Slugger Miguel Sano has played sparingly in recent weeks as the Twins have clearly looked for more favorable matchups for him as a situational hitter instead of inserting him into the everyday lineup.
For Miguel Sano, soft contact has been a bigger problem than strikeouts
It might seem strange to say it, but Sano is striking out about as much as he ever has. It's what's happening when he puts the ball in play that has been the real problem.
July 2, 2021 at 4:11PM
The theoretically means left-handed pitchers for the right-handed Sano to face, though his career splits against righties and lefties are pretty similar. And so it meant Sano was in the lineup Thursday against stingy Chicago lefty Carlos Rodon (against whom Sano is 1 for 16 in his career, by the way) in just Sano's second start since June 22.
The result was not pretty. Sano struck out four times in five at bats, and each of his strikeouts came with men on base — twice with the bases loaded to end innings, in fact, which I talked about on Friday's Daily Delivery podcast.
The popular narrative is that Sano strikes out too much and that whiffs are killing his chances of being a productive hitter, which is true — but doesn't really tell the story of this particular season.
Sano is striking out 37.8% of his plate appearances, which is extremely high but also in line with his career mark of 37.0%. In his best years with the Twins — 2015, 2017 and 2019 — it was always above 35%. He can be a productive hitter and still whiff a ton.
What's truly alarming and out of character is that 21% of the contact he has made this season has been "soft," according to FanGraphs. In 2019, his last truly productive year, his contact was soft just 9% of the time. Even last year, when his numbers sagged, he was only making soft contact 10.4% of the time — suggestive of some bad luck in 2020.
And 20% of his fly balls have been infield flies this season — way higher than his career average of 8.3%.
That's suggestive of a player who is having a hard time catching up to and/or squaring up pitches even when he does manage to get the bat on the ball.
Another alarming trend: Sano has just a .125 batting average and a .594 OPS this season once the count reaches 2-0. For reference, the MLB average after a 2-0 count this season is a .979 OPS. And Sano's career OPS after a 2-0 count is .957.
That should be when Sano mashes the ball. Instead, he has failed even in good counts for hitters.
In talking to St. Paul Saints manager Toby Gardenhire earlier this week for a separate story on Jose Miranda — a slugging infielder at Class AAA who could get some of Sano's at bats at some point down the road — Gardenhire mentioned how far Miranda had come in his pitch selection. That helps hitters get into favorable counts and cut down on strikeouts, but what those hitters do in favorable counts is just as important.
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"That's what you look for in good hitters," Gardenhire said. "Do they take the tough pitches and swing at the good ones. And when they hit them, how hard do they hit them?"
For Sano this season, the answer generally has been not very hard. And that, more than the continued barrage of strikeouts, is what has doomed his 2021 production.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
