Embrace the double
There’s nothing quite as iconic as a big dude stepping up to the plate and whacking a baseball over the fence by swinging a bat very, very hard. Smaller players can hit home runs, too. But it’s the really big dudes who prompt everyone to lean forward in their seats just a little more in hopes of seeing the physics of force, mass, and acceleration result in a souvenir for someone sitting in the outfield bleachers.
Vinnie Pasquantino is one of those large humans. Listed at 6’3” and 245lbs, he’s of a similar build to some of the best sluggers in baseball like Pete Alonso, Brent Rooker, and Matt Olson. He, alongside the co-holders of the Royals franchise home run record, Salvador Perez and Jorge Soler, are built like the Chevy Silverado that used to be a target in the Kauffman Stadium outfield before the 2008 renovation.
But Vinnie isn’t a slugger. Yeah, I can hear you. “Of course he’s a slugger! He’s got incredible bat speed! He hits the ball hard all the time! I mean, just look at him!”
It’s true that an initial look at Vinnie may yield “big dude slugger,” but at his best his bat is something else entirely. And if you were a Royals fan before they went to back-to-back World Series, this whole discussion will remind you of another player, one whom Vinnie should emulate more: Billy Butler.
Butler was incredibly productive during his five-year peak from 2009 through 2013. Across 3,370 plate appearances, Butler hit .302/.372/.469—good for a 126 wRC+. He was hard to strike out and regularly got on base by any means necessary.
Unfortunately for Butler, those years were a totally different time where there was still a split between the Moneyball teams and the non-Moneyball teams, and “walk rate” and “on base percentage” were undervalued things a hitter brought to the table. Butler was listed at 260 lbs, which definitely screams “big dude slugger.” But Butler hit more than 21 home runs in a single season only once in his career, and he never hit 30 in one season. A lot of Royals fans therefore gave Butler a lot of shit for not being the power hitter he looked like he should be. Those fans were not smart, but the sentiment remained.
So, why was Butler good? Put simply: Butler could just hit, and could drive the ball to all fields. The below video is an example of the classic Butler swing. It was a 2-1 count, so Billy had taken a couple of pitches. He chose a great pitch to hit—a 94 MPH, belt-high fastball on the outside half of the plate. And he put a controlled but quick swing on the ball to send it to the opposite field.
To be even more specific on why he was good: Butler was an absolute doubles machine. The above video happened to be a home run, but a lot of those sweet swings resulted in doubles. For his career, Butler hit 5.7 doubles per 100 plate appearances despite an, ahem, deliberate running speed. That’s a higher rate than Eric Hosmer (4.6 doubles per 100 PAs) and Alex Gordon (4.9) and Bobby Witt Jr. (5.3) and right on par with George Brett, one of the greatest pure hitters of all time.
This brings us back to Vinnie in modern day. See, Vinnie’s rookie season was a remarkably Billy Butler-esque season. Despite hitting the absolute snot out the ball, Vinnie only posted a .155 isolated slugging percentage—right in line with Butler’s career .151 mark. That year, Vinnie pulled the ball the least he has in his career and it hit it in the air the least he’s had in his career. Furthermore, he was more selective, which resulted in the least amount of soft contact and his highest walk rate so far. And speaking of walk rate—Vinnie has been in consistent decline for three years.
So what’s happening this year? Well, Vinnie is pulling the ball more than he ever has, especially in the air. It’s easy to see why he would want to do that: per Statcast, only 17.5% of batted balls counted as “pulled airballs” but that subset was responsible for a whopping 66% of home runs. In 2022, Vinnie pulled the ball in the air 18.6% of the time, so right around league average. This year, so far, Vinnie is pulling the ball in the air 30.4% of the time, which would have been sixth-highest among all qualified batters last year.
It’s entirely possible this approach will end up working. First of all, it has been cold and miserable for a lot of the Royals’ games so far this year, which is terrible for power hitters. seeking home runs. Second, Vinnie hits the ball hard enough for it to work. And third, if Vinnie generates more home runs out of the deal, that can more than cover up a drop in on base percentage.
But I don’t think it’s the optimal fit for Vinnie. Vinnie’s strengths are that he has a fantastic eye, is hard to strike out, and has a great command of the strike zone. Furthermore, Vinnie hits in Kauffman Stadium, one of the worst places to hit home runs in the whole league, for half of his plate appearances. And finally, Vinnie hits behind Bobby freakin’ Witt Jr., who runs like the wind and can score without needing a long ball to do so.
Vinnie may look like “big dude slugger,” but his true skillset—the pure hitter, on base doubles machine—is so much less common. Unleash your inner Billy, Vinnie. Hunt doubles in the Kauffman Stadium meadows.