Article: Matt Mervis Made Changes...But is He Better?

[Jason Ross]

There's no bones about it: Matt Mervis struggled with the Chicago Cubs in his first chance with the parent organization. His time was punctuated by swings and misses and pitch-recognition issues. Sent down to the MiLB it was said he was working on a tweak to his swing. Did it actually occur? And what can we expect from him moving forward?

Once an undrafted free agent pitcher out of Duke, Matt Mervis soared in 2022. Ending on a high note in Iowa, many expected the first baseman to break camp with the Cubs in the winter due to his addition to the 40-man and his overwhelmingly excellent results over three levels of minor league baseball. While Mervis had to wait a little bit longer than expected due to the arrivals of Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini, the lefty got his callup on May 5th. By June 15th, the Cubs had decided to send the struggling Mervis down to Triple-A, later citing that they were working on his swing. Upon returning to Iowa, Mervis continued to rake, but did anything actually improve? 

First, it's important to look at Matt Mervis before the May 5th callup. On the surface, Matt Mervis absolutely crushed the baseball at AAA. Posting an impressive 136 wRC+, the former Blue Devil hit six home runs, seven doubles, and 26 base hits. More impressively, he walked 18 times compared to 19 strikeouts. Based on his raw numbers, Mervis was clearly ready for the MLB. 

With that said, digging into his hit chart and heat map, there were perhaps a few flaws in his game. Below, you'll see his heat map displaying his hot-and-cold zones for batting average and his spray chart for 2023. Take note that Mervis seemingly feasted heavily on pitches down the middle, but did not cover the plate consistently, getting much colder on pitches on the edges. Also, a very pull-heavy spray chart was the result, with Mervis hitting every one of his six AAA home runs to right field, and only a handful of batted balls ending up going the other way. 

This type of a spray chart and heat map continued during his time in Chicago. Below are his charts from May 5th - June 14th. Keep note, again, of the majority of his batting average coming from balls that are dead-center, with the small addition of a high-outside blip. There are a lot of similarities between two, suggesting that even though each heat-map covers roughly a single month of data, that Mervis' was a similar hitter at both levels in terms of plate coverage:

Where things begin to get interesting with Mervis is when we look at his data from June 6th through the end of the season in AAA. There was clearly a change in Mervis' heat map, and while there's just more data and a larger sample size, there is clearly more power being displayed throughout the middle of the field. Mervis started to hit home runs more consistently to the middle of field and not everything is as strong to the pull-side. He also showed better control of the plate, particularly, on pitches on middle-out and middle-in. There's also significantly less blue or problem areas. This would go to show that there was likely a tweak in approach and swing for Mervis over his time in Iowa:

So what does this all mean for Matt Mervis? It looks as if there is both good and bad. The good news is that looking only at his wRC+, it would seem as though the changes were not something that hurt Mervis overall. Prior to his demotion, as previously noted, his wRC+ was 136. After the demotion, the powerful first basemen posted a wRC+ of 131. Giving him better plate coverage and an approach that uses a bit more of the field, on paper, would be a good thing as well.

Despite the similar wRC+ output, there were a handful of red flags that were being hidden just below the surface, though. Despite the heat map making it seem as if he was hitting the ball more, the opposite was true, as Mervis saw his strikeout rate jump nearly 5%. The root of the strikeouts seem to suggest that with the tweak, came a new approach as well; a far more swing happy one. From June through September, Mervis saw his swing% jump over five percent.

More worryingly was that the increase in swings was coupled with a decrease in contact. Over this span his contact rate fell from roughly 75% in the first month of the season to around 66%. A 66% contact rate in Triple-A is quite the red flag as only 11 qualified hitters (out of 80) at the Triple-A level posted worse full-season contact rates. At the MLB level, that would place Mervis squarely in the bottom 10 hitters, as well, and we know that MLB pitching is much better than their Triple-A counterparts. It would be one thing if the contact rate improved as Mervis showed more competency with the changes, sadly, Mervis' lowest contact rates of the entire season happened in September. Overall, it becomes quite clear why the Cubs decided to leave Mervis in Iowa. 

Where the Cubs and Matt Mervis go from here is murky. A deeper dive into the contact rates and the swing% suggests that there clearly was a change, but the overall end result does not appear to be a net-gain. Instead, the first baseman is beginning to show signs of being that dreaded "Quadruple-A"  type of a hitter, capable of hitting the lights out of Triple-A while failing to succeed at the highest levels. None of this is to suggest him to be a dead prospect, but that despite the wRC+, some of the processes by which Mervis is going by is worrisome. Hopefully a winter in the cages and with hitting instructors can turn what appears to be better plate coverage with improved contact rates to get the best of both worlds.

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[Brock Beauchamp]

By the way, expect to see a lot more deep-dive stuff like this. We're trialing TruMedia's data service program and so far, I am beyond impressed with what people are doing with it across our three sites.

Really excellent work, @1908_Cubs!

[Jason Ross]

2 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

By the way, expect to see a lot more deep-dive stuff like this. We're trialing TruMedia's data service program and so far, I am beyond impressed with what people are doing with it across our three sites.

Really excellent work, @1908_Cubs!

Thanks! I'm already both overwhelmed (in a good way) and incredibly excited about TruMedia. This stuff rocks.

[Guest234]

Statistics are really valued in finance, you guys are traveling the wrong path.

You can prove Greg Maddux would never be more than an AA pitcher.

[Jason Ross]

17 minutes ago, Guest234 said:

Statistics are really valued in finance, you guys are traveling the wrong path.

You can prove Greg Maddux would never be more than an AA pitcher.

I find this to be an odd statement. Which "statistic" would have proven that Greg Maddux wasn't even a AA pitcher? What statistics did I use that would have me traveling down the wrong path on analyzing Mervis? I'm always up for some debate; not infallible, but I'm not sure anything I used to analyze issues under the Mervis hood (such as falling contact% and increased swing%) are necessarily the wrong things to be looking at, either. 

Let me ask you this as well: what do you think Andrew Friedman (President of Baseball Ops for LAD and arguably the best president of baseball ops league wide) did before he ran the Dodgers? 

Spoiler

He was a financial analyst and has a business degree from Tulane University.

 

[CubinNY]

I think it's a little premature to say he's a AAAA player given the data you presented and his very limited and sporadic use. I'd like to see him given a real opportunity. He has nothing to prove in AAA. On the flip side, if they are not going to do that, to trade him. 

[Jason Ross]

7 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I think it's a little premature to say he's a AAAA player given the data you presented and his very limited and sporadic use. I'd like to see him given a real opportunity. He has nothing to prove in AAA. On the flip side, if they are not going to do that, to trade him. 

In my defense, I said "beginning to show signs" and not that he was a Quadruple-A player (and that he wasn't a dead prospect yet) already. I agree, I don' think he really belongs in Triple-A at this stage...he's capable of still posting 130 wRC+'s in this level with declining contact rates. But the contact rate decline is real, and over the course of three months (a few hundred PA's) which is also...a real concern. Fixable but real right now.

I'd like to see him get an MLB chance somewhere. I think he's done enough at Triple-A to get a real shot. But he's going to have to improve his contact rates again to that mid-70's spot if I'm going to believe in his ability to have success too. He just doesn't hit the ball in the air enough to carry a bottom-10 contact rate (what a 66% rate would be) either. 

[Guest234]

4 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I find this to be an odd statement. Which "statistic" would have proven that Greg Maddux wasn't even a AA pitcher? What statistics did I use that would have me traveling down the wrong path on analyzing Mervis? I'm always up for some debate; not infallible, but I'm not sure anything I used to analyze issues under the Mervis hood (such as falling contact% and increased swing%) are necessarily the wrong things to be looking at, either. 

Let me ask you this as well: what do you think Andrew Friedman (President of Baseball Ops for LAD and arguably the best president of baseball ops league wide) did before he ran the Dodgers? 

  Hide contents

He was a financial analyst and has a business degree from Tulane University.

 

Re: Greg Maddux - Average pitch velocity, height - Larry Himes was silly enough to think he was not worth retaining.

Similar to releasing Schwarber because of his strikeouts and LOW batting average. He has been in the playoffs every year since then, Jed and Tom are O-for.

 

[Jason Ross]

26 minutes ago, Guest234 said:

Re: Greg Maddux - Average pitch velocity, height - Larry Himes was silly enough to think he was not worth retaining.

Similar to releasing Schwarber because of his strikeouts and LOW batting average. He has been in the playoffs every year since then, Jed and Tom are O-for.

 

Well...

1. Marcus Stroman is shorter than Greg Maddux. He was a first round draft pick. He's gotten multiple large contracts as a free agent. That was nearly ten years ago. Height is quickly becoming a non-factor for SP's and Stroman is just the first guy off the top of my head. There are are plenty of short-king SP's now a days. 

2. The Cubs just signed Shota Imanaga to a $53m (upwards of $80m) contract and he has "average" fastball velocity (~92mph). He's also only listed at 5"10 himself!  I don't think anyone thinks he's a not-even-a-Double-A pitcher. Velocity is certainly important, but there are plenty of examples (Hendricks, Steele, if you want two other recent Cub examples) of teams overlooking that. I don't believe at any time that people would have looked at Greg Maddux as a barely-Double-A starter. And I want to be very clear: I'm not calling Stroman or Imanaga Maddux. In fact, that's really important here. You don't have to be a generational talent to get by with less than traditionally-thought-of-as-being-ideal height or velocity. Even today in the era of data.

3. I would argue that contact% and swing% very different "statistics" than "height", as well. There are times when maybe we get a little too attached to specific statistics and become single-issue-voters, so I think there is always a "too much of a good thing" with data analysis, but I don't believe those data points that were brought up hit that level. Contact% is one of the highest correlating numbers from AAA to MLB. It's very important. If we're trying to project a player at the next level, it's an important part of the recipe.

4. I agree that Kyle Schwarber's release was poor. Though I do highly believe that had more to do with money than anything else.

None of this goes back to the idea that my analysis of Matt Mervis was headed down a wrong path or belongs in financial analysis, however.

[Guest234]

Well once you establish yourself you are judged on results, the eyeball test as it were, instead of stats. 

I am not trying to trash you and your thoughts, just make the point that stats are not the end all and be all for judgement.

Do not take it personally.

[Jason Ross]

On 1/12/2024 at 6:18 PM, Guest234 said:

Well once you establish yourself you are judged on results, the eyeball test as it were, instead of stats. 

I am not trying to trash you and your thoughts, just make the point that stats are not the end all and be all for judgement.

Do not take it personally.

Well, I don't take anything personally, so no worries! I'm not someone who cannot separate discussion from personal attacks. I've got thick skin to begin with (benefit of being a middle school teacher!) and I know what we're really discussing is the processes of the article and the analysis, not me personally. So don't worry, I know you're coming from a non-antagonistic place.

What I'm trying to do is challenge your assertion that data analysis belongs in financials and not in baseball. You've not really defended anything, except, deflecting with some random anecdotes on Greg Maddux but these don't even really hold up with how baseball teams act to begin with, so the anecdotes are at best poor defense of the stance you've taken (which I do disagree with at it's core). 

The reality is this: MLB teams use data. They also use the eye test, but at the end of the day, data rules. We can see this in who the best teams consistently hire, and how the best teams consistently draft, how they develop, and who they sign when given the chance in FA. If we're going to break down Matt Mervis, or any prospect, data rules the day. 

What correlates to MLB better than anything? Literally contact% (I'll link two studies here, one from Medium. the other from Fangraphs). Looking at the change in Mervis' contact rate is integral in determing his progress. Nothing is to suggest he's dead but to suggest that these declining numbers are problematic. This isn't financial data, or over analyzing, it's a real issue.