Wade aims to be more than a platoon player
At bats against lefties hard to come by despite scorching start
Among his many fine attributes, LaMonte Wade Jr. never worries about playing time. He’s OK being half of a platoon at first base, or occasionally playing in the outfield. Wade is about the the team, not himself.
As the San Francisco Giants move toward more everyday players, though, could Wade be one? He’s steady, he’s the team’s best defensive first baseman, and he quietly has been the team’s top hitter the first month of the season.
“That’s the problem with analytics — LaMonte raked against left-handers in college,” said Maryland coach Matt Swope, who works with Wade in the offseason. “Data is great, but you don’t want to be slavish to it when someone’s performing great. And we’re not talking about an average defender either; LaMonte helps the team on the field, too.”
Right now, Michael Conforto is the platoon-busting lefthanded hitter, which makes sense given his team-high five homers and 16 RBIs, and certainly Wilmer Flores needs to get on the field when the Giants are facing left-handers. Wade is 1-for-2 with two walks against lefties, so he’s not getting much of an opportunity there. “I don’t face them much, but I do feel like I’ve put together strong at-bats against left-handers,” he said.
Lifetime, Wade is a .184 hitter with one homer against left-handers, .225 when starting against them. But with many teams, he’d be in the lineup every day and those numbers would be likely to go up with more opportunities
“He’s putting together great at bats, and he’s just not missing good pitches to hit.” Giants OF Mike Yastrzemski, on teammate LaMonte Wade Jr.
against lefties.
After picking up a pinch-hit single Wednesday, Wade is hitting .368 — which entering Thursday was second best in the majors among players with a minimum of 65 plate appearances, trailing only Shohei Ohtani. And his .471 on-base percentage leads MLB.
“And I don’t think LaMonte’s even hit his stride,” outfielder Mike Yastrzemski said. “He’s putting together great atbats, and he’s just not missing good pitches to hit.”
The numbers back that up. His chase rate, swinging at pitches out of the zone, was just 18.6% before Wednesday, which put him among the top 6% of players. His hard-hit ball percentage is a career-best 43.6%, same with his 38.5 sweet-spot percentage, per Statcast, and he has a 14.7 walk percentage.
“I just want to go out there and just produce as consistently as I can,” Wade said. “I want to hit the ball hard when I put it in play, take my walks when I can and keep the line moving, get on base and cut down on my strikeouts.”
Wade works a lot with home-run king Barry Bonds, who has been at Oracle Park almost every day on the team’s homestands. Bonds declined to speak about Wade, because he doesn’t do interviews as a matter of course, but he did say, “I love LaMonte.”
“I’ve been talking to Barry a lot, and the good thing is that it’s never about mechanics or anything like that, it’s about the mindset,” Wade said. “We talk about the mental side of the game. It’s definitely been great having Barry around more than in the past; the new regime is really good about allowing former players back, and that’s been really good.”
Swope said it takes a while to earn Wade’s trust; Wade is quiet and low-key and can be difficult to get to know, so Swope is delighted that Wade has Bonds to bounce things off.
“There is such a rich baseball history there and obviously, Barry is the GOAT,” Swope said. “I’m so glad LaMonte has a mentor who is a minority, too — there aren’t as many Black players as there used to be, which is a huge problem, you don’t have Bonds or Ken Griffey Jr. or Frank Thomas because the game isn’t as accessible now. Having a mentor like that is important.”
Wade spends his offseason back home in Maryland working on his conditioning with a particular eye toward ensuring he has no repeat of the left knee injury that affected him in 2002. He and Swope work on the baseball part, but there’s not much to refine there. It’s mostly maintaining what Wade has been doing.
“The older LaMonte has gotten, the more comfortable he is with who he is,” Swope said. “It’s really tough for players to know they’re only going to play against right-handers, it’s a mental challenge to come off the bench, but LaMonte understands how to do that with consistent work. That’s how you go from a ninth-round pick to a successful big-league hitter.”
Mets coach Antoan Richardson became close to Wade when Richardson was the Giants’ first base coach, and he is unsurprised to see Wade jump out to a strong start.
“LaMonte is somebody who is always continuing to get better and develop, and we’ve seen him start to tap into some of that,” Richardson said. “He likes to fly under the radar, but I’m super excited to see what he’s doing. If he continues to get better, I don’t see why he couldn’t be an All-Star player. He has enough passion about the game and desire to be better that he can put himself in that position.”