Jimmy:
Want to hear my half-baked theory on Travis d’Arnaud, Mike?
Mike:
Hey, I’ve heard so many by now, what’s one more?
Jimmy:
I offer only conjecture. I am not, you are aware, “in the know.” Yet I deserve some leeway on this topic since I correctly predicted the path of d’Arnaud’s season thus far. I was so right even the great Metstradamus was impressed. Back on March 30th, I made two predictions about d’Arnaud:
1) Travis d’Arnaud spends too much time with Dave Hudgens, begins to look tentative and confused at the plate, at which point Hudgens sagely nods and says, “Exactly, grasshopper!”
2) After struggles and bad stretches, Travis d’Arnaud establishes himself as a quality major league catcher, hits above .280 in second-half of the season.
You have to admit, at least I got that one right.
Mike:
Blind squirrel syndrome!
Jimmy:
Yes, and that nut was delicious! So this is what I think happened to Travis. He hit all his career, always could hit. Then he got into the Mets system and got an earful of talk about the “right” approach, deep counts and hunting strikes. When he finally reached Flushing, and the challenge of Major League hitting, he became confused. We saw it ourselves. So many bad at-bats, where he took fastballs down the plate. He seemed far too passive to me.
I truly believe that he thought himself into paralysis — aided and abetted by the Mets’ emphasis on the approach. Only swinging at the ripest pitches.
Well, it didn’t work. Travis was a mess, and a failure. At a certain point, after his demotion to AAA, he must have realized that his entire career was at stake.
The dream was slipping away.
And at the point, Travis said to myself, “Screw listening to those guys, I’m going to be myself.”
Mike:
Former Mets hitting coach Dave Hudgens
It’s also worth noting that his previous “hitting” instructor, Dave Hudgens, was not in Las Vegas, and is no longer in New York.
Jimmy:
Travis decided, in other words, that if he was going to go down, he’d go down swinging.
To me, that’s the biggest change in his game. He’s the aggressor now. I saw a game in Cincinnati when he swung at the first pitch in three straight at-bats. This isn’t a guy trying to please his coaches anymore. No, he’s trying to get base hits.
Mike:
And I checked, those are still good, too.
Jimmy:
There are other narratives. That he finally “got comfortable” and so on. I’m sure there’s been a variety of factors. But I really believe he needed to embrace the “see ball, hit ball” concept. It worked for Piazza! Importantly, his power has come, and that makes perfect sense. We’ve exposed the myth of the deep count, in terms of power. Slugging percentages plummet after a hitter gets two strikes. We’ve seen that slugging goes up early in the count, particularly on the first pitch. We saw this with Duda, too, and I wrote about it.
Mike:
When it comes to Duda, I am surprised that being more aggressive has fit him this well. When you look at Lucas the idea fits his stature, but his personality is so mild mannered that I wondered if he was a player who meshed well with the Mets “approach.” Also, I did think he was pretty good to begin with. I guess I didn’t want to paint Lucas with my old Frank Thomas brush and assume he needed to be an aggressive hitter just because he was a big guy. In my own way, I was also affected by his size. But you know me, at my core I want big guys hacking! I love this version of Duda.
Jimmy:
And it’s not like he’s a hacker. With the exception of breaking pitches down and in, his eye is extremely good. The biggest difference in Duda, beyond the fact that he’s letting it fly more often, is that he’s got an everyday job. He’s not fumbling in RF, falling down in LF. He’s playing where he belongs, every day. His AB and OBA are not far off his career numbers. Where he’s made the big jump is in his slugging. That’s where he had to make his mark. It wasn’t going to be his ability to go first to third on a single to right-center. It had to be by hitting the ball over the wall. And you don’t do that when nursing a two-strike count. The facts prove it. Statistically, the longer the AB lasts, the less likely he’s going to hit for power.
This is from my July 3rd post:
When Lucas Duda swings at the first pitch (and puts it into play, presumably), which he has done 28 times this season, his slash line is .464/.464/.893.
Got that? An OPS of 1.357.
Yet this is the guy we like because he works deep counts? That’s so wrong.
Up 1-0 in the count, he has swung and put the ball into play only 13 times, with this result: .538/.538/1.462.
Down 0-1, he’s swung 23 times: .435/.458/.522. Again, amazingly productive early in the AB.
Swing the bat, Lucas.
For stark comparison, look at this:
- AFTER 1-1: .171/.290/.324
- AFTER 2-1: .197/.345/.352
- AFTER 3-1: .217/.471/.391
- AFTER 0-2: .233/.353/.395
- AFTER 1-2: .145/.268/.261
- AFTER 2-2: .136/.313/.182
Mike:
That’s two nuts in one post, so I have to relent and admit you at least have impaired vision. Seriously, good stuff.
That point you made up above about it also helping Duda, a sensitive guy, to stop being publicly humiliated in the outfield, that should not be underestimated either. Lucas himself admitted how much he hated being out there. But the good news is that although it took way too long, Lucas got his clear shot at his only logical position, and he has come through in a big way.
It’s a huge positive for the team, and these two players, d’Arnaud and Duda, might be our future number four and five hitters for years to come.
