Gomez's plate discipline improving, Young still needs work

Beginning the season as Ron Gardenhire’s pariah, center fielder Carlos Gomez spent the latter portion of April watching left fielder Delmon Young turn routine plays into extra bases.  When afforded the opportunity to play, Gomez displayed dazzling defense but a mind-bogglingly bad approach to the plate.  Young, on the other hand, would be terrible at both.  So as Gomez’s superior defense rotted on the bench, only to be called upon as a late innings substitute, Young was given the lion’s share of playing time.  Ultimately, the decision to play Young over Gomez is all that much more curious when you consider that the pair have been the exact same hitter. 

 

In the initial month of the season Gomez showed no indication that he had a better understanding of the strike zone or had improved his pitch recognition.  In almost a continuation of last year, pitchers would set him up with breaking stuff well outside the strike zone and the eager outfielder would flail with little hope of contact (just 43.5 percent) resulting in 11 punchouts in 44 plate appearances and a .195 batting average in April.  As bad as Gomez was, Young was actually worse.  Aside from Jose Morales, Young swung at the highest amount of pitches outside the zone in the month of April (37.8 percent) and, moreover, made less contact with those pitches (37.8 percent) and wound up striking out in 15 of his 58 plate appearances.  What seemingly gave Young the advantage is that he had several more balls bleed through the infield thus giving the appearance of a better hitter than Gomez with a .241 batting average.   

April	PA	OOZ swing%	K%	BB%	BAVG
Gomez	44	32.9	26.8	6.8	.195
Young	58	37.8	27.8	3.6	.241

This current month Young and Gomez have the same amount of plate appearances and, once again, Young’s better average gives the look of a better hitter.  A closer inspection reveals that Young’s .345 average is boosted by a .455 batting average on balls in play –- an unsustainable figure considering he had a 60 percent groundball rate –- while his chase numbers basically stayed the same (with the exception of putting more of those chased pitches into play).  Gomez, meanwhile, trimmed the number of swings outside the zone down significantly and because of which, he drew more walks.  What makes this transformation all that more impressive is that Gomez has seen the amount of non-fastball offerings increase from 48 percent in April to 55 percent in May, yet he would lay off the enticing off-speed stuff.    

 

May	PA	OOZ swing%	K%	BB%	BAVG
Gomez	32	16.7	20.0	13.8	.320
Young	32	28.6	24.1	6.5	.345

With Young on bereavement leave, Gomez is demonstrating that his consistent presence in the lineup is a boon to his production.  Undoubtedly his improved pitch comprehension is directly associated with his regular playing time but having Gomez in the field for nine innings rather then as defensive replacement at the end of the ballgame is beneficial for the pitching staff.  True, he is still an eager outfielder who will hack at the first pitch following seven-straight balls and other miscellaneous youthful mental errors but his recent plate approach marks noteworthy progress from the key dividend of the Johan Santana trade.