How Blue Jays’ Brandon Belt remained productive in a sport conspiring against him
DUNEDIN, Fla. — Over the course of his dozen-season MLB profession, Brandon Belt’s had each purpose to consider the baseball world was conspiring towards him.
For starters, he entered the league taking part in dwelling video games at San Francisco’s Oracle Park, the place stiff breezes blew in off McCovey Cove over a right-centre area alley that stretched 421-feet from dwelling plate, ending on the base of a 20-foot wall. Oracle has performed below-average for all hitters since Belt debuted in 2011, however for hitters like him specifically — pull-heavy, left-handed, excessive flyball hitters — it’s been kryptonite. You couldn’t have positioned him in a much less best setting wherever this facet of Oakland.
Let’s go forward and chart the 103 occasions over his profession that Belt’s hit a ball no less than 375-feet within the air and never come away with a house run, then overlay them at one other park — oh, let’s simply choose one at random like, say, Toronto’s Rogers Centre:
That’s a couple of dozen extra homers Belt might’ve had on his FanGraphs web page through the years. And who is aware of what number of extra factors of OPS. Or what number of extra zeros on his paycheque. It’s not like he merely settled for doubles or triples as an alternative. More than half these balls resulted in outs.
“It was problematic for me as a young player hitting some balls that you know would go out pretty much anywhere else,” Belt says. “And not only were you not getting those homers — you weren’t even reaching base.”
Then, only some seasons into Belt’s profession, groups started understanding the ability of the shift. By 2016, he was being shifted in over half his plate appearances — a quantity that solely elevated by way of 2022, when Belt was shifted over 85 per cent of the time. He’d all the time tailor-made his swing to raise balls in play and keep off the bottom. But that positioning meant the pitches Belt inevitably mishit grew to become near-automatic outs.
Since 2016, Belt has a .201 wOBA on groundballs, practically 50 factors beneath the .246 xwOBA his high quality of contact suggests he deserved. The league-average wOBA on groundballs over that span is .223. Of the 255 gamers to hit no less than 500 groundballs since 2016, solely 10 have a bigger unfavorable hole between their wOBA and xwOBA than Belt:
“You know going in that groundballs are typically outs in the big-leagues,” Belt says. “But when the shift started coming around a lot more, I simply couldn’t hit the ball on the ground. I’m screwed if I do.”
So, what did Belt do? He honed in on his strategy. He hunted pitches middle-up. He designed his swing to create line drive contact that may raise balls additional down within the zone — which, naturally, he’s seen progressively extra of over the course of his profession — past the infield wall groups constructed to his proper. He labored on his bunting and commenced using the tactic towards groups that shifted him uber-aggressively or deployed four-outfielder alignments. He’s run the bottom groundball charge — 28.9 per cent — amongst 498 certified MLB hitters since 2014.
And he vowed to by no means get himself out. Belt developed one of many recreation’s keenest understandings of the strike zone, posting chase charges inside the top-20 per cent of MLB hitters every season since 2016. If he wasn’t being thrown pitches on the plate, he was decided to not supply and take his walks as an alternative.
Only one downside. That strategy’s success depends on one other particular person’s potential to evaluate balls from strikes — the umpire’s. And these people weren’t all the time pretty much as good at making these determinations as Belt was.
Since 2016, no participant has struck out wanting on pitches outdoors the strike zone — per StatCast’s interpretation — extra usually than Belt. And it’s not significantly shut:
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that over the years,” Belt says. “That’s part of the game, unfortunately. I wish we could all be perfect out there. But we’re not.”
So, put your self in his cleats for a second. You’re taking part in in a ballpark seemingly designed to comprise the fashion of contact you make, towards opponents frequently pitching you within the hardest areas of the zone to make that contact, whereas searching at defenders positioned precisely the place you most frequently ship that contact, and standing earlier than officers who preserve saying it is best to’ve chased pitches you may’t even make contact towards.
It’s a minor miracle Belt’s even reached this level, with over 1,300 MLB video games on his FanGraphs web page, and a profession .261/.356/.458 line beneath them. He’s hit 175 homers, put up a 124 wRC+, and lifted two World Series trophies over his head since he entered the league. And, if not for power cartilage points in his proper knee which have sabotaged a number of seasons of his profession, he might need carried out much more. As if there weren’t sufficient variables conspiring towards him.
“It’s been tough pretty much my whole career, figuring out the mentality I needed to have to be successful out there,” Belt says. “But I think I eventually got to the point of, ‘Hey, this is what I have to deal with. So, just go deal with it.’ When things are working against you, you can’t let that affect you. You’ve just got to keep going. If you let it affect you, it can take you down a road it’s hard to get off of.”
That street results in a hunch. Every hitter’s been there. No one’s resistant to it. But what Belt’s realized through the years is that the way in which out of a hunch isn’t to attempt tougher. It isn’t to alter something. It’s to belief your strategy and preserve it constant — it doesn’t matter what’s taking place outdoors your management.
“Absolutely. And I didn’t always do that. It’s one of those things that I’ve had to learn,” Belt says. “But I‘ve seen over time how focusing on that stuff can really affect your play. If you think about it too much, you’re not thinking about hitting the baseball. So, I’ve got to just let it go and move on. You have to just accept that stuff is going to happen sometimes.”
Sometimes, within the seventh inning of a tied ballgame, you’re going to execute an unimaginable swing on a changeup down within the zone — a kind of pitches designed to induce groundball contact off Belt’s bat — and completely demolish a ball 407-feet at 107-m.p.h., solely to observe it tracked down on the warning observe:
Sometimes, you’re going to smoke one other a kind of powerful, diving pitches on the backside of the zone at 108-m.p.h. off your bat and straight in the direction of a 3rd baseman taking part in in shallow proper area:
Sometimes, with the bases loaded within the ninth inning, you’re going to get rung up on a pitch above your chest to finish a ballgame:
Sometimes, it’s going to really feel like all the baseball world’s conspiring towards you. Doesn’t matter. Never. Change. The. Approach.
“You’ve got to trust yourself. I think that’s what’s helped me get better through a lot of challenges over my career,” Belt says. “I’ve to belief my arms. I’ve to belief my eyes. That’s actually powerful to do — but it surely’s one thing I work on within the cage.
“No matter what I’m doing, I’m working on that. If I’m practising my hitting, that’s something I’m working on. If I’m taking groundballs at first base, it’s something I’m working on. I’m always working on my approach. It’s not just always about going in there and being mechanical. It’s about working on the mental stuff that you need to be successful in the game.”
That’s one factor the Blue Jays have realized about Belt all through his first spring coaching with the membership — he’s working smarter, not tougher. He’s not the man who might be dragging a fistful of bats out to the cages on the first light, asking a bleary-eyed coach to fireplace up the high-velocity pitching machine. You received’t hear his bat cracking away at pitch after pitch within the tunnel earlier than a recreation. He’s not chasing amount; he’s after high quality.
Some days, Belt will solely want a dozen or so pre-game cuts to find out his swing is ready for competitors. Once he’s in a great rhythm, seeing the ball effectively, and firing on time, he’s carried out all he wants. He is aware of the fleeting hours of his day are higher spent loosening up bodily, studying the tendencies of that evening’s beginning pitcher, and even simply taking some solitary time to clear his thoughts.
“He knows himself really well,” says Blue Jays hitting coach Guillermo Martinez. “Knows his swing, knows what he needs to do to get it ready. He’s not going to be the guy taking a thousand cuts in the cage. He’s going to get right, feel right, and just walk away and take that into the game.”
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To that finish, Martinez’s conversations with Belt this spring have revolved round something however hitting mechanics. It’s been mentality, strategy, headspace. And the coach has carried out far more listening than speaking.
Belt’s not significantly anxious about how tight he’s holding his elbows to his torso or how excessive he’s holding his arms. His swing’s his swing. He’s extra involved with adjusting his strategy to how he’s being pitched. Always having a plan. Understanding the pitches he ought to be providing at and the one’s he shouldn’t.
“He doesn’t ever want to get himself out. If he’s going to get out, the pitcher gets him out. Not vice versa,” Martinez says. “It’s cool hearing him talk about his thought process behind that stuff. He just wants to swing at strikes. Especially these days where, in the game, there’s a lot of balls being thrown.”
And that’s just one manner the sport itself could lastly, in the end, be bending in Belt’s favour. He’s feeling as wholesome as he has in years after low season surgical procedure to wash up the frayed cartilage that had been catching on his proper kneecap. The hyper-aggressive shifts he so usually confronted are actually regulated, with two infielders needing to be positioned on both facet of second base, and all 4 required to be on infield grime.
For the primary time in his profession, he’ll play dwelling video games in a beneficial offensive setting, with Rogers Centre’s right-centre area energy alley working solely 359-feet from dwelling plate with a 14-foot, 4-inch wall. That’s 62-feet nearer than Oracle, with a half-foot much less wall to clear. Belt’s hit 17 balls 359-feet or additional since 2019 — probably the most of any Blue Jays hitter:
The solely factor not turning Belt’s manner is how balls and strikes are dominated. It’ll be a 12 months or two but earlier than the ABS problem system — during which groups can attraction to Hawk-Eye expertise to verify umpire calls they deem incorrect — makes its option to MLB.
But he’ll little doubt take the remainder of it. And if which means Belt can do what he believes he can and recapture his 2020 and 2021 kind, when Belt hit .285/.393/.595 with a 162 wRC+ throughout 560 plate appearances whereas taking part in by way of knee points, the Blue Jays will take it, too.
“Hitting’s really hard,” Belt says. “And I think the more you think about it, the tougher it gets. If you’ve got other stuff going through your mind while you’re up at the plate, you’re screwed. So, I literally try to make it as simple as possible. In my mind, I want to swing at strikes and not swing at balls. And from that point on, I just have to trust myself.”
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