Peguero, 1000 AAA plate appearances: .281/.345/.514/.859, which is his best performance at any level with a reasonable number of ABs. Batting eye? .25. K rate? 32% (!). So while he has a prodigious .220 ISO, he's not scaring anybody off the plate. Even in the minors the pitchers can see the Buick-sized hole in his swing and resolve to aim there instead of out over the plate.
They miss, he goes long, but he doesn't exactly force them to throw in a hitting zone.
Abreu walks a LOT more than he Ks in his minor league. He has led his league in batting average and HRs in the same year. If he has trouble covering the plate I sure haven't seen evidence of that.
So the complaint is that his bat is too slow. Well, Chris Davis has a slow bat. Olerud had the slowest bat on his Toronto squad and yet somehow eked out a decent career. Bat speed is over-rated. Do you have to start the bat sooner to catch up to a high fastball? Sort of. If your mechanics are clean, not a lot faster. But you also keep the bat in the zone LONGER so it's easier to foul off pitches you mis-read or dink them in for hits rather than swinging through for all those strike threes.
A slower bat is NOT an indicator of trouble, not if you can read pitches quickly. We'll find out if Abreu can do that soon enough. Fast bats are prettier, like 5-tool athletes. But plenty of 5 toolers can't hit. Edgar hit just fine and his bat-speed was several notches short of electric. The extra pounds of muscle that Abreu has serve much the same function as batspeed: get the ball out of here. The rest is up to his other plate skills, which so far have served him VERY well.
What if he can’t hit the inside fastball? Man, that was a huge problem for Frank Thomas who hit THREE FIFTY while hating inside heat. Abreu stands close enough to the plate to eat a bunch of pitches in the ribs, BTW, leading his league in that category as well. So his method of dealing with the inside fastball on the hands is to take it in the back and get on first base. Or because of the risk of that, force the pitcher to throw it more over the plate where he can turn on it. It’s not like he doesn’t deal with these things. We just don’t know how he deals with them on the major league level.
-----------
I dislike Cuban hitters. I'm on record as describing the products of the island's hitting discipline and lack of resources in less than flattering terms, especially once they come into money.
I like Abreu. His swing is fine. His power is great. Is his pitch-recognition up to snuff? If not, he's gonna hurt, Batista-style, for a while. If it is... look out.
Compared to throwing money at Nelson Cruz on the bet that he'll survive BOTH a lack of PEDs and leaving the home-run pit in Texas...
Gimme the Cuban.
~G
Add new comment
1