Dodgers: The new approach at the plate that is making a difference

A complete outsider to the MLB, Robert Van Scoyoc was an independent hitting instructor. The LA Dodgers saw fit to name him their official hitting coach in November and are already noticing the benefits.

The Dodgers have been a highly competitive team for the last five seasons. They have been perennial NL West Champions and even National League Champions the last two seasons. However, they have failed to grasp that elusive championship. Thus Andrew Friedman, current Dodgers President of Baseball Operations and former Tampa Bays Rays general manager, was obviously looking for an edge.

Like many of the crop of young executives in the present MLB landscape, Friedman’s nature is to evaluate his team and his opponents to find the advantage. He took up a very similar approach to running a baseball team as the innovative Billy Beane, as captured by Michael Lewis in his sensational book Moneyball (2003). In 2018, the Dodgers were a club defined by the three true outcomes- home runs, strikeouts, and walks. They lead the league in walks, were in the top ten in most offensive strikeouts, and were second to the Yankees in home runs.

This is exactly what most teams were attempting to do, however, the runaway world champions, who dominated the regular season and the Dodgers in the World Series seemed to have a different approach. The Red Sox finished with the fifth fewest strikeouts, the sixth most walks, and the most home runs. They emphasized the same analytics as LA, yet they were able to walk without striking out, leading the league in batting average, OBP, slugging, and OPS. The essential belief of the Red Sox is that a home run is not the only desired result it is one of many.

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They in many instances thought situationally, instead of whaling at every pitch they fouled tough pitches off until they received a pitch to their liking. For the most part, the pitcher, when worked hard enough, will surrender a mistake. It is simply up to the opposing batter to force that out of him.

The star of that Boston team was in many ways Mookie Betts, however, the addition of J.D. Martinez added an entirely new element that put them over the top. The same player that was released by the Houston Astros in 2013 had blasted 38 home runs in 2015 and 43 in 2017. The change that allowed this was the tutelage of Robert Van Scoyoc, who taught him an entirely new approach.

That approach was to try to hit fly balls, as opposed to ground balls or line drives. In essence, he aimed for his players to swing in a fashion where they would allow the bat to spend the most time in the zone. This style allows a batter to generate harder contact and velocity off the bat- exit velocity- in producing hits and of course home runs. This will not necessarily produce a massive uptick in strikeouts, as it is not a general philosophy, but rather an individualized approach.

According to Jorge Castillo of the LA Times, Van Scoyoc is not only creating a uniform approach for every batter, but rather examining each batter in fine detail. Over the offseason, he examined the video of the batters and identified the pitches they struggled with. Then once he can find the reason that they struggle with it he can work with them to correct it.

Early returns- and it is indeed early- have seen the Dodgers, in 546 at-bats which is third most in MLB, belt 33 home runs (3rd), put up an OBP of .372 (1st), slug .529 (2nd), draw 73 walks (1st), and strikeout 120 times (21st). This is a minuscule sample size, but it is hard not to see the comparison between Boston and LA. The other teams besides LA to put up such few strikeout numbers are for the most part teams that have the fewest at-bats, such as the Twins, Pirates, Reds, and Phillies. The only other team in the bottom ten in strikeouts and top ten in at-bats, besides the Dodgers, is the Boston Red Sox.

There are many players that have started off with productive seasons with the Dodgers, but none other than Cody Bellinger displays the new hitting approach more readily. Even his groundball rate is way down to start this season, while his flyball rate is largely the same, and his line drive rate is much higher than normal. While it certainly will drop some, it shows that possibly the approach of producing the hardest contact possible has resulted in a higher production rate of line drives. Even further his early stats indicate that half his contact would be considered hard, as opposed to medium or soft.

Another recipient of an uptick in hard contact is Enrique Hernandez, who’s hard contact rate has swelled nearly eleven percentage points. It is obvious by watching Kike as well, he simply looks as composed as ever in his development. He was heading in this direction, but this new approach may have brought it about quicker.

Even if these trends fade somewhat, it is clear that Robert Van Scoyoc is significantly impacting the young Dodgers hitters in a way that will improve them in the short and long term.