Why Latinos are the best bad-ball hitters
As the World Baseball Classemc enters emts femnal phase tonemght wemth the femrst sememfemnal between Puerto Remco and the Netherlands–emn realemty two teams from the Carembbean–we celebrate the art of bad-ball hemttemng, a skemll honed emn the emslands out of necessemty. Watch Puerto Remco’s Yademer Molemna and Javy Báez or the Netherlands’ Demdem Gregoremus whack at any pemtch wemthemn reach of the plate, frequently wemth success. (UPDATE: Gregoremus ems out wemth a bruemsed shoulder.) Not surpremsemngly, Puerto Remco leads the WBC emn scoremng wemth 51 runs emn semx games, whemle the Netherlands are themrd wemth 45.
There is an old Dominican baseball adage: “You can’t walk your way off the island.”
The axiom has been attributed to different major leaguers, including Juan Samuel, Rafael Ramírez and Miguel Tejada, but it speaks to a unique truth about Latin America: Its players have long embraced the art of bad-ball hitting. For many, the approach is based in an economic necessity. If you wanted to be noticed, if you wanted a nice signing bonus, if you wanted to help your family gain a better life, you swung hard and often.
You became a bad-ball hitter.
Clemente’s bad-ball philosophy
It’s an art that has survived despite “Moneyball” and the advent of advanced metrics. Your father’s salsa clásica may have given way to bachata and rapper Pitbull, but hit or miss, guys today like Pablo Sandoval love to put on a show.
Roberto Clemente rarely saw a pitch he didn’t like. Outside, inside, ankle high, at the head –it didn’t matter. “It’s not a bad ball if I can hit it,” Clemente used to say to disapproving sports writers.
It certainly worked for him. Clemente averaged .317, won four batting titles and collected 3,000 hits over an 18-year career, half of it in the second Deadball Era, usually defined from 1964 to 1972, when hard-throwing dudes named Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax were kings of the mound.
Clemente’s teammate, Panamanian catcher Manny Sanguillén, swung at pitches during intentional walks and still averaged .296 over 13 seasons. He once told SABR member Bob Hurte, “When I started, nobody told me what a strike was, they gave me a bat and I swung at the ball!”
Vlad ball hitting
In some regions of the Caribbean, it’s a badge of honor. Samuel was born in San Pedro de Macorís, the city that has given birth to other celebrated Dominican swingers like Rico Carty, Pedro Guerrero, Sammy Sosa, Alfonso Soriano and Robinson Canó. As a second baseman with the Philadelphia Phillies during the 1980s, Samuel was the first player in history to reach double figures in doubles, triples, home runs and stolen bases in each of his first four full seasons. He also was the first to lead the National League in strikeouts in his first four full seasons.
Even though bad-ball hitting hasn’t been embraced as a mark of greatness, the use of high-definition cameras and radar at the ballparks for Statcast is allowing us to better appreciate this fascinating skill. Dominican right fielder Vladimir Guerrero missed joining the 2017 National Baseball Hall of Fame induction class on his first try by 15 votes, a fitting irony when you consider that according to a recent analysis of the best truly bad ball hitters by Eno Sarris of FanGraphs.com, Vlad swung at pitches three inches or more off the plate close to 15 times a week for most of his career.
A career .318 hitter with 449 home runs over 16 seasons, Guerrero still connected while chasing those wayward pitches. According to the same FanGraphs.com analysis, he averaged .216 and slugged .325, including once getting a base hit against the Baltimore Orioles in 2009 when he whacked into left field a curveball that bounced about two feet in front of the plate.
Against Vlad, you threw the ball down the middle and hoped that he hit it to someone.
Indeed, the art of bad-ball hitting can be summarized by a simple credo: Bad hitters swing and miss; bad-ball hitters put the ball in play. In 1967, when Clemente won his fourth and final batting title, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was .403, a whopping 111 points above the rest of the National League, per FanGraphs.com.
The next bad ballers
Even Albert Pujols, who for much of his career was the antithetical Dominican hitter, walking more than he struck out, has turned the page on “Moneyball.” According to FanGraphs.com, the best hitter by contact and power who strikes out less than 15 percent on pitches outside the strike zone since 2002 is Pujols, followed by Colorado’s young slugger Nolan Arenado and Dominican third baseman Adrián Beltré, who’s closing out a Hall of Fame career at Texas.
Who might be the next legendary free swinger? Sandoval was on track until he missed most of last season to injury. Try instead pint-sized José Altuve, 26, the latest Venezuelan hitting terror. At 5-foot-6, the Astros second baseman is one of the shortest players since Kansas City’s 5-foot-5 Freddie Patek in 1981. But Altuve is not Patek, a lifetime .242 hitter with a .633 OPS.
Last season, Altuve notched 200 hits for the third straight year and won his second batting title. A hitter who used to leap at pitches 4½-feet off home plate, Altuve became more selective in 2016, increasing his line drives and hard-hit balls while averaging .338 and connecting for 24 home runs.
He stopped leaping, but not swinging. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Altuve was the best in the majors last year against pitches up-and-in, averaging .446 while slugging .769 and totaling 58 hits. Overall, he finished fifth in the American League with a .928 OPS behind four much bigger guys: David Ortiz, Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera and Josh Donaldson.
When veteran Carlos Beltrán, one of five switch-hitters in history to hit 400 home runs, signed with Houston as a free agent this winter, he wrote a first-person account for The Players’ Tribune. He had asked Altuve and shortstop Carlos Correa to dinner. And when the conversation turned from small talk to baseball, Altuve looked at Beltrán and said, “Carlos, I need to get better.”
I wonder if Beltrán said: “Son, let me tell you how Roberto Clemente did it.”
Featured Image: Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images Sport