Here’s why Manny Machado is having one of his best seasons ever
The Baltimore Orioles are off to a miserable start in 2018, but All-Star Manny Machado has never been better.
Hitting in the middle of a lineup that ranks dead last in the American League in nearly every important offensive category would have been more than enough to send All-Star shortstop Manny Machado into a funk in previous seasons. As good as he has been in seven years in the big leagues, Macahdo had always been prone to pressing at the plate in key spots, expanding his strike zone and looking to hit every pitch to the moon.
Never one to take a walk, Machado has carried a sub-par on-base percentage (at least for a player in the MVP discussion) for most of his career. Slumps had sent his OBP tumbling below .300 for months at a time. For all the highlight plays in the field and the home runs, that type of void in the middle of a lineup could be a tough pill to swallow for any team considering Machado at the $30-million annual salary he is likely to command after this season.
Even with the Orioles off to a historically-bad start and without Machado’s running mate Jonathan Schoop, the Gold Glover appears to have made meaningful changes to his approach at the plate this season. Namely, he isn’t swinging at everything within an arm’s length of the plate.
Through 22 games, Machado has been on a tear, hitting .356/.434/.713 with seven doubles, eight home runs and 17 RBI. On Sunday afternoon, he homered twice off reigning AL Cy Young Corey Kluber. This type of prolonged hot streak is nothing new for Machado. Last year, he single-handedly propelled the Orioles back into playoff contention by hitting .341/.348/.690 in August with 12 home runs and 35 RBI. The difference between this April and last August has been in his approach at the plate. During his scorching stretch last summer, Machado drew only three walks in 132 plate appearances. He has already walked 12 times in 99 trips to the plate this year.
For his career, Machado has swung at roughly 30 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. That’s trending toward the bottom of the league, although not the worst of the worst. This year, his chase rate has dropped all the way to 23.7 percent, which puts him right next to Bryce Harper on the leaderboard and only a few percentage points below noted strike-zone master Aaron Judge. Meanwhile, his percentage of pitches swung at in the strike zone is up slightly. This points to an already aggressive hitter learning to lay off the bad pitches while continuing to feast on the good ones.
It’s early in the year, and pitchers have not had much reason to challenge Machado in many of his at-bats given how awful the rest of the Orioles lineup has been. What points to this being more than a small sample size is the patience and willingness to take a walk when it’s given to him that Machado has shown. Maturity issues have also plagued the fiery infielder throughout his career, but this new measured Manny at the plate has been a delight to watch.
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As a team, the Orioles are probably broken beyond repair, but their star shortstop is coming into his own after teasing the potential to join Mike Trout and Harper in the conversation for best player in baseball. Mastering the strike zone is one of the more difficult things for a professional athlete to do, and when the light goes on, it typically stays on. At the ripe age of 25, Manny Machado has taken his game to an even higher level while sliding back to the most important position on the diamond.
It’s a bittersweet pill to swallow for fans of the Orioles as they ponder life without the best singular talent in franchise history, but a treat for baseball fans all over the league.