Andrus putting in the work to end terrible season-opening slump
The Oakland A’s have one of the best records in baseball with an everyday player that ranks as one of the worst at the plate. But there is hope within the A’s coaching staff that the gap will close soon.
In his first season outside of the Texas Rangers organization, veteran shortstop Elvis Andrus is not off to a good start. His .142 batting average is the thirdworst in baseball for qualified hitters. Even more troubling is
his MLB-worst .364 OPS, a statistic the A’s value. The league average hovers around .750 OPS.
No only is Andrus’ 6 wRC+ (runs created statistic) the worst in baseball, but also it’s 29 points lower than Detroit’s Jonathan Schoop’s second-worst and well below the 100 wRC+ league average. Andrus is the only Athletic without a home run this year and owns only three extra-base hits. Those numbers sting a little more when former A’s shortstop Marcus Semien had a four-hit game at the Coliseum with the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday.
The season is still young, so the A’s aren’t overly concerned about their new shortstop’s production. Darren Bush, the A’s hitting coach, has seen enough in the batting cages to feel optimistic that some of what Andrus has been working on will start to translate on the field.
“His work has been good in the cage,” Bush said in a Zoom with reporters on Friday. “You
have to continue on the process you are on. Though it hasn’t shown on the field in results, the last few at-bats he’s stayed through the ball. He didn’t get the results, but the at-bats are better at-bats, and that’s what we have to strive for.”
Andrus sat out 2020 with the Rangers with a back injury. After losing the shortstop job he held in Texas since 2009 to Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, the shortstop-less A’s traded DH Khris Davis and catcher Jonah Heim to the Rangers for Andrus’ services and $13.5 million.
Andrus, 32, changed his workouts during the offseason to rehabilitate his back injury and said after the trade he felt younger. A year of at-bats lost and bad habits developed to compensate for the injury is what could be holding Andrus back, Bush said.
“He had to go through quite a bit,” he said. “He had some injuries he was dealing with. When you have a bad back and you’re trying to play through it, you’re going to create some things. For Elvis, one thing for sure is he’s in there working, and he’s doing everything he can to put himself in the best position for success.”
Behind the scenes, Andrus is working on holding his position at the plate better. If a batter leaves his position, he can cut his distance and tends to stay ahead of the ball. That can force batters to make up time while trying to make contact. Bush says Andrus is finding consistency with that in the batting cages and in some recent at-bats has done a better job of staying back to deliver a stronger swing.
Between the lines, it’s clear Andrus hasn’t been getting the best swings off. The A’s, like most teams, value hard contact and exit velocity as strong indications that numbers like OPS will skyrocket.
“Hit it hard, don’t worry about hitting it far, hit it hard,” Bush said of the team’s hitting philosophy. “When you hit the ball hard, those numbers tend to go up.”
Andrus holds a 1.2% barrel rate, which ranks in the bottom 4% of the league. His 26% hard-hit rate ranks in the bottom 25th percentile. Given Andrus’ past injuries and adjustment period, Bush thinks a turnaround is just around the corner.
“A lot of the time when guys start slow, not often do we read too much into it,” Bush said. “Right around now, sometimes guys that start out slow, this is when they start to come around and make adjustments. They’re starting to see the ball well, especially off a year when you have limited at-bats. This time moving forward is an important time because he’s doing the things he should be in the cages. Hopefully, we start to see some of the benefits out on the field.”