Quote:
Originally Posted by ThyKingdomCome15
Wow, Walker has a sweet swing. I can see the hype. I actually have a reason to look forward to watch my Cardinals this year.
Although I'll admit first hand, I'm pretty casual when it comes to baseball, I like hockey more but my Blues tanked hard this year lol. Funny the two biggest cities in America are baseball towns.
|
LA is a Lakers town. Dodgers town next. Probably college football 3rd.
The Angels barely exist out there. I wouldn't call it a baseball town.
I'd still like to see Walker generate more loft. And that tends to piss the purists off a fair amount. But we have a poster in this very thread who can speak directly to my concerns here.
There's a player in baseball who hits the ball consistently hard as well as anyone in baseball and he is, by any objective measure, an unproductive hitter.
Ke'Bryan Hayes is constantly among the league leaders in average exit velocity, hard hit rates, plate discipline and max EV. He is a purists wet dream - and he doesn't hit. Why? Because he hits flat.
Average launch angle is about 12% give or take. The ideal launch angle is about 18%. About the minimum 'superstar' LA you'll see is around 13% - Harper won an MVP 2 years ago just a hair over 13%.
Ke'Bryan Hayes has a career launch angle of 4.4%. It's the most extreme groundball tendency from a truly powerful hitter I've ever seen. It KILLS him. I mean if he gets that to even 10% he's an MVP caliber player.
Now I don't expect that out of Walker, but at some point it does have to be noted that his HR numbers have been pretty mediocre for a guy with the kind of raw power he has. He has (or at least had) a swing path that isn't conducive to maximizing his offensive potential.
Now again - even suggest 'correcting' a gap to gap hitter like Walker and you'll piss the BFIB right off. But you get him up around 16-18% and he could be a genuine MVP candidate in the next couple years.
(but seriously - Ke'Bryan Hayes, go to DriveLine and find yourself a swing doctor man. You do too many things right to be your own worst enemy like this...)