Freddie Freeman, hot streaks, and sustainability
June 29, 2011 at 9:43 am by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves
On the morning of May 28th I wrote the following:
Freeman is hitting .243/.326/.367. That’s not good enough for a first baseman.
—snip—
Let’s be clear, I’m not saying the Braves should option Freeman down to AAA and go in a different direction at 1B for the rest of the year, just that the issue deserves some consideration.
In the month since that was written, Freddie Freeman has done a pretty good healthy Josh Hamilton impression: .302/.345/.528 in 113 PA’s. He has played in 27 of the team’s 29 games in that span, and in those 27 game the Braves have gone 18-9, scoring 4.41 runs/game (they lost the two games he didn’t appear in). Freeman has basically been *the man* for the Braves offense over the past month. They certainly wouldn’t be leading the wild card standings without Freeman’s strong play as of late, and they might not even be in 2nd place in the NL East.
While Freeman has proved he belongs with the big club and I was wrong for doubting him, I’m certain that Freeman isn’t *this* good and this type of production won’t last. Consider: Freeman has struck out 32 times in 106 at-bats over the past month. While I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for a player to strike out a lot, it’s exceptionally difficult to maintain a .300 batting average when you’re striking out in 30 percent of your at-bats. Freeman’s batting average on contact (BACON) over the past month is .432, which is simply unsustainable.
And then there’s the power. A .226 ISO is very good, just like a .302 batting average is very good. I’m equally skeptical of his ability to maintain the ISO, though. Freeman has hit 5 homers over the past month on 74 contacted balls (6.76% HRCON). That isn’t an unsustainable figure in a vacuum, but when you consider that Freeman doesn’t hit a ton of fly balls, it probably is. Turn one homer into an out and Freeman’s slugging average goes from .528 to .491. Take another one away and it goes down to .452. Things could get ugly without a bit of generous HRCON fortune.
None of this would be a huge deal if Freeman were walking, but he just doesn’t. If he had drawn 10 walks instead of 5 over the past month, you’d say: even with some BACON and HRCON regression, Freeman’s still hitting around .260/.340/.440, which would be just fine. But if his BACON, and in turn, batting average drop to a more repeatable level, all of the sudden he’s slugging .440 with a sub-.300 on-base average, and a contender just can’t have that from their first baseman.
Basically, I’m here to remind you that while Freeman has been great over the past month and we should all be thankful for what he’s done, he’s far from a finished product and is still learning, so keep expectations in check going forward. I wouldn’t rule out another slump, nor would I rule out another tear like he’s on right now after said slump. The same guy that has hit .302/.345/.528 over the past month hit .243/.326/.367 over the season’s first two months. He’s perfectly capable of doing both again.
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Long term he’s going to have to start walking more if he’s going to be much more than an average first baseman. I believe he’ll hit more fly balls and hit more of them out as he progresses, but the walks, or lack thereof, worry me.
Especially worrisome is the duo he has coaching his hitting right now in Fredi and Lari.
Striking out a lot isn’t a problem when it’s because you’re A) taking a lot of pitcher’s strikes or B) swinging really hard but NOT C) swinging and missing at bad pitches
Unfortunately, thus far, Freeman’s K’s have mostly been due to C (though in fairness, a little bit of B).
Inconsistency is always to be expected of a rookie with hot and cold streaks, so it is no surprise that Freeman has shown this so far this season. I like the kid and I do hope that he develops more patience at the plate as he continues to adjust to major league pitching. I’ve seen him show great patience at the plate one night, then the next he’s swinging at CBs from left handed pitchers in the dirt. I think he’s got the potential to do it, but like you said, he’s got to start drawing more walks (and striking out less) in order to be above average at 1B.
Right, and he’s 21 with ~3 months of MLB ball under his belt. I understand the “bring everyone back down to earth” piece, but FF is far from a finished product and hopefully development is still to be had.
Anybody care to provide a quick explanation of BACON vs. BABIP?
Agreed that Freeman will soon return to Earth. However, I much prefer Freddi’s June 2011 over Glaus’ May 2010. While both surges provide a path to the playoffs, I don’t expect FF to transmogrify into a steaming heap from this point forward. So at least there’s hope.
@3
Part of the issue is that players generally develop certain tools much more than others. HR/FB rate usually includes pretty steadily until a player hits around 30, for example. On the other extreme, players almost never develop speed.
In the middle you have patience. Sometimes players develop this skill, sometimes they don’t (see Francouer, Jeff). It seems like whether a player develops patience has something to do with a combo of innate talent that can’t be developed and coaching/hard work.
Part of the issue with patience is pitch recognition. It’s actually pretty hard to develop pitch recognition, it’s almost completely natural talent. I think for that reason we were always a tiny bit unfair to JF, as I think part of his issue was the he just didn’t have good enough pitch recognition to tell if a given pitch was good or not, until it was too late and he looked foolish and off balance. You can get better at recognizing that a given pitch is one you shouldn’t swing at, but if you can’t tell the difference between a good pitch to hit and a bad one in the first place, it’s basically impossible to improve in this area.
I’m a little bit worried with Freeman that he doesn’t have particularly good pitch recognition. He takes swings that look like he thought the pitch was something different, going somewhere else, at a different speed quite frequently.
I’m also worried with given his hitting coach he’s in a bad place with the “coaching/hard work” aspect of developing plate discipline as well.
The other thing that players also struggle to improve on is the percentage of pitches in the strike zone that they swing and miss at. That pretty much just doesn’t develop for most hitters. Players can get better at knowing what are good pitches and swinging at those, and players can get better at hitting the ball hard. But it seems like players just don’t get better at making contact on a given pitch, that seems to be almost completely natural hand eye coordination. Freddie also worries me in this respect as well, because he seems to flat out miss strikes he swings at too often.
Now I’m not saying that he won’t get better. I’m just saying it’s not all sunshine and butterflies either. There are some very worrisome aspects to his game if we expect him to turn into a future all star and not just a solid every day type player. He could do it, but it’s far from a given.
Anybody care to provide a quick explanation of BACON vs. BABIP?
BACON = H/(AB-K+SF)
BABIP = (H-HR)/(AB-HR-K+SF)
BACON is BABIP with homers included.
6/fjrabon,
Right, I wasn’t trying to look at things with my pimped out rose tinted glasses. I was just bringing up the point that Freeman is just 21, has lots of time to fix some of the raised issues before they become hideous habits like the ones Jeff F developed. Nothing is a given as far as FF’s development goes, but I will say he doesn’t seem to have the stubborn “fuck learning” gene Jeff F had in his Atlanta days.
@1
“Especially worrisome is the duo he has coaching his hitting right now in Fredi and Lari. ”
Totally agreed!!!
@CAC
would you be so kind to tell my in which post you copy the spreed sheet with the team salary recap for the next years?
TNX!
Kind of off topic, but I was looking at Alex’s recent numbers and he’s been terrible lately. What are everyone’s thoughts on the SS position in the upcoming offseason? Possibly re-sign Alex to a 1 year deal with a club option for a 2nd year? Possibly giving Pastornicky another year of development and then have him replace Alex in 2013 (if he proves he’s ready). Or sign JJ Hardy to a multi-year deal? I’m not even considering Reyes because I know he’s going to want something in $20 m/year range.
@10
I’ll switch AGon with JJ Hardy right now. But it depends on 1) what you have to add to close the deal 2) the money you have for the next years. That’s why asked CAC to send again the link to the post with the team salary recap for the next years
fjrabon @ 6,
I don’t know that I agree that Francoeur didn’t recognize pitches. If in his most notorious situation (looking at a righthanded pitcher’s curve ball or slider low and away), very quickly after the ball was thrown, he would react by leaning forward and sticking his butt out. In other words, he very quickly began to position himself to bring the bat to a spot 10 inches outside the strike zone and 4 inches below the strike zone. Similary on the “catcher stand up pitch”, Francoeur would arch his shoulders up to raise his hands and bat and do it quickly. And, after you consider what junk he would swing at, his K rate really wasn’t that bad. He would frequently “tink” those outisde pitches to the right side, but most of them became outs anyway.
It sounds medeival or draconian, but I always thought that what Francoeur needed was to hit on a pitching machine (with a pitch f/x type computer hooked up to it) and have himself hooked up to a low level electric shock (and I just went thrugh about 60 shocks in nerve tests that are harder than what I am proposing, so he could handle it and I am not a “closet Mengele”) that would barely buzz him if he went after a pitch 2 inches outside the strike zone (or 2 inches above), but give him a good sting if it was 6 inches. In other words, to make his reactions reject the pitch if the pitch wasn’t in the strike zone.
Thanks, CAC. I never even realized HRs were excluded from BABIP. I do like BACON…
would you be so kind to tell my in which post you copy the spreed sheet with the team salary recap for the next years?
I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but this from Cot’s is a good resource:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tujElf32-2d237jk3IzWLsg&output=html
@CAC
that’s just perfect!
Mmmmm bacon.
@cliff/13
Yeah, I don’t think it was completely the issue, but I think it was at least part, whereas most fans, even the sabr inclined, tended to think it was 100% approach.
I think Francoeur’s problem was mechanics and it was nailed here — http://swingtraining.net/mechanics/jeff-francoeur-and-the-x-factor/
He starts his swing so early he has to commit before he knows whether the pitch is a ball or strike.
Bacon=part of a dam good breakfast :)
Indeed.
@peter/18
Yeah, I agree that is probably what causes him to not be able to tell balls from strikes until it’s too late, but I also don’t know that given his talents that it’s fixable. I don’t know that he’d be able to use a shorter swing effectively (though I guess there’s no harm in trying, since his current swing isn’t effective either).
I think Freeman is at least partly a similar issue. He swing is a little too long and early to ever be really good at pitch recognition. I don’t know that it’s fixable without taking away his strengths though. He’s obviously nowhere near JF’s extremes in that regard though.
@CAC
But what about Freeman. Do you think his flaw is related to early swinging too?
I always wonder if Francoeur’s problem hasn’t been fixed because of his incapability or poor management…..
with “management” I mean coaching&training
one interesting (to me) point is that FF is playing against everybody and hitting up in the line up. Bobby would have brought most rookies in slower. Fredi might want to but with our brutal hitting, he cannot. i have though we need a vetern right had hitting 1b/of. Suprprized we build a club without that. Nady comes to mind. it seems like our hitters do not progress like our pitchers; Johnson, Frenchy, and Hayward all come to mind. i thought it was TP but now i am not sure. what do you all think?
But what about Freeman. Do you think his flaw is related to early swinging too?
Maybe–probably not, but I haven’t done any video analysis like I should to really be able to give someone a useful opinion on this subject.
Freeman walks a lot more than Francoeur ever did.
llc/25,
It just takes hitters longer to develop. Heyward is a very, very unusual case.
CAC / 25,
Speaking of Heyward, is it just me or has he lost that Chipper Jones like patience and knowledge of the strike zone we saw last year? Seems like he is hacking at everything ala Andruw Jones the smiling strikeout monster of years past.
It would definitely be nice to see Freddie walk more, but that could be said for the entire team. Does Chipper look a little more beat up than usual? He has looked terrible at the plate for the past few weeks.
And unrelated… Bowman is really pulling out some really useless milestones over at the home site. Kimbrel, fastest to reach 100 Ks and Beachy, first rookie since 1900 to strike out 20 batters while winning consecutive starts. I know if they find anything to write about they have to jump on it but come on.. “Jason Heyward sets biggest sandwich eaten record by second year player.”?
DOB was saying the same stuff, probably in the media guide or something.
mmmm free bacon, man.
hey do you guys know of any place to get old games? specifically, i want to load up on old greg maddux starts.
@llc
I’m not sure if you are implying that Heyward hasn’t panned out, but if you are that isn’t a factual statement. Also, KJ panned out just fine and Francoeur is what he is. I’m not sure there was much the Braves could do to make him hit well.
What about the really weird cases like Jermaine Dye? After being traded to the Royals, sucking badly, and being demoted, he came back up as a patient, BB-drawing, masher. Were there ever any details on how/why he changed his approach?
I am surprised people are criticizing the Braves coaching. I think their player development is their strongest attribute when you consider the way they draft, ie, unwillingness to pay a lot of money. People have criticized virtually every hitting coach the Braves have had for as long as I can remember, but maybe the problem is the Braves focus a lot more on pitching than on hitting.
I’m sure there are people here that are qualified to discuss the technical components of hitting and what a hitting coach should be doing, but that isn’t me. Without knowing anything about Parrish other than the Braves aren’t hitting (which puts them in common with a number of other teams, including the Phillies), I don’t know who the Braves would bring in that would be any better, other than perhaps Brian McCann’s brother.
Our first baseman Fred Freeman is not even good enough yet, well he is just a rookie and rookies totally rarely play like veterans in just their first year in pro sports man come on now Freeman will be just another Braves superstar for years and years like we once had all those superstars on our 90′s great Brave teams.Not to mention Dan Uggla and the rest of this Atlanta lineup will totally catch on fire during the second half of the season, hey it’s still too early even right now because it’s just the first half. GO BRAVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#classicBN4E
As per usual, stat heads panic over nonsense. The reality that stat heads ignore while their head is in the stat sand is that Freddie Freeman is a rookie. He practically faces a pitcher he’s never seen before every night for 2-3 at bats, and then faces a reliever or two that he’s never seen before or at most once or twice. Freeman’s m.o. is that he struggles at the beginning of a new level and then once he gets comfortable he begins to get hotter and get up over .300. What I’m witnessing with my eyes, not the stats is that Freeman is doing exactly that…getting comfortable. That .243/.326/.367 line was a rookie getting his bearings and I doubt very seriously that we’ll see Freeman in that neighborhood again.
Joe/38,
You realize it works both ways right? Those pitchers are also seeing FF for the first time as well, which means their scouting reports are going to be minimal. That’s a lame way to fail at proving a point.
did David Ross just squeeze bunt with 2 outs?
fairly safe to say Freeman’s got King Felix figured out… nice day for him today.
Freeman is doing a pretty good job of sustaining his performance so far today: 3-3 with 2 RBI against the reigning AL Cy Young winner.
@38/Joe: I’m going to go put my head back in the stat sand so I don’t have to listen to you.
Good timing, Freddie/CAC. Its like you guys collaborated on this one.
@40 I thought the same thing. Gonzo does it again!
I would like some BACON as well
Why not just bring in Linebrink or Martinez in that situation? I know they had a switch hitter and lefties due up, but its a 4 RUN LEAD. If it’s 5-1 and the bases are loaded with nobody out, I have no problem with Venters coming in. But with a man on first and 1 out, why burn your best reliever? And suprisingly enough, Linebrink is actually decent vs lefties (.225 BA, 11 K in 9 IP). If he comes in and gives up a few hits, then bring in Venters. We can not afford to have a worn out Venters come September and October.
Does three home runs in four at-bats for Freeman qualify as being “on a tear”?