Christopher Morel & Average Exit Velocity

[chopsx9]

re Morel, he had the lowest zone contact rate in baseball last year, worst mark in 5+ years (though funny enough 2018 Ian Happ was 2nd-worst) which is probably a pretty bad sign

 

I'm not quite as pessimistic on Morel as that stat implies, but this dynamic is the type of thing that drives me nuts about a lot of statcast/next-gen fan analysis. There are attributes that are objectively good but more of them doesn't necessarily mean better when you have to sacrifice other positive attributes to get there(or don't have the skill to avoid the sacrifice). It's tantamount to saying 'wow look at his slugging percentage' for a guy hitting .200/.240/.450

 

But that's the nature of stats in general especially when they are as granular as they are in baseball. They are so specific that no single stat tells you everything. That's what WAR tries - as flawed as it is - to do. I remember a post here about Javier Vasquez and the poster was wondering why his ERA wasn't more in line with his low WHIP. So sure, not allowing many hits is great but when a disproportionate amount of them are HRs it undermines the low whip. Who cares how hard you hit the ball if you are only connecting once a week.

[UMFan83]

Making this the Morel mega-thread while we still have mega-threads:

 

 

:-k

[Bertz]

I don't love it, but it's not unreasonable. He's striking out at like a 50% clip in the early going here, and contact's something that if he had made major improvements over the offseason you'd likely see some indication in ST.

 

I will say, if Morel's ticketed for Iowa and Seiya's likely out the first 2-3 weeks of the year, it leaves a lot more ambiguity around who rounds out the bench than I expected a month ago. Barnhart, Mckinstry, Madrigal, Rios, Deluzio? Nelly Velazquez maybe? Does Brennen Davis sneak in?

[CubinNY]

He's looked really bad on fastballs in the zone this ST.

[Tim]

This was a fun re-read right now.

 

(pats self on shoulder)

[chopsx9]

1 hour ago, Tim said:

This was a fun re-read right now.

 

(pats self on shoulder)

Lets hope its still a fun re-read in 4 months!

[Tim]

2 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Still feel free to trade, Hoyer! 

I'd rather have Morel (https://www.fangraphs.com/players/daulton-varsho/19918/stats?position=OF)

[profisme]

On 12/23/2022 at 8:34 AM, CubinNY said:

I consider Morel in the mold of Zobrist. He's plenty valuable and should not be traded unless it's for a star-quality player. He can fill multiple positions adequately and he's likely to be league-average or maybe a little worse at the plate for all the positions. His value is hard to quantify.

I kind of see Morel as more of Jose Hernandez guy.

[mul21]

15 minutes ago, profisme said:

I kind of see Morel as more of Jose Hernandez guy.

Soriano with defense.  He's definitely going to have cold spells to go along with heaters like he's on now.

[squally1313]

Patrick Wisdom from 5/31/2021-6/8/21 hit 379/438/1138 (yes, that's slugging), with 7 home runs in 32 PAs.

Morel from 5/15/23-5/23/23 hit 357/419/1071 with 6 home runs in 31 PAs.

Patrick Wisdom the rest of 2021 hit 211/288/450. 

Morel in 2022 hit 235/308/433.

Morel is probably a little better than Wisdom, but otherwise either good jokes or relax. 

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Patrick Wisdom from 5/31/2021-6/8/21 hit 379/438/1138 (yes, that's slugging), with 7 home runs in 32 PAs.

Morel from 5/15/23-5/23/23 hit 357/419/1071 with 6 home runs in 31 PAs.

Patrick Wisdom the rest of 2021 hit 211/288/450. 

Morel in 2022 hit 235/308/433.

Morel is probably a little better than Wisdom, but otherwise either good jokes or relax. 

 

To this point, there haven't really been any meaningful plate discipline improvements thus far, at least when looking at his MLB time as a whole: 

The swing/mechanics changes are clearly allowing him to do more damage though, so that probably gives him more margin for error in that regard than he had last year.  Also, 6/3 K/BB in his last 22 PA during the HR streak is at least the start of some good signs.

 

[Tim]

Just a random thing I came across when looking up home run streaks last night:

Just a reminder of how insane Bonds was. In 2004, he homered in seven straight games. This was the description of that streak that I found: "In 29 plate appearances, Bonds hit eight homers with 16 RBI and 10 runs scored. He slashed .722/.828/2.167 during this time, which led to a 555 wRC+. It also included a 37.9% walk rate and a 3.4% strikeout rate."

[muntjack]

Morel is 23, yeah?  Perhaps he gets better? 

Sandberg had an 80 wRC+ at 23.  Would a trade have been the right move? 

Sosa had a 100 wRC+ 

Grace didn't make the majors until 24. 

20-year-old phenoms are great, but that isn't the only trajectory for good Major League talent.