2022 created a lot of hope for Vinnie Pasquantino’s future, and he needs to get back to that style of production.
When Vinnie Pasquantino showed up to Kansas City in 2022, he had a brief adjustment period. Then came two months where he was one of the best hitters in baseball, mostly due to rockets being sprayed around the park. He hit everything on a line, or at least it felt that way, and I even likened him to Jose Ramirez.
Over the last two seasons, injuries have caused problems for Vinnie, but he also has not been as effective at the plate when healthy. This seems to be an approach issue and I think he needs to get back to that 2022 rockets all over the park mode. He has been a good hitter without it, but he has the potential to be more.
In general, pulling the ball in the air is a good thing. However, a pure pull approach is not necessarily a good thing. Vinnie has not become a pure pull hitter over the last couple of years, but his pull rate has crept up from 42% two years ago to 47.2% in 2024. Overall, his hard contact rate has not dropped way off, nor has his peak or average exit velocities, so if you are still hitting the ball hard and pulling it more, that should be good. It has not played out that way.
Fangraphs
If you compare his spray charts from 2022 vs. 2024, there are some noticeable changes. You have more volume of plate appearances though, so it is hard to adjust mentally to the clusters. For home runs, it is clear that Vinnie tends to be a pretty extreme pull hitter. His long balls (black dots) tend to cluster pretty near the right-field foul pole. Doubles seem to be less prone to this, though more pull-heavy than I would have expected. Now look at the singles, that is where the biggest difference in the two years shows up from a hit perspective.
Most of Vinnie’s singles last season were pulled too. Not so in 2022, there are green dots scattered across the middle of the outfield from foul line to foul line. Also, there is an outs difference that stands out. All along the third base line for 2024 there are foul outs, or near foul outs that were only sparsely present two years ago. Those were all fly balls if you look at the batted ball type version of these charts. There were over 20 outs last year that were fly balls down the opposite field foul line, and those are generally bad contact types of batted balls.
It is actually okay for a player to switch from spraying singles to pulling the ball more for power. Unfortunately for Pasquantino, that is not what is happening. The newer approach has just lowered the OBP without increasing his slugging at all, and his HR/FB has actually gone down slightly while infield fly percent (the worst kind of contact) doubled since his rookie season. Walking less and making worse contact is definitely not going to benefit anyone except the pitcher. The worse contact really shows up in a lower Barrel rate and worse Launch Angle sweet spot. More of the fly balls are lazier and catchable rather than off or over the wall where you want them to be.
Vinnie needs to get back to being patient. He swung at 25.6% of pitches outside the zone as a rookie. That has been over 30% the past two seasons. At the same time, he swung at less pitches in the zone in 2023 and 2024. Swinging at more balls and less strikes, is again, pretty obviously not great. These are not huge changes though, it is not as if his plate discipline disappeared altogether. It is just being more aggressive at the wrong times. His contact rates are still exceptionally good, 11th in baseball for players with 350+ plate appearances. I think everything he needs to be a top-30 hitter in the majors is still there. He just needs to go back to being more selective.
Vinnie has been a good hitter all three seasons in the big leagues. His worst mark was 2023 at a 103 wRC+, and if you are still slightly above league-average at your worst, then I still want you in my lineup. He is an important part of this team, and I would like more than league-average out of him, and he has shown that capability. His 136 wRC+ in 2022 would have been 23rd in baseball last season (again 350 PA minimum). Having a Franciso Lindor, Freddie Freeman, or Fernando Tatis level bat instead of Ryan Mountcastle or Brandon Nimmo is what I am talking about. That is a substantial gap.