Being a leadoff hitter is hard, especially when you are new to the job like Erick Aybar. There are many lessons to learn along the way as one works to become an adequate table setter for the rest of the line-up. Aybar is off to a slow start in his new role and shown some encouraging signs, for example, his greatly increased rate of walks. But if there is one lesson I could impart on Aybar to help him continue along the learning curve, it would be this: it is OK to swing the bat.
See that thing at your feet, Erick? Feel free to use it.
They say a leopard can’t change its spots, but that is exactly what Erick Aybar is attempting to do. He endeared himself to the Angel franchise last year as a sparkplug in the bottom of the order using his speed and an aggressive approach at the plate to become more than just another guy with a slick glove. But with his promotion to the top of the order, Aybar has decided that he pretty much needs to throw out his entire approach to fit his new role.
Big mistake.
In 2009, Aybar hit an impressive .312 but he didn’t walk much (30 BB) nor did he strikeout much (54 Ks). That was plenty good for hitting in the bottom third of the line-up, but that lack of walks was something everyone rightly felt he needed to address in his new role and address it Aybar did. Already this year, Aybar has walked 16 times this year, giving him a walk rate of 11.1% of all his plate appearance as opposed to his rate of 5.4% in 2009.
All those walks are great and all, but his .246 average and 25 strikeouts definitely are not. But where is he going wrong? Is it just bad luck? I wish. No, it turns out that Aybar’s focus on patience is only causing him to suffer self-inflicted wounds.
In his successful 2009 season, Aybar liked to swing and swing a lot, hacking at nearly half of the pitches he saw, good for the top third in swing rates in all the league. This year, Aybar has totally flipped the script and now is in the bottom third in swing rates, offering at just a hair below 40% of all pitches seen. Of more pressing concern though is the type of pitches that Aybar isn’t swinging at. For his career, Aybar has swung at 62.% of strikes in the strike zone, but 2010 is once again a much different tale with Aybar only swinging at 52.5% of strikes. That makes him twelfth in the league in terms of lowest swing-at-strike percentage. This puts him in the company of such patience gurus as Bobby Abreu, Nick Johnson and Kevin Youkilis.
This strikes (pun intended) me as a step too far for Aybar. I just don’t see how someone can turn from hacker into uber-patient over the course of one off-season. Having a good batting eye is one of those things that you can only develop so much, beyond that, it just an innate skill. Guys like Abreu are blessed with a good eye, Aybar is not and he needs to stop trying so hard.
When Aybar swings, he still makes good contact. His overall contact rates are barely down from last year and his BABIP is exactly at .300, yet his average remains at .246. The problem here is that Aybar is clearly taking too many strikes and hittable ones at that. He is trying so hard to walk that he is letting good pitches go by in order to run the count up. This is also causing him to strike out more because he is striking out looking more often, not swinging.
With all this said, Erick is right to be trying to show a little more discipline at the plate… emphasis on “a little.” The Angels don’t need another walk machine leading off for them, they need the Aybar of 2009 but with a touch more patience mixed in. If he can’t strike a balance between having a discerning eye on an active bat, the Halos would probably be perfectly happy if he just went back to swinging freely and putting the ball in play rather than taking himself out of at-bat after at-bat by forcing unnecessary patience upon himself for the sake of being patient.
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