyward's BABIP dropped 60 points from 2015 to 2016. He was a career .309 BABIP hitter prior to 2016 (when he BABIP'd .266, 12th worst in baseball) If he gets a normalized BABIP in 2017, he's hitting .270/.350 and putting up average offense. That doesn't explain his power drying up though, or thinking that it will return, but he could improve to where he's not a liability.

His ISO dropped over 50 points. He wasn't just having bad luck he stopped hitting the ball hard. Even that feels inflated though because so many of his xbh came on flares and grounders down the line.

[zac]

if heyward is his pre-2016 self, he and his contract are perfectly fine.

of course, if he is 2016 heyward from here on out, it's a disaster.

Heyward's BABIP dropped 60 points from 2015 to 2016. He was a career .309 BABIP hitter prior to 2016 (when he BABIP'd .266, 12th worst in baseball) If he gets a normalized BABIP in 2017, he's hitting .270/.350 and putting up average offense. That doesn't explain his power drying up though, or thinking that it will return, but he could improve to where he's not a liability.

His ISO dropped over 50 points. He wasn't just having bad luck he stopped hitting the ball hard. Even that feels inflated though because so many of his xbh came on flares and grounders down the line.

I've never seen a player have as much weak contact as Heyward did this year. Not even a pitcher.

Right now Heyward has that backward hitch that makes him tardy on the fastball as well as full arm extension well before contact is made. By the time the bat hits the ball he is basically pushing instead of striking, which is culprit for the soft contact.

Hopefully they are getting a new/different timing mechanism as that backward hitch is trash. Simply incorporating some forward movement in his timing would sync everything together and give more power. I think Jason needs to use his hands a little more and avoid the early bat extension that plagues his ABs. Personally his arms and bat (when swinging) look like too long of a lever. This might be a mirage, but I would go with a short bat which could help speed things up. It's not like he has issues covering the plate or anything.

For such a big and powerful man Heyward has a pitiful swing. He has a LOT of work to do to fix that train wreck. If he does he could potentially be a good to great offensive player. I'll believe it when I see it though.

[JL21]

It's funny how all of this stuff is said every year about Heyward. "He needs a new timing mechanism... give him more power... such a pitiful swing for such a huge guy, but he could be potentially a great hitter..."

Not to pick on you, zac... I think your analysis there is awesome. It just kind of cracks me up because these are all very similar things that we heard about him when he started to go bad in Atlanta, and again when the Cardinals got him. He is one of the most vexing hitters in all of baseball. It almost seems like the Cardinals had some mild success with him because they gave up on trying to coax the power out of him and just accepted him as a BABIP-driven gap hitter who would occasionally tantalize with his power. Maybe someone with better knowledge of it can speak to that- that's just my hunch and not based on any sort of real evidence. Even looking at his advanced stats, the one year in STL stands out because his GB% was way, way, way up (8% higher than his career number).

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I don't really think that post is very insightful(it definitely has an 'it's so simple!' arrogance to it), but I'm struggling with this idea I've seen repeated that optimism about Heyward bouncing back is some fool's gold that's been promised over and over. Prior to last year Heyward had a career .345 wOBA/118 wRC+, which almost exactly matches his 2015, 2013, and 2012(so there's no long term trend). If the idea is that Heyward has always thought to be capable of more than his career line then I can accept that, but it's not the same as thinking "hey, Jason Heyward was an easily above average hitter for 3400 PAs, I bet he can approach that level again at age 27 with the right tweak".

[JL21]

I don't really think that post is very insightful(it definitely has an 'it's so simple!' arrogance to it), but I'm struggling with this idea I've seen repeated that optimism about Heyward bouncing back is some fool's gold that's been promised over and over. Prior to last year Heyward had a career .345 wOBA/118 wRC+, which almost exactly matches his 2015, 2013, and 2012(so there's no long term trend). If the idea is that Heyward has always thought to be capable of more than his career line then I can accept that, but it's not the same as thinking "hey, Jason Heyward was an easily above average hitter for 3400 PAs, I bet he can approach that level again at age 27 with the right tweak".

Oh, I don't think the idea of him bouncing back is fool's gold. Not at all. But I think the idea of him being more than his career line is fool's gold by this point. In the very least, it's a narrative we've seen over and over and over... that some new approach is going to unlock all of the promise he showed back in 2010 when he was 20 years old and mashing homeruns on opening day.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Agreed, Heyward's rookie year offense with his current defense is basically Mike Trout with different offense/defense proportions. No one's holding out any hope for that. And to be transparent what I'm replying to are insinuations like this. But I do think it's entirely reasonable to be optimistic that Heyward can return to even a step below his Cardinal production. Give him a .330 wOBA and he's a 4+ win player that divides the young righties in the back half of the Cubs lineup really well. Not a guarantee, Heyward was so abhorrent offensively that it's possible something is being exploited that isn't easily fixed even if there are a lot of possibilities given his complex swing. But returning to that sub-Cardinals form would definitely be bouncing back in a big way, to borrow Sullivan's phrasing from my link above.

[JoeMcKim]

Heyward has all of the physical tools in the world and had a very good rookie season. It just shows you how hard it's to play baseball on the MLB level. Just because you're a great athlete and played great every year prior to the majors doesn't mean you'll continue to hit once you get there.