In light of all the trade rumors going around about Todd Frazier I thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at him as a hitter. Let’s get into it.
First, let’s take a look at some numbers:
(stats via baseball-reference)
We can get a good feel for the type of hitter Frazier is. He’s got a lot of pop, nearly every season he has gotten substantial playing time(minus 2012) he has hit 20 or more bombs. He had a breakout last year, hitting 40. We also see that he is likely not a guy that is going to hit over .300. It might happen, but I have a feeling it will be an outlier of a year if he does.
Now, let’s take a look at his hot/cold zones:
(courtesy of ESPN)
We see that Frazier hits everything up and in pretty well. He doesn’t handle the outside part of the plate very well. It was honestly kind of surprising that Frazier hits so many spots so well. This probably means that either pitchers throw him down and away all the time, or he’s just not very good at laying off pitches down and away (breaking balls) and that leads to him not getting on base as much as he maybe could.
After looking around a bit, it appears that Frazier’s plate discipline has been getting better, and isn’t something that should hold him back a substantial amount. I say all of this knowing Frazier is a 2x all star. It’s tough to do better than that, and with hitting being so complicated, it is almost impossible to find what might help Frazier be just a little bit better.
With that said, let’s take a look at the swing:
Pitch right down the middle that Frazier takes out of the yard.
Here’s a video from MLB Network talking with Frazier about his swing and approach:
There are a couple different things I want to discuss from that video. First, the most surprising thing. At roughly 22 seconds Frazier says he is looking for a ball away. He claims that is where he lives. In case you’ve forgotten, please refer back to Frazier’s hot/cold zone from above. Away is not his hot zone, unless it’s up. Interesting. Later in the video, he talks about how looking away helps him because then he can just react to balls in. Whatever works.
Then, at around 1:25 Frazier talks about having an arm bar. We can see in a swing from the video that he in fact does, at least on some pitches:
He then talks about how keeping his front elbow bent is the key for him getting to different pitches, especially that inside pitch. The really interesting part for me came around 1:20-1:30 when Frazier is taking flips. First, there is a good swing where he hits what looks like an inside pitch well. Here is quick pic of what that looked like:
Then, on the next swing, Frazier talks about reaching and says his “hands weren’t there”:
Now, this pitch was likely more away than the previous one. So if you think about it, your hands will obviously need to be further away from your body on an outside pitch. However, there is an important distinction. The slight change in direction (from hitting an inside pitch to an outside pitch) must happen AFTER the swing has launched. If you try to do this too early, you see the result above. Frazier sees the ball away and thinks he needs to “reach” for it. This leads to him pulling with the front shoulder a bit and trying to go and get it with his hands. If you launch the swing in a similar fashion each time, all you need to do is let it finish in a slightly different way. For an inside pitch, you need to stay a little closer to your body in order to get the barrel to the baseball. On the pitch away, you will need to allow the barrel to travel out away from you. Extension, a much debated swing topic, will almost always happen on the pitch away (not so much on the pitch in). The thing with the swing we saw in the video with Frazier is that his “extension” happened too early. Instead of directing it out towards right field, he hooked it towards left. Start the swing the same way each time, and then let the pitch location dictate where it will finish.
I hope some of my rambling above made sense. It’s cool to look at different hitters and get a feel for their process and what they do in the cage that leads to what we see happen on the field.
I hope you enjoyed todays installment! Stay tuned for #11 tomorrow.