MonStero restores Dr. D's faith in one muscular swing
Rob-o-tronic blast cheers the faithful

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Here is the video of Montero's 441-footer on Monday. On TV, they said it was his first home run since last September 2.

Montero hadn't really been doing anything wrong this year, other than hitting the ball with a total lack of authority.  In one of Dr. D's little mini-spasms of irrationality, he had begun to think of Montero as a hyper-Smoak, a hitter whose essential problem lay in the area of "warning track power."  Big guys, no speed, whose game is based on deep fly balls ... that are caught by outfielders.

No, scratch that, it wasn't irrationality – it was laziness.  We hadn't looked at Montero's data much, nor his swing much.  That's understandable because he wasn't playing much.  He still don' have 50 at-bats!

When we say that he hadn't been doing anything wrong this year…

  • Only five strikeouts (still)
  • Swing and miss rate about average
  • Zone contact rate perfectly average
  • Out of zone contact rate weak -- but swing rate fine
  • Batting average on balls in play weak, but not weird considering his speed

We could go on and on with the data… what the eye told you was simply that he was passive at the plate.   Very typically for a Mariner,  the first strike percentage to Montero is 60%, compared to a norm of 52%. Smoak, Ackley, and Montero are showing a total lack of aggressiveness.

...............

With one swing, Montero reminded SSI that he is not Justin Smoak.  Any apparent lack of muscle is purely transient.  That's a key consideration.

I couldn't tell you exactly why, but Dr. D does not expect to see Justin Smoak take an easy swing and launch a ball 441 feet tomorrow.  (Well, I could tell you why ... he hit only two balls in excess of 420 feet last season.  Those were only a few feet in excess of 420 feet.)

If he did, it wouldn't be exactly the same thing.  Montero's easy, mammoth power was a reminder.

It's funny… I'm always talking about using a three iron on the first tee, hitting a few decent shots, staying within yourself, and letting the club fly later. It strikes you that Montero has been doing exactly that in early April.

...................

His OPS+ is still around 50 despite his hot streak, but… Now that we look at it, the early cold streak was based on (gulp) eight games. Here is the b-ref.com game log – you can sum the stats for any time period by clicking on the two rows.  The last week, Montero is hitting 370/400/580 with 2 BB and 3 K.  Of course, that's not based on much playing time either.  But:  eyes slideways.  Be fun to watch him the next few games.

In any case, he is certainly in a category that is separate from Justin Smoak's; he's a young catcher who plays defense first.

Remind me not to lump him too tightly with any collection of players that doesn't play catcher :- )

 

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Comments

1
OBF's picture

THAT is why he is a blue chip super stud.
It seems like it has been popular lately to give Montero a lot of grief. Yet he is only 23, it is only his second year in the majors, and he can do THAT. FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE FEET to dead center and it didn't even look like he got it all... Seriously when he first hit it I thought deep fly ball... Then WOOSH it just clears everything and everybody by 50 feet!
The only place where the criticism seems valid is in his speed (and there isn't a ton he can do about that) and MAYBE his pitch sequences (although you would think that the manager and the pitcher would have just as much if not more to say about sequences than the kid catcher...). In terms of his actual recieving skills I think he looks quite a bit better than last year and at least up to MLB average if not better. Base runners aren't running wild on him. The # of passed balls seems to me to be less than Olivos rate at least and I have been quite impressed by his pitch framing. Seems like at least once a game, and a couple times last night (even Sims mentioned it) Montero is able to steal a strike for his pitcher. Last night it was a called 3rd strike (yes Felix throwing it probably had something to do with it as well), but it was well outside, and Montero did stab for the ball, but he caught it gently ever so slightly moved his glove inside and held it rock still for several beats.... Steeeeerike Three!
Man, if these youngins ever fulfill even 50% of their promise... whew!

2

Despite stealing a couple strikes last night, Felix still lost at least 4 strikes and 5 more on the edges that could have gone either way.
Further, the Astro pitchers were all getting a lower strike than the zone - screwing mariner batters at least 6 times... and I doubt that Castro is that much better or worse than Montero.
We are still missing something. 6 years is systemic problem - not as Montero problem.

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