Cronenworth’s Woes

Posted on May 24, 2022August 19, 2022 by travisice

By the end of the 2021 season, the player that had grown on me more than any other Major League player was Jake Cronenworth with the Padres. Cronenworth was never a highly touted prospect and that’s because he doesn’t have any plus-plus tools, nor does he bring extreme athleticism to the field that is capable of making highlight reel plays on any given night. But, he played every position in the infield at a solid level and was consistently productive at the plate in his Minor League career. Cronenworth struck me as a new version of Ben Zobrist. The type of player who doesn’t do anything exceptional, but just about everything well.

Cronenworth (’21): .800 OPS / K- 14% / BB- 8.6% / BABIP: .283 / Exit Velo (avg)- 88.6 / LA: 12.5

Cronenworth (’22): .620 OPS / K- 21.2% / BB- 10.9% / BABIP: .255 / Exit Velo (avg)- 87.3 / LA: 18.5

Even though Cronenworth is only 140 PA’s deep as of this writing, I went through and watched a lot of those PA’s and dug deeper into his data from the 2021 and 2022 seasons to see what had changed in such a short time and did not come away with an abundance of optimism for him to return to his All-Star form just a season prior.

As it’s easy to see, there are a lot more hot quadrants in Cronenworth’s batted ball profile during the 2021 season (left) than there have been so far in the 2022 season (right). After watching a lot of his 2021 and 2022 AB’s on video, the first thing I was struck by was the difference in bat speed. Cronenworth has actually cut down his chase rate this season to 18.3% after chasing at a rate of 23.5% last season.

It seems to be an age-old tradition for many player evaluators to just say “his bat speed has declined” and use that as a blanket reason for said player’s offensive struggles. Below is another comparison of Cronenworth’s wOBA zone breakdown, except this time against all fastballs or ‘hard stuff’ (2s, 4s, cutters).

Now, that 2022 chart (right) against ‘hard stuff’ is pretty ugly. But what strikes me the most is how badly Cronenworth is getting beat in the heart of the plate and anything that is remotely elevated with velocity behind it. The two swings below are both from this season. The swing on the left is against a 99 MPH FB from Carlos Rondon. This pitch is not a pitch 99.9% of MLB hitters are going to be able to do any damage with, but I’m using it because of how over matched Cronenworth is and how behind elevated plus-plus velocity. The swing on the right’s main difference is that it isn’t a swing and miss. The swing on the right is against Cory Knebel in a 1-0 count and it’s a center-cut 4-seamer that Cronenworth still can’t catch up to, and it results in a lazy foul pop up. However, whether he is opening up that front side early in anticipation of a particular pitch or unintentionally, that trait seems to be dragging the bat through the zone and not allowing him to handle the pitches he was able to just one season ago.

The swings below are both from the 2021 season. Now, Cronenworth’s 2022 swing and his 2021 swings are very similar aesthetically and mechanically. Outside of the decline in bat speed, the one thing that pops out to me is Cronenworth’s front shoulder, and not only in the two 2022 swings I picked out above, but in a lot of his hacks this season. Against both LHP and RHP this season, Cronenworth’s front shoulder is flying open prematurely and in turn causing his bat to drag through the zone.

Another common observation I had when going through video of Cronenworth’s last two years of AB’s is how many of his hardest hit balls were to the left-center alley. As I said earlier, Cronenworth in my opinion has never had above average bat speed, but his stroke has always been simple and repeatable. This does wonders for a hitter’s timing, especially one who already has obvious bat-to-ball skills in their skill set, and makes it easier to be productive without above average bat speed.

One could easily point out that Cronenworth is carrying a .255 BABIP and has improved on swinging at pitches in the zone and cite that as reason to believe Cronenworth is ‘due’ to improve his performance the rest of this season. Even if he is chasing fewer pitches out of the zone, it does him no good to swing at more strikes if he’s not doing damage in the zone either. I hope that the solution is as simple as keeping his front side in longer, mainly to increase efficiency of his swing, but until that adjustment is made, we’ll never know.

Cronenworth’s early season struggles are an example of how scouting observations, whether in-person or on video, can provide additional clarity on a player’s performance, especially when working with a small data sample size.