Jose Bautista talks hitting and life after Edwin.
From his amen corner cubicle in the clubhouse, Jose Bautista is expounding on a favourite subject: hitting.
It is the crux of the thing, of course, for a power-numbers guy. It is also a confounding and ever-mutating proposition. Pitchers are the yin; Bautista is the yang. And somewhere in between, when yang meets the sweet spot of yin, the ball goes yard.
A whole bunch of epic shots, in the Bautista home run annals.
While last season was a freak-injuries anomaly (22 HRs), the 36-year-old leads Major League Baseball with 249 homers since the start of 2010. Though certainly no predictions offered for 2017, Bautista, fit as he’s ever been, clearly expects to channel his long-ball mojo again and crank up that homely .234 average.
“If you fail 70 per cent of the time in this game, you’re still great,” he observes wryly.
Practically gags, though, when a reporter recounts the eponym laid upon him by a recent baseball magazine feature — Godfather of the Dead-Pull Power Hitter — because while Bautista’s parabolas often end up in the seats beyond left, he prides himself on using all fields.
“I think there are periods where you might stick to your strength more than try to spread the ball around,” concedes the veteran Blue Jay, belatedly re-upped by management in the off-season. “A lot of it depends on the situation when you come up to the plate and how they’re pitching you.”
That’s the cause-and-effect of hitting. Pitchers who give even an inch are liable to get torched a mile.
“If you’re having success pulling the ball and nothing’s forcing you to change, then why change?’’ Bautista asks, reasonably. “But this game is ever evolving. You’ve always got to adapt or you’ll be left out. With all the new metrics and how they’re analyzing, people are starting to change the way they pitch guys and we have to adjust back.’’
Not that Bautista necessarily — hard single, walk, three-run jack in Thursday’s 8-8 tie with the Phillies — evaluates all that incoming data the way the tall-forehead frontoffice geeks do, in an era of deep stats cryptology. Like this one, culled from Baseball Savant: Bautista, over the past seven seasons, has slugged .757 on pitches in the upper third of the strike zone, purportedly the highest in baseball.
“Huh. I would like to look at that in more detail, comparing fastballs to off-speed and what those numbers are on the lower third.’’ He’s agnostic at best. “We don’t look at numbers and scrutinize them too much because we find those exercises to be kind of moot. Our job is to go in there and hit the ball as hard as we can. A lot of that — slugging, percentages — depends on where (fielders) are playing you, what stadium you’re in, the conditions, if it’s rainy or if it’s sunny.
“A ball down the line could be a ground ball in one situation, a double or a triple in another. A ball that you hit off the Monster is a single. In Detroit, to centre field, that’s a 440foot out, compared to one that’s 315 feet in Houston and it’s in the leftfield box. We like to look at linedrive rates, exit speed, consistency in hitting the ball hard.’’
Hitters huddle at the computer, studying video and digesting information, but then they must step into the box and instantaneously interpolate that data while reacting to the pitch.
For Bautista, in best-case scenarios: stomp, high-kick and a beauty. “I look at hitter counts on fastballs, hitter counts on off-speed throwing over the middle of the plate. That’s when you want to cause the damage. If you hit one ball, two strikes, slider low and away, you’ll take it, but that’s not how the script’s supposed to be written.’’
It’s become ever more complicated an equation, however, especially with baseball suddenly in thrall to middle relievers, a spillover from last year’s post-season and a couple of managers defying conventional wisdom.
“The bullpen is something that people seem to be putting a lot of focus on,” Bautista notes. “So, I think short leads in the middle of the game are going to become more important, and more importance placed on those middle-of-thebullpen guys to hold those leads. You might see hitters adjusting earlier in the game to situations where, say, the right side of the field is open and you might just want to push for that extra run instead of going for an extra base hit or a home run. We’ll see.
“Adaptation never stops. You usually see swings in the game every few years. I’ve thought about that, wondering if we’re in one of those swings again.”
He’s pondered, as well, the infernal shift, invented a baseball lifetime ago — the brainchild of Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau to contend with Ted Williams — and too widely implemented these days. “Look at the amount of hard balls that middle-of-the-order guys are pulling and they’re still turning into outs,” Bautista sniffs. “Frustration builds up because we’re being quote-unquote successful in our jobs as hitters, getting a good pitch to hit, hitting as hard as we can, they’re just turning into outs.’’
Perchance, since baseball is in a mood-swing phase right now, messing with the long-established way of things, it’s time to outlaw the offence-squelching shift? “There’s never been a rule that prohibits people from shifting around position,” Bautista muses. “Unless they change that …’’
Bautista reminds that civilians, even baseball nerds, don’t truly grasp how much adjustment is required of the modern hitter, sometimes on a day-to-day basis. “It never ends because nobody’s going to pitch you the same way every single day. And pitchers try not to make the same mistake twice.”
Here’s another humongous switchup: No Edwin Encarnacion hitting behind Bautista in the cleanup spot. Might miss Double-E even more for the hitting protection he provided than their close friendship.
“Two things to keep in mind,” says Bautista. “His replacement is a pretty decent hitter.’’ Meaning, of course, Kendrys Morales. “And he’s a switch-hitter, so I might see even a little more benefit. We’ll see what happens. My expertise tells me it won’t affect me that much, not having Edwin there.’’
What might be a debatable point is whether Bautista should still be batting third rather than moving down, reflective of not-so-fat offensive numbers. Manager John Gibbons doesn’t think so. “That’s where he fits best, where he made his name with us, where he wants to hit. We have hit him leadoff and he did a pretty good job there, but that’s not really who he is.’’
So, while leadoff is not determined — much depends on the starting status of Devon Travis, not yet game-activated in spring training — Gibbons is cleaving to a 2-3-4 of Josh Donaldson-Bautista-Morales.
“I like to think I’m somebody who comes in every day ready to work and contribute, work the count and run the bases well, try to cause some positive impact from the plate,” says Bautista. “Those are the qualities you want in the middle-of-the-order guys.’’
But, yeah, long-ball groovin’, always.
“The best play in baseball is hitting the home run, I believe. Exciting for the fans. Fun for me, too.”