Since we just turned the calendar over to June, we’re getting more and more of an idea whose hot starts are more than just a flash in the pan. Let’s establish that J.D. Martinez’s current .470 BABIP is nowhere remotely near sustainable, but as it was pointed out recently on the Effectively Wild podcast, carrying that BABIP almost 200 PA’s into the season is impressive on many levels, and I wanted to look into what may be contributing to that.
Being someone who watches a lot of random games and not one team more than the rest, I’ve caught a good chunk of Martinez’s AB’s this year, and something that had stuck out to me a few weeks back when watching a game was Martinez seemingly being more willing to swat a single up the middle or the opposite field than he had even in his best years on a very impressive body of work. I wasn’t aware of just how high Martinez’s BABIP was until Meg mentioned it on EW and that was a good enough reason to look into it.
Below are Martinez’s spray charts for both 2021 and 2022 looking only at his singles (1B’s). Even at first glance it’s easy to tell there seems to be some sort of approach adjustment made by Martinez just by how much more evenly his 1B’s are distributed across the diamond.
The spray charts above of Martinez’s singles in 2021/2022 illustrates that Martinez has been utilizing more of the opposite field and several of them look like the one from the video below. Martinez knows the book on him is elevated velocity, so when he’s down in the count he’s adjusting by shooting line drives to the opposite field more often than he has in the past. This single against Giolito was intended to be elevated more, but the intent to shoot the pitch the other way is clear.
I’ve never met J.D. Martinez, but I’ve scouted him dozens of times throughout his ML career and have always read his interviews when he’s discussing hitting because I really enjoy his takes on the topic and he seems to have a very good sense of what his strengths are and how to best play to them. In the video above, he’s facing Lucas Giolito and is in a 1-2 count hole. Giolito is attempting to elevate a fastball to put away Martinez but instead pulls it a bit, and it ends up being a semi-elevated heater on the outer third of the plate. Not a pitch I’d classify as a ‘mistake pitch’ even though he missed his spot. We’ve all watched Martinez enough to know he has a very controlled, but also violent stroke when he’s swinging for the downs. This swing is not that. It’s still very much controlled but also with less violent intent in exchange for some more bat control.
When I think of J.D. Martinez letting it eat, I more picture a swing like the one below, which was his first home-run of 2022:
As I was looking around FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and videos of Martinez’s 2022 AB’s, I noticed a difference in his numbers when hitting against a shift, compared to when there is no shift. So far in 2022, Martinez is posting a staggering .594 wOBA against defensive setups that utilize a shift compared to his still impressive .376 wOBA mark against ‘no shift’ defenses. His production against defenses that employ a shift is another sign to me that he’s “taking what the defense gives him” more and for now, a lot of the balls coming off his bat in those situations are falling in.
2021: (623 PA’s, 103 shifts)
wOBA vs ‘No Shift’: .361
wOBA vs ‘Shift’: .358
Avg. Exit Velo: 92.1
2022: (193 PA’s, 33 shifts)
wOBA vs ‘No Shift’: .376
wOBA vs ‘Shift’ (193 PA): .594
Avg. Exit Velo: 90.8
Ever since teams began employing more and more radical shifts with their infield defenses, the cries for “choking up and poking one to the opposite field” have only gotten louder. Personally, if I’m a manager and I have a player who is capable of hitting 40+ HR’s annually like Martinez, I want him looking for as many chances as possible in an AB to elevate one out of the yard. However, when Martinez is getting down in counts, especially with two-strikes, he’s in a way hedging his bet by spraying more line drives up the middle and to the opposite field rather than waiting for a better pitch that may never come.
Martinez being more willing to spray a line drive when down in the count I believe is another main ingredient, along with plenty of pure batted ball luck that is driving Martinez’s unusually high BABIP in 2022. Martinez isn’t striking out less with what I believe is an altered approach, but rather is spraying more line drive base hits to vacant parts of the diamond. Obviously this degree of success/luck is going to decline from now until the end of the season but it’s served Martinez well out of the gates.
