STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Adam Frazier rightfully took home NL Player of the Week honors for his hot start to July, in which he has slashed .600/.625/.933 with eight extra base hits.
In the Pirates' run-production attack that started humming quite some time ago, Frazier had been the odd man out. As his teammates were coming up with timely hits from unexpected sources, even launching balls into the Allegheny, Frazier had fallen back from the pack, content to chase launch angle to such a degree that it robbed him of what he did so well last season — collecting singles and hitting the gaps.
Does Frazier's mini-outburst, swallowed up by the All Star Break, represent real changes that will propel him in the second half, much like last year? Or were the past two weeks something more ethereal, a wisp in the wind?
Let's just throw an obligatory small sample-size alert out before we attempt to answer that. We are talking about just 32 plate appearances.
Yet, a look at where Frazier is making solid contact versus the season's first three months can start to tell us something:
It took a near center-center pitch for Frazier to make solid contact before July, but in July's 32 plate appearances Frazier has been able to dictate a bit more of the action. And, he's doing it by hunting his pitch.
At 0-0, 1-0 and 0-1 counts in July, Frazier swung at 11.7 percent of pitches, dwarfing his previous months' figure of 5.8 percent.
Now, when looking at what a hitter does early in the at-bat, I like to expand my data set to those three counts specifically, for a variety of reasons. First, it guards against small sample size by allowing us a deeper set to work with. Theoretically, at least. Second, these three counts at least start to tell us what a hitter might be thinking for the entirety of the at-bat. Hitters will nearly always go up to the plate with a plan. That plan might be radically altered right away, but a plan is there nonetheless.
In Frazier's case, it may be to actually get away from obvious fastball counts to see more breaking balls. Historically, Frazier sees his best slugging percentage off of breakers. In 2018, he punished them to the tune of a .541 clip. Fastballs were slugged at .417.
Certainly, his uptick this season corroborates this:
Adam Frazier will still have to find the right swing path to elevate the ball to the right degree for the type of hitter he is. But now, armed with the right approach, Frazier can do more than just step up to the plate and hack away.
MORE MOUND VISIT
July 9: Myth-busting the first half
July 8: A four-seam heavy first half
July 5: Dickerson feasts on fastballs
July 3: Dinger Data: Bell Blasts
