Ryan Mountcastle is a hitter who has always hit on his way up to the majors. He hits the ball hard, he puts it in play and he gets on base with his speed. Having a history of high BABIP seasons in the minors, Mountcastle repeated that history in 2020 with a sky high .398 BABIP. While we should expect him to keep hitting, we cannot expect this extraordinarily high BABIP to continue. In 2020, Mountcastle proved to be a free swinger, swinging above average inside and outside of the zone. Here's Mountcastle's 2020 swing profile and rankings (players with at least 100 PA's) along with league averages: Let's take a look at how he does with making contact: The young Oriole is over swinging with below average contact, but not too far below average. When he does make contact, he is in the 65th percentile in hard hit percentage. What about behind in the count vs. ahead in the count? What is most interesting here is when Mountcastle does fall behind in the count, he can hit. It seems odd that he has no hits while being ahead in the count, but maybe this just means he becomes more patient. The opposite of this happens when he falls behind. All of this leads one piece of advice: Take the first pitch more often. Mountcastle took the first pitch 75 times in 2020, 50 balls and 25 strikes, putting him ahead in the count 2/3rd of the time. He's shown, with a small sample of course, that he can swing the bat and get on base when he's behind, but it won't be long until pitchers take advantage of his low contact rates and get him chasing when he falls behind. The batter being ahead in the count is better for the batter. Better for the batter...better for the batter...better for the batter...sorry. It seems logical that if he's not one to struggle when behind, he can gamble with the first pitch, swinging less and giving him potentially more time at the plate. One last image from Baseball Savant will show us Mountcastle's run value in swing/take situations (click here for better viewing): We see here that Mountcastle is producing more runs by taking than he is by swinging, For the most part, Mountcastle is hitting singles and often times, infield singles (18.6%). 32 of 42 of Mountcastle's 2020 season hits were singles that left him standing on 1st base. A walk will also leave him standing on first base. The point is, if there are no baserunners, a single and a walk are arguably the same thing. With only 11 walks (all coming from being ahead in the count) and a walk rate of 7.9%, Mountcastle could benefit from a little more patience. If he were to take the first pitch more often, it would put him in control and likely, lead to him standing on first.
Though it may seem silly to write an entire article ending with advice like, "Don't swing as much", sometimes it helps to be told what you already know. Swinging less in 2021 will give Mountcastle more looks, more opportunities to get on base and reinforce to management that he is a concrete part of the future.
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