Good Lourdes, stop(s) crowding the plate: Has the tiniest adjustment unlocked Lourdes Gurriel Jr.?
By Noah Eliot
When Lourdes Gurriel Jr. gets hot, he tends to get red hot. Last year that culminated in a strong finish to the season that almost carried the Blue Jays to a playoff spot. It also raised expectations for the outfielder heading into the 2022 season, expectations that like many of his teammates at the plate, have not been met so far. But this past weekend’s series in Los Angeles may be a spark for Gurriel Jr. because of a small adjustment he has made before.
Gurriel Jr. has always been a free swinger who relies more on the quality of his contact than his selectivity to unleash his offense at the plate. However, that has also led to ugly stretches where he swings and misses too much. Fellow outfielder Teoscar Hernandez has worked to curb his plate discipline issues, and in turn accentuate his ability to do damage at the dish. For Gurriel Jr. there has been talk on Blue Jays broadcasts over the past couple seasons that the hitting coaches have worked with him at standing slightly further off the plate to help improve his plate discipline. This adjustment is made so that breaking pitches moving out of the zone and away from the right-handed hitting Gurriel Jr. do not appear to be pitches he can do damage with and thus he is more likely to lay off of them.
With this adjustment in mind, I remembered a seemingly innocuous tweet from the Tao of Stieb that placed a kernel of an idea in my mind during his earlier struggles. With Gurriel’s wonderful weekend at the plate in Los Angeles, I decided to take a look to see if he had moved off of the plate again to curb some of his swinging strike woes. If he has made this adjustment again, it may point a more sustainable upturn in performance than just one strong weekend.
Visually, it semes like Gurriel Jr. has moved very slightly off of the plate starting with the series in St. Louis. We can see in the images below with images from Baseball Savant, that if you imagine the batter’s box with a line right down the middle of it, Gurriel has slightly moved from one side of it to the other. I swear there is no need to cue up the Charlie vision board memes from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Before (May 1–22)
In the home series against Seattle, we can see that Gurriel Jr. is just in front of the midpoint of the batter’s box, closer to the plate. But when you look at images from the recent mini road-trip in St. Louis and Los Angeles it appears he has taken a slight step backwards. His toes go from being beyond the mid-point of the batter’s box to being about on-top of that imaginary line, or further from the plate. The camera angles are a bit inconsistent from broadcast to broadcast on the road, but it does appear that there is a slight adjustment that may point towards a meaningful upturn in Gurriel Jr.’s performance at the plate with improved ability to lay off of outside breaking pitches. Especially when looking at the image from the Angels game. This may be key because major league hitters are faced with obscene combinations of velocity that is not just limited to fastballs. High velocity breaking balls demand quicker decisions and a slight boost in perceiving unhittable horizontal movement as such could make a big difference. Even if the adjustment is moving your feet only 1–2 inches. This potential change will be an interesting thing to look for as the Blue Jays return home and we can make comparisons using the same camera angles.
After (May 23–29)
Acknowledging the small sample size, it does appear that by standing just a few inches further from the plate Gurriel Jr. appears to have cut down on chasing pitches outside of the zone and with that is able to take more pitches, get into better/deeper counts and work towards swinging at the pitches he can punish. He has also not sacrificed any of the benefits he can glean from outside breaking pitches. We can see that he has maintained his rate of positive within at-bat outcomes on breaking pitches away (balls taken and making contact for a hit). While also cutting in half his negative outcomes (strikes taken, swinging strikes, contact made for an out and foul balls) in the recent mini road-trip.
Overall, this minor adjustment may hold long-standing benefits for Lourdes Gurriel Jr. at the plate and that would be a wonderful development for the Blue Jays as their offence hopes to come together. At times Gurriel Jr, can carry the Jays’ offence behind his Pina Power. We have witnessed this just last August-September. So keep your eyes peeled at where Gurriel Jr. is standing starting with the series against the Chicago White Sox at home, it may just hold a little bit of an indicator that enough part of the Jays’ potentially dangerous offence is coming along.
(All data and images were found at Baseball Savant using their searchable pitch data)
@NoahVande
