Philadelphia Phillies: The evolution of Odubel Herrera

The Philadelphia Phillies have established themselves this season into legitimate contenders, fueled behind the move of center fielder Odubel Herrera to “star” status within the league

Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Odubel Herrera has emerged as a superstar as the team has emerged as legit contenders in the National League. What has changed to bring him to this level?

While many are focused on the “big name” guys in the game, Odubel Herrera is having an elite season, ranking atop the National League in batting average, 2nd in on base, and 3rd in OPS. He’s currently hitting .361/.431/.558 with 9 doubles, a triple, 6 home runs, and a pair of stolen bases.

Some see a BABIP approaching .400 and scream that Herrera is due for regression. That would be spot on, except that Herrera has a career BABIP of .363 due to his high-contact approach at the plate with plenty of line drives, so he’s not truly that much over career norms.

At the plate, Herrera has always been known for his awkward stance and his proclivity to swing at anything and everything. While he contacts most things, he still posted walk rates significantly lower over his career than 10%. This season, he’s walking at a 10.2% rate. Even better, for a guy who has a high-contact approach and strikes out in the low-20s for percentage typically, he’s matched that higher walk rate with an incredibly-low strikeout rate, 14.4%.

How has Herrera shown this improvement? It starts with something seen more in his on-field demeanor. Herrera was a guy that previously could be rattled early in a game with a pitch that fooled him, and he would be out of sorts the rest of the game, trying to over-correct for that one plate appearance that he was fooled on early in the game.

His approach has been much more “mature” now at the plate. When Odubel Herrera is fooled (as all hitters are at times), he simply dusts himself off and resets for the next pitch, showing no ill effects from the previous one. That is a huge difference.

In his hitting, there really is no difference in where he’s hitting the ball in the field or how hard he’s hitting the ball, or what type of contact he’s making. All of those metrics are in line with his career norms.

The pitches that Odubel Herrera is swinging at are different now as well, which is leading to the higher walk rate and lower strikeout rate. While a rate difference of a point or so could be written off as simply early-season small sample size, Odubel Herrera is currently sporting his lowest swing percentage on pitches outside of the strike zone (by 2.4%), lowest swing percentage on swings inside of the zone (by 1.4%), and swinging at less pitches overall (by 1.5%).

However, while swinging at less pitches, he’s having much more success when he does swing, with a high on his contact rate on pitches he swings at outside of the zone (by 0.7%), inside of the zone (by 2.8%), and is posting his lowest swinging strike percentage of his career (by 1.7%).

Next: Herrera/Machado fireworks ahead?

Add in his quality defense in center field, which is not elite, but is consistently above average, and Odubel Herrera is on his way to a 5 fWAR season for the upstart Philadelphia Phillies, giving them an offensive sparkplug to their meteoric rise.