This version is updated from the newsletter of 8/16/13
I was finally able to watch Yasiel Puig in person for the first time last night, and I found that his hype lived up to the expectation that I came in with.
Puig, 22, is one of the most intimidating players I’ve ever had the fortune of seeing. At 6’3” and 245 pounds, the Los Angeles Dodgers righty has been a constant threat to hit both for power and average in his rookie season. The intangibles (speed, ridiculous throwing arm, aggressiveness, etc.) are there for Puig. Perhaps most impressively, Puig has found a way to dominate the breaking ball.
In his rookie season, pitchers have made a conscious effort to avoid throwing Puig heat early in the at-bat.
Pitchers threw fewer first-pitch fastballs to Puig (44%) than they do to most batters in the MLB. This forced him to adapt and hit the off-speed breaking balls at a comparably impressive rate, and with that he has proven to have no troubles.
Puig was only 1-of-6 against the Mets on Wednesday night, but his impactful late-game heroics caught the sports world by storm once again.
In the bottom of the 12th inning, Mets reliever Pedro Feliciano allowed a blooper towards left field on the first-pitch of the at-bat, which Puig eventually stretched into a double. The next batter, Adrian Gonzalez, also turned the first-pitch that he saw into a subsequent double to drive Puig in for the walk-off, winning run.
While he has been impressive against a variety of off-speed pitches (e.g. he is batting .538 against curveballs), his favorite pitch has been the slider. Five of his eleven homeruns have come off the slider the season, and nearly 28% of his hits have been off of sliders as well.
Puig has swung at 117 sliders this season. 20% of those swings were hits (MLB average: 12%) and he is batting an astonishing .523 (MLB average is .318) against sliders when in play.
In 2009, Feliciano used his 79-85 MPH slider on 36% of all pitches. That season, his slider was his least effective pitch. Batters hit an impressive .375 against the pitch in 2009.
The following year, his most recent year of active service in the MLB, his slider was still his most popular pitch besides his fastball. The spin on his long, sweeping slider was 63% above the MLB average.
In 2013, however, the slider has not had the same results that it had nearly three years ago. His slider has lost the variance in velocity and the top speed that it used to reach. Where he was once able to hit 79-85 MPH on the pitch, his slider is now one of the slowest in all of baseball at only 73.8 MPH (MLB average: 80-87 MPH) in 2013.
To compensate for the lack of success that his slider has had in 2013, Feliciano has re-introduced the sinker as his next most popular pitch. His 82-85 MPH sinker has been used on 43% of all pitches thrown this season.
In the 12th inning against the Dodgers on Wednesday, Feliciano did not throw Puig a single slider.
In fact, he threw batters five sinkers in a row before he was tagged for a first-pitch double off of a sinker to Puig (84.5 MPH) and a first-pitch double to Gonzalez (83.7 MPH) to end the game.
Feliciano, who throws his sinker on 37% of all first pitches, surrendered doubles on the first pitch of the at-bat to both batters. Puig has 89 hits this season, and 26% came off of sinkers.
What makes Puig so versatile, it seems, is that even had the pitch been a slider or a curveball, the game would have had similar results.
Puig is not only aggressive at the plate, but he also has a good eye for what he can/can not hit. The sinker he hit was ridiculously inside, yet he was still able to turn in on it for a hit.
He has struck out in 23.4% of all at-bats this season (MLB average: 17%) and when he does, it’s almost always swinging and with a fight. When he’s up to bat in an extra innings game like he was against Feliciano, Puig will be swinging hard and swinging often.
Opposing fans will just have to hope when Puig is up to bat, he doesn’t get ahold of a sinker similar to the one he saw against Feliciano.
NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 8/15/13
