HITTING THE CORNERS, by Gordon Edes
Sorry Sori: Back on April 22, Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano(notes) bruised his knee running into the outfield wall. He did not go on the DL, though he said the left knee hasn’t felt the same since.
After going 0 for 4 Friday against the White Sox, striking out three times, Soriano is batting just .231. He has 14 home runs, but just a .294 on-base percentage, appalling for a leadoff hitter.
Ari Kaplan, the Cal Tech-trained statistical analyst who has consulted for a number of teams and has his own website, ariball.com, suspects that the knee injury may have caused Soriano to change his approach at the plate, namely that he is swinging much more at low-and-away pitches outside of the strike zone. Of the 45 times he has swung at such pitches since being hurt, he has missed 33. Before his injury, he swung and missed just once at a pitch low and away.
“An injury on the lower left side [knee, leg, foot] does not necessarily limit a player’s power or bat speed at the plate,” Kaplan observes. “However, players may make different mental adjustments by shifting weight off the back foot differently, which can affect one’s power, bat speed, and selection of pitch types and locations to swing at.
“In Soriano’s case, he stands close to the plate with a wide stance that centers the plate. There is no negative connection between this injury and his ability to drive the ball. Before the injury, he pulled the ball down the left-field line, with a few fly balls to short right. After the injury, he is spraying the ball more to all fields – but they are fly balls and popups more often than before. The ball is carrying more, but resulting in fly-ball outs instead of hits.
“Since the injury, he has been hitting line drives nearly half as often [13 percent vs. 22 percent before] and ground balls more [43 percent vs. 35 percent before].”
How are pitchers adjusting? Since mid-May, Kaplan notes, they are throwing him fastballs more often [45 percent vs. 40 percent] possibly thinking that he can’t catch up to those pitches. He is seeing fewer sliders and changeups, which is counter-intuitive to Soriano’s history of trouble with such pitches.