Before he went down with an injury, Yadier Molina was arguably the National League’s Most Valuable Player.
His defense is well-known to be outstanding, and he was doing his usual excellent job leading the Cardinal pitchers.
But this season has been special—even by his standards—and that’s because of his offense.
He’s posted a .325/.370/.473 line thus far this season, which is good for the third-highest OPS among all catchers in
baseball. And that .325 batting average—at this point in the season, the highest of his career—is a major driving force
behind his success.
So what has caused the batting average jump? Obviously, his batting average on balls in play is up, but it’s more
complicated than that. He has improved his plate discipline and he is driving the ball to his pull side, both of which
have enabled him to utilize his superb bat-to-ball ability.
His plate discipline has been a huge help for him this year. He has laid off more pitches outside the zone, as the
graphic below shows.
Cutting down on the percentage of balls he’s swung at means he’s swinging only at pitches he can get the barrel of the
bat on and is therefore more capable of driving. He is an elite pull-side hitter, as balls he pulls are far more likely
to turn into hits. All eight of his home runs have come to left field, and he has hit only six fly ball outs to left field
as well. When contrasted to how many outs he’s made hitting the ball in the air to right field, it is clear that he is
well-served to pull the ball.
What’s interesting is that Molina is not solely hitting pitches on the inside third of the plate. Instead, he is
getting hits most often at pitches down the middle and away, which suggests he’s adept at driving middle-in pitches
to left field and lining pitches away from him into right.
Molina’s fantastic year has been driven by an ability to pull the ball with authority, a skill that has shown
itself over several years.
On the year, these batters have totaled for 24 hits on pitches low and away, relatively high compared to other pitch locations.
Peavy was able to dominate this location by consistently mixing up his fastball and cutter. With a deceptive cutter
forcing batters to swing and miss 26% of the time (MLB Avg: 17%), Peavy put himself in a position of control making it
difficult for batters to differentiate these two pitches.
This year, though, has been his best.
NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 8/15/13
By Seth Victor
AriBall.com
