Cincinnati Reds: The quiet success of Reds outfielder Scott Schebler
The Cincinnati Reds have a surprisingly scary offense, with big-time players like Joey Votto and Eugenio Suarez. However, keep an eye on Scott Schebler.
The Cincinnati Reds shocked the baseball world over the weekend with a commanding four-game sweep over the Chicago Cubs. For those unaware, the Cubs are an outstanding baseball team while the same cannot be said of the Reds.
The Cincinnati Reds got off to a crippling start to the 2018 season, losing 15 of their first 18 games. The horrendous 3-15 start ultimately led to manager Bryan Price‘s departure. Since that point, Jim Riggleman has taken over as the club’s interim skipper, and the team has experienced surprising success.
Under Riggleman, the Reds are a sneaky-good 29-31. Their offense and bullpen have represented the strengths of the ballclub, while the starting rotation has continued to be the team’s Achilles heel.
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From April 20th (when Riggleman took over) to now, the Reds’ offense has placed third in team batting average (.265) and sixth in team wRC+ (107).
The ageless Joey Votto and Eugenio Suarez have gotten the bulk of the credit for lifting Cincinnati’s offense to relevance. Scooter Gennett, in the midst of his second consecutive breakout season, has also received the lion’s share of the praise.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati Reds outfielder Scott Schebler has quietly existed in their shadows. With that said, he has been on an absolute tear this season, especially in the last month.
In June, he has a stellar .355 batting average and a 177 wRC+ in 83 plate appearances. He has launched four moonshots in that span, bringing his season homerun total to 10, which is one-third of what he accumulated in 2018.
Also quietly, Schebler is coming off a 30 homerun campaign in 2017. The left-handed batsmen was a significant long-ball threat last year but was a league-average (100 wRC+), offensive player.
This year, though, he has retained the ability to hit balls out of the park but has hit more consistently. His season slash line reads an exceptional .284 AVG/.356 OBP/.488 SLG with a 129 wRC+ and 1.4 fWAR.
With not even half the 2018 season in the books, he has eclipsed his 2017 season fWAR total (1.2). Among Reds’ players, he has the 4th-highest fWAR on the team behind the aforementioned trio of Votto, Suarez, and Gennett.
It is impressive he has been able to produce such value, while his power numbers have dropped this year. His ISO (isolated power) has fallen considerably from .252 last season to .204 this season but has still managed to feature a slightly better slugging percentage in ’18.
The reason being is he is hitting for a lot more average this year. Part of that can be explained by a massive jump in BABIP from last year to this (from .248 to .318) and the apparent, inevitable regression to the mean.
However, there is a notable difference between his batted ball outcomes this season. After appearing to join the “fly-ball revolution” in 2017 and trading strikeouts for more power and launch, Schebler has abandoned that approach altogether this year.
His GB/FB ratio last season was 1.19, but this year it has dramatically risen to 1.87, the highest of his career. The 27-year-old has belted over 50 percent of his batted balls into the ground and has correspondingly seen his fly-ball percentage plummet. At the same time, he has increased his line-drive percentage significantly.
Typically, when players employ this strategy, it does not reap as many benefits as if they were doing the opposite of what Schebler is doing. Most players are hitting the ball with more launch, trying to actively avoid balls hit on the ground. Despite the merits of this approach, he is enjoying more success this season than in any in the past.
An evident advantage from this changed approach is the fact he is not striking out nearly as frequently. Schebler has dropped his strikeout rate from 23.5% in ’17 to 19.1% this year. Consequently, he is not giving up nearly as many “free outs” to opposing pitchers, which is a good thing.
He is also hitting for more hard contact (Hard%) this season and less soft contact (Soft%). Those are both commendable achievements and tend to breed better results. Further, he is hitting the ball with a higher average exit velocity and is barreling the baseball more often.
These results are quite surprising for someone whose approach is usually not conducive to hard-hit baseballs. The other thing that has happened, which explains a lot, is Schebler is swinging at better pitches.
His Z-Swing% (percentage of pitches swung at in the zone) is the third-highest in all of baseball among batters with at least 120 plate appearances at 82.5%. He has always swung at a ton of strikes, but before this season he had never posted a Z-Swing% above 75 percent.
This is the salient reason for Schebler’s improved results. Swinging at better pitches usually allows one to make better contact and that has been the case for him. This aggressiveness in the strike zone has not led to more strikeouts or for him to chase more balls outside the zone. It has solely enabled him to make better, more consistent connection with the baseball.
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The 2010 26th-round draft pick is achieving success using a method that most players are shying away from. He is no longer going for launch and is, instead, identifying better pitches to hit as the way to improve his game.
Scott Schebler is having a career-year for the Cincinnati Reds and this must not get lost in the shuffle of the season.
All stats courtesy of Fangraphs