Nico Hoerner's Incredible Approach and One Baffling Strikeout

[matto1233]

Image courtesy of © Jordan Johnson-Imagn Images

Last Sunday, in the Chicago Cubs’ win over the New York Yankees, something that almost never happens on a baseball field happened. In fact, I didn’t see the game live, but when I saw this play pop up on the MLB Gameday feed, I made note to go look at the highlight later:

 

Did you notice it? Nico Hoerner swung and missed at a pitch right down the middle of the plate. This happens so infrequently that it almost takes my brain another second or two to process what happened. It’s like Steph Curry missing a wide-open three pointer. My brain sees him go into that shooting motion and it closes the loop for me. That ball is basically already through the hoop. I have seen it so many times. When my brain sees Nico Hoerner start to swing, it assumes the ball is going to be hit in play. This didn’t compute. 

Hoerner himself even seems a bit perplexed at the result. Take a peak at him right after the strikeout, looking at his bat, examining it, potentially expecting to find a large, baseball-sized hole somewhere on it. Surely, that’s the only reasonable explanation here:

For the uninitiated, the Cubs’ second baseman has a strikeout rate of just 7.4 percent this season, according to FanGraphs. That is the second-lowest in baseball among qualified hitters, with only Luis Arraez, who is almost entirely allergic to striking out, sitting in front of him. 

So, Hoerner striking out at all is rare enough. But wait, there’s more! Not only did he strike out—he did so swinging. His swinging strike rate is a minuscule 4.8 percent. That’s actually only good enough for seventh-lowest among qualified hitters. Still, the league-wide average is 10.8 percent. Of Hoerner’s 28 strikeouts this season, 17 of them were of the swinging variety. 

Still, we can take this even further, because like an ogre, or an onion, this has layers (shout out my fellow Shrek fans). Not only did Hoerner strikeout on a swing and miss, he struck out on a swing and a miss in the strike zone. 

Per FanGraphs, the Gold Glover leads all of baseball, Arraez included, at making contact inside the strike zone, doing so on 97.5 percent of swings. He has only swung and missed at a pitch that would have been a strike 19 times this season, according to Baseball Savant, and only one other time has he struck out on such a pitch. It looked like this:

 

That is hardly the same thing. For one, that pitch was almost unhittable, resulting in an emergency swing from Hoerner. Second, it was right on the edge. It might not have even been called a strike had he let it pass by. 

Which brings me to my last point. Not only did Nico Hoerner strikeout, not only was it swinging, and not only was it a pitch in the strike zone. It was also on a fastball right down the middle of the plate. Nobody misses those pitches. Surely our contact king never would. That’s the most hittable pitch in baseball. This marks the first time this season he has swung and missed on such a pitch, and just the third time in his whole career he has struck out on one. 

That’s the thing about Nico Hoerner. He doesn’t always make loud contact, but he almost always makes contact... except for when he doesn’t and it leaves my brain scrambling. Quite frankly, I, too, would be checking that bat for holes.

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[Jeff Alson]

Nico is having a great season with his excellent RISP, defense, and base running. His most surprising stat is his high chase rate. He swings at 32.6% of pitches outside the zone, worse than 80% of all batters, and as implied in the article, almost all of his strikeouts are on chasing pitches outside of the zone. If he could somehow command the strike zone better, he would hit well over .300 and walk more.

[PVG]

Hey Matt,
I think JeFF A. just stole my thunder - but here goes anyways - 
What's preventing Hoerner from taking that next step - and becoming an elite hitter - a la Tony Gwynn or Rod Carew?
I guess you can ask that about anybody - but lets just talk about Hoerner.
I see that he doesn't walk a lot - he has interesting LHP/RHP splits - .770 vs .700 (OPS).  Good speed.
Can you speculate on what separates him from them ?  Is that kind of elite hitting not possible in this age?
[ I asked JR a similar question about draft pick KK - JR thinks that KK has a low ceiling as a hitter. no response, yet :)]

[We Got The Whole 9]

3 hours ago, Jeff Alson said:

Nico is having a great season with his excellent RISP, defense, and base running. His most surprising stat is his high chase rate. He swings at 32.6% of pitches outside the zone, worse than 80% of all batters, and as implied in the article, almost all of his strikeouts are on chasing pitches outside of the zone. If he could somehow command the strike zone better, he would hit well over .300 and walk more.

A few seasons ago he was about average in oswing and had a decent walk rate, but hasn't been back at that level since. The thing is though, his offense has been basically metronomic regardless. He's a slightly above average hitter and pretty much is who he is at this point. 

[Jeff Alson]

Yes, I agree that Nico is what he is, a slightly positive offensive player (due to his base running) and a great defender. And this year a great hitter with RISP.

But I remain fascinated that a player with such great hand-eye coordination and contact skills struggles with the strike zone. On the other hand, I just checked the stats for Arraez and he has an even higher chase rate than Nico, so maybe my whole theory makes no sense.

I do remind myself that hitting a baseball in incredibly difficult and that it amazes me that hitters are as good as they are.

[Victor Reichman]

2 Cubs IMO were heavily underrated by Sports Media: Suzuki and Nico. Nico has been the steadiest of Cubs all yr. He leads all 2B in defense. He is a threat to run and adds speed.

But, most of all, he has been either #1 or #2 in avg. with men in scoring position. I remember Cubs thinking of trading him in spring training. That would have been a horrible mistake.

He is solid and has been at the .285-.300 mark most of the year. A keeper for sure.

 

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Jeff Alson said:

Yes, I agree that Nico is what he is, a slightly positive offensive player (due to his base running) and a great defender. And this year a great hitter with RISP.

But I remain fascinated that a player with such great hand-eye coordination and contact skills struggles with the strike zone. On the other hand, I just checked the stats for Arraez and he has an even higher chase rate than Nico, so maybe my whole theory makes no sense.

I do remind myself that hitting a baseball in incredibly difficult and that it amazes me that hitters are as good as they are.

This is a feature, and not a bug. Many times we associate not striking out with contact in the zone, but the top three players least likely to strike out swing at a very high% of pitches out of the zone compared to league average. Why? Because a great  way to avoid strikeouts is to be able to make a load of contact on chase pitches. Most hitters, when chasing out of the zone swing and miss. These guys, make contact. Easy way to not strike out is to hit the ball in play (though far easier said than done).

Beyond that Hoerner is an above average hitter (by 2% this year, and 1% over his career) and well above average for his position. His BA with RISP and his base running don't factor into that. He's just a better hitter than people realize.

[Jeff Alson]

Jason, that's a great point, that one way to avoid Ks is to make contact on "close" pitches. I guess another way to avoid Ks is to put the ball in play before you get to two strikes. What this suggests to me is that if Nico had a better command of the strike zone, he would strike out a little more (because it is impossible to have perfect command of the strike zone, of course), but also walk a little more and hit for a little higher average.

One last thought. If it were Game 7, bottom of the 9th, tie game, runner on third, one out, infield in, Nico would be my second favorite choice to come up on the entire team, only behind Tucker.