White is swinging from his heels and hoping. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous. FanGraphs Store. That’s no longer an issue. All Win Expectancy, Leverage Index, Run Expectancy, and Fans Scouting Report data licenced from TangoTiger.com. Kyle Lewis career batting statistics for Major League, Minor League, and postseason baseball. Lewis alluded to this in an interview with David Laurila earlier this spring: Development is about continuing to trust your process and your approach. And if his hit tool is a little better than expected, then he’ll be a premium center fielder for the Mariners for years to come. Nearly half the pitches opposing pitchers have thrown to him this year have been curveballs or sliders. The result is a pretty extreme spray chart. Positions OF . An at-bat always looks better when the balls drops in for a hit, but Lewis looks like he is in control and dictating every at-bat, while pitchers seem to be in control of every Evan White at-bat so far. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, At Mercer and up until Spring Training this year, Lewis would have to rely more on his athleticism to get to pitches. So it is a bit of trade off. Harper can survive with such a high swinging strike rate because he’s aggressive early in the count but adjusts his approach with two strikes. The other day, he made this five-star catch on a sinking liner off the bat of Justin Upton: Catch probability: 15%Kyle Lewis: No problem pic.twitter.com/Pp12RpmShf, — MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) July 29, 2020. And it looks like he’s able to handle the adjustments pitchers have made so far. He can now trust his eyes a … Those hits tend to be slow EV and teams may have shifted to his pull side which could cause BABIP to be extremely high in the early goings. All minor league baseball data provided by Major League Baseball Advanced Media While working his way through the minors, his pull rates sat around 40%. This tug of war between pitcher and hitter is simply part of the game within the game, and Lewis is in the midst of learning how far he needs to go to stay ahead while continuing to leverage his strengths. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lewis able to maintain a ~.260 average with 30+ homer power. That’s a nice play and suggests that his range and mobility have recovered well after his knee injury. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, by Retrosheet. His swinging strike rate is a bit lower this year (from 17.7% to 15.2%), and his underlying plate discipline stats look a little better — a lower overall swing rate, particularly on pitches out of the zone — but his high strikeout rate will likely follow him throughout his career. by Handedness, 2016 June Amateur Draft - Round: 1, Pick: 11, Overall: 11, Team: Seattle Mariners. Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted Updated: Monday, October 19, 2020 10:53 AM ET, Park Factors That is because in the minors you don’t play to win but to develope and so there are less shifts and defenders are less adept at handling rockets. Gallo and Schwarber are good examples of this. With another two yesterday, Lewis has now collected hits in all seven games this season and has strung together five multi-hit performances in a row. For instance, when pitchers show that they want to bust you in, are you going to be able to stay with your approach, or are you going to give in to what they’re trying to do? by Handedness, More Coronavirus Infections on Marlins, Phillies, and Now Cardinals Mean More Scrambling — and More Questions — for MLB, Manfred to Clark: The Season is in Jeopardy. Roster% 98.04% Change 7Day 0% 30Day 0% MLB Stats Batting. Updated: Monday, October 19, 2020 10:53 AM ET, Park Factors After that home run off McCullers, all the rest of his hits have been singles poked up the middle or slapped to the other side. He’s made every start in center this year and has looked good. Lewis now drops his hands lower, in a better swing-plane slot, allowing for a shorter, more compact swing. Donate to FanGraphs. Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted But that success came with some glaring red flags. He sprayed the ball around the field with the majority of his batted balls going to right. and play-by-play data provided by Baseball Info Solutions. Kyle Lewis SEA OF R Born: 07/13/1995 (Age: 25) FanGraphs Player Page. That ball exited the stadium at 110.9 mph, the hardest hit of Lewis’s career. I don’t think anyone was saying he was going to continue to it .450 the rest of the way. Bryce Harper ran a 15.3% swinging strike rate last season while posting a 125 wRC+. Projected to be arbitration eligible for the 2023 season. All minor league baseball data provided by Major League Baseball Advanced Media Positions OF 2021 Projected Positions OF . Avg Salary All Leagues $3.99 Last 10 adds $7.30 FanGraphs Points $4.05 Last 10 adds $5.30. as distributed by STATS. You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Follow him on Twitter @jakemailhot. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. Generally all field hitters have higher babips but obviously not that high. Projected to be arbitration eligible for the 2023 season. During his September call-up, Lewis wasn’t as pull-happy as you’d expect based on his track record. by Retrosheet. He’s still swinging and missing at those breaking balls just as often, but he’s adjusted his approach to combat the new pitch mix he’s seeing. We’ll see how it plays out though. Kyle Lewis SEA OF R Born: 07/13/1995 (Age: 25) FanGraphs Player Page. One other encouraging note has been Lewis’s ability to stick in center field. Becomes a free agent entering the 2026 season, after the conclusion of the 2025 season. Website admin will know that you reported it. BABIP .462 as distributed by STATS. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. All fields players tend to run higher Babips in the majors (like lemahieu or yelich) but sometimes it can come at the expense of power which works best to pull side. Because of this hard hitting pull hitters tend to hit for higher babip in the minors because they hit rockets through the fielders and later in mlb they face those deep shifts in the OF grass getting hard grounders and low liners and they are also better at handling rockets hit right at them. He looks like he has an approach and the patience to stick with it. by Retrosheet. He posted a 38.7% strikeout rate last year, and it is only a touch lower so far this season. Lewis looks like a vet out there. His second hit of the season was a 358-foot home run to right field off an 82.5-mph curveball from Lance McCullers Jr. And that becomes tougher at each level, because there’s a lot more mix. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, The rest of his 13 hits have all gone to the right side or up the middle. His tendency to swing and miss often only confirmed the skepticism some had about his hit tool. Please support FanGraphs by becoming a member. Despite the high-K rate, his at-bats have looked really good, at least to me. Ideally you have guys like trout who have like average pull rates but enough power to make it work for power too but most need a slightly elevated pull rate to hit a lot of bombs. A long-suffering Mariners fan, he also writes about them for Lookout Landing. He’s definitely shown that he can hit the other way with easy power, but right now, his approach is limiting his best tool at the plate. Jake Mailhot is a contributor to FanGraphs. The player with the third-highest WAR in this young campaign is Mariners center fielder Kyle Lewis, who was leading the category yesterday. Avg Salary All Leagues $5.99 Last 10 adds $7.30 FanGraphs Points $6.05 Last 10 adds $5.30. Take a glance at the early season position player WAR leaders and you’ll find Mike Yastrzemski leading all of MLB, making his grandfather proud. ZIPS ROS BABIP projection – .344. He would go on to hit three more through the first 10 games of his career. Next you’ll find José Ramirez on his quest to show that last year’s struggles were just a blip. We hoped you liked reading Kyle Lewis, Home Run Machine by Mike Podhorzer! You need to understand how to tunnel all of that back towards what you’re trying to accomplish. Or he could end up at .247 every year with 40+ HR power. Does BABIP skew higher for RHHs who push the ball to the right side of the field? After launching that fastball into the stratosphere, Lewis has seen a steady diet of breaking balls. The true test for Lewis will be to see if he can combine this approach focused on covering breaking balls on the outer half of the plate with his ability to crush fastballs.