Has Barry Bonds once again turned a player’s potential into a realized gain?
Tyler Fitzgerald played in all four games of the series against the Philadelphia Phillies and went 8-for-17 with 2 doubles, a triple, a pair of home runs, and 5 RBI. But this hot streak didn’t start once he caught a glimpse of the Liberty Bell. Since the end of the Reds’ series at Oracle Park, he’s 12-for-27 in 7 games with a trio of doubles, a triple, a pair of home runs, and 6 RBI along with a stolen base (.444/.464/.852). Small sample size? Nah. It’s all because he got hitting instruction from Barry Bonds.
A couple of days ago for MLB.com, San Francisco Giants beat writer Maria Guardado suggested that Bonds share some of the credit for Fitzgerald’s hot April.
“Barry actually helped me with that a little bit the last homestand. Just trying to get on top of the ball. As you can see, just with that thought, I’m able to backspin balls a little better. I’m trying to stay with it and get rid of some of those bad habits that I had and a lot of swing-and-miss that I had before.”
I’m not sure how many stories there are now of Bonds taking aside a Giants hitter and talking to them. I certainly remember the famous one involving Joc Pederson, because it led to this incredible 3-home run, 8-RBI night:
Anyway, I love to see it. While it’s true that the greats don’t always make for great teachers, it’s undeniable that a hitting master suggesting something can be useful if it can be decoded and understood. Bonds is probably a bit better than most of these legends turned teachers, too, and has some sense of how to convey this information more meaningfully.
Then there’s the talent portion of this. It’s not like Bonds is whispering into Christian Koss’s ear and making him a 30-home run threat. Fitzgerald’s latent skillset already points to something like this and we did get a flash of that for a wonderful moment in time last season. The odds of him keeping it up or making a major league career out of some percentage of that incredible output does seem low, but Fitzgerald has kept me on the hook and wanting to believe.
The overall Statcast data is pretty butt, yet the splits tell a better story… keeping in mind that we are dealing with an incredibly small sample size (60 PA in 16 games). So, you’ve got Bonds’ advice and Fitzgerald’s stick-to-it-iveness plus talents, but there’s one more part of this equation to explain the hot streak: how he’s being pitched to.
Last season, he saw 1,330 pitches in the big leagues. 54.4% were fastballs (sinkers, four-seamers, cutters), 32.7% were breaking balls (sinkers, sweepers, curveballs, slurve), and 12.9% were offspeed (changeups, splitters). He did all of his damage on fastballs, posting a .333 batting average and .585 slugging percentage. 10 of his 15 home runs came off fastballs, as well as 14 doubles and a triple.
This season, he’s seen 216 pitches. 45.4% are breaking balls, 42.6% are fastballs, and 12% are offspeed. So, you see how the league has adjusted — and I’m sure if I go back and look at the splits, this switch might’ve happened late last season. This season, he’s still mashing fastballs — a .524 batting average and .952 slugging percentage. 3 of his doubles and both his home runs have come off the fastball.
If you look at the Statcast data to determine what pitches he saw, it’s pretty clear. In the early going, he was seeing lots of sliders, sweepers, curveballs, and changeups. Pretty obvious if you watch Fitzgerald hit. Just pitch him away. At times, he’s Aaron Rowandesque with his slider away chase behavior. Okay, I went ahead and counted, and through his first 11 games of the season (pre Bonds talk), here’s the breakdown:
59.9% breaking balls
35.9% fastballs
4.2% offspeed
His line: .179/.233/.214 with 2 walks against 8 strikeouts and 1 XBH (a double).
Now, because I’m low on time, I didn’t feel compelled to do the same percentage breakdown of pitches for his last 5 games — this New York through Philadelphia swing in this 17 games in 17 days stretch; so, instead, I offer the fastball percentages:
- @ Yankees: 67.7% fastballs (21 out of 31 pitches seen in those two games)
- @ Phillies: 41.7% fastballs — he also saw an increase in offspeed pitches (45.5%). He saw just 13 breaking balls the whole series.
Maybe… teams should stop throwing Fitzgerald fastballs?
Now, the test will be if the lesson sticks. Admittedly, the lesson is easier to internalize when pitchers are throwing you pitches that play to one’s strengths — at least, I’d imagine this is the case, as I’ve never stepped in against major league pitching. We’ll see because this Angels series features a trio of starters who are more fastball-offspeed guys than breaking ball mavens. The exception is Yusei Kikuchi, who features a slider most of the time. On the other hand, the lefty-righty matchup might mitigate the at-times devastating impact of a slider on Tyler Fitzgerald’s swing. We’ll just have to wait and see.
The United States bond market might be signalling a financial collapse for the country, but at least the Giants’ homegrown talent can rest secure in the knowledge that they’ve invested their time well in taking Barry Bonds’ advice.