The dog days of summer have arrived. Teams made their moves at the July 30 trade deadline and now the postseason races (and awards races) are heating up. Less than seven weeks remain in the regular season. With that in mind, here now are three MLB trends worth knowing as we enter the stretch run.
Hernández turning season around with new glasses
For much of the first half, Dodgers utility man Enrique Hernández was pressed into action at third base because of Max Muncy's oblique injury. The results were not good. Hernández took a .191/.258/.299 batting line into the All-Star break, and both the defensive metrics and the eye test say his glove at third base is OK. Certainly not stellar, and certainly not enough to carry the bat.
Hernández has been a different hitter over the last few weeks though, slashing .276/.336/.434 in 21 second half games. As he tells it, there is a tangible explanation for his improved performance: Hernández got fitted for eyeglasses. At the behest of longtime friend Martín Maldonado, Hernández had his eyes checked earlier this year, and the exam revealed an astigmatism.
The Los Angeles Times has the details:
"(Maldonado) told me that him and a couple of his teammates needed glasses, and they didn't really know through the spring training test," Hernández said.
...
"They went through a more thorough test [to learn they needed glasses]," Hernández said, referring back to his discussion with Maldonado. "So I was like, 'All right, I'm gonna try it out.'"
The astigmatism is in Hernández's right eye, and in the final series of the first half, he began wearing glasses with a prescription right lens. He'd never worn glasses in his life prior to that. The slash line speaks for itself, but beneath the surface, Hernández has also shown improvement in his contact and chase rates with his new glasses:
| No glasses | With glasses | MLB average | |
|---|---|---|---|
Contact rate | 76.6% | 79.8% | 77.0% |
Chase rate | 25.7% | 24.4% | 28.4% |
Chase rate vs. breaking balls | 26.9% | 21.4% | 31.0% |
Mookie Betts returned Monday and Muncy started a minor-league rehab assignment this past weekend. He's inching closer to a return and the Dodgers need him. When Muncy does return, Hernández will slide back into a traditional utility role, and it's for the best. Even with his new glasses, he's stretched as an everyday player. Hernández is most effective in moderation.
For much of the first half, Hernández's bat was essentially unplayable, but the Dodgers had little choice but to play him given their third base situation. The eye exam, the astigmatism diagnosis, and the new glasses have helped Hernández get his season on track. It sort of makes you wonder why we don't hear about more struggling players going for rigorous eye exams, no?
The incredibly clutch Melendez
There's no two ways about it: MJ Melendez's .205/.267/.403 slash line entering play Tuesday is ghastly. It's 28% below league average once adjusted for ballpark, and it's far below the .243/.314/.398 league average for left fielders. That .267 on-base percentage ranks 204th among the 210 hitters with at least 300 plate appearances this season. Yuck.
For Melendez and the Royals, the saving grace is that he's been outrageously clutch, moreso in high-leverage situations than in traditional runners in scoring position spots. Timing is everything and Melendez's timing has been impeccable:
| PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | wRC+ | HR | RBI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Low leverage | 158 | .209/.265/.386 | 77 | 5 | 9 |
Medium leverage | 118 | .169/.240/.322 | 53 | 4 | 10 |
High leverage | 27 | .333/.400/.852 | 232 | 4 | 17 |
wRC+, or weighted runs created plus, is like OPS+ on steroids. It's more finely tuned, and it presents a player's production relative to the league average. 100 is average. Anything above that is above average and anything below that is below average. Among the 234 hitters with 25 high leverage plate appearances, Melendez's 232 wRC+ is sixth highest, just behind Juan Soto.
Championship probability added (CPA) is like win probability added (WPA) on a larger scale. WPA tells you how much closer a play brings you to winning that game. CPA tells you how much closer a play brings you winning the World Series. On Aug. 4, Melendez hit a go-ahead pinch-hit three-run home run with the Royals down 2-0 with two outs in the ninth in Detroit. By CPA, it is the third-biggest hit in baseball this season, and the biggest non-walk-off hit of the year.
Melendez has three of Kansas City's nine biggest hits by CPA this season, more than anyone on the team, including Bobby Witt Jr. and the ageless Salvador Perez. Here is the complete list of hitters with three hits registering at 0.33% CPA or better: MJ Melendez. That's it. Only three others have even two such hits: Witt, Joc Pederson, and Nelson Velázquez. (Must be a Royals thing.)
Of course, 27 plate appearances is a minuscule sample, though that is the nature of high-leverage stats. No player has even 60 high-leverage plate appearances in 2024, and only 17 have 50. Besides, we're not here to say Melendez has a special clutch gene and that his high-leverage performance is predictive. We're just giving him props for what he's done in his opportunities. The Royals are battling for a wild-card spot and he's gotten a lot of big hits this season, even while running a poor overall batting line.
"I like to be in those situations. It is do or die and that's a lot of fun," Melendez said after his go-ahead homer in Detroit earlier this month (via Associated Press). "I'm going to be ready late in games, whether they need me to hit or play defense. I have to stay as locked in as possible, just like I'm in the game."
Margot the pinch out-maker
This has been a weird season for Twins outfielder Manuel Margot. The Rays traded him to the Dodgers in the Tyler Glasnow deal in December, then Los Angeles flipped him to the Twins in February so they could re-sign Enrique Hernández, who serves the same role offensively (righty platoon bat) while providing more defensive versatility. Margot's been on three teams in the last nine months.
With the Twins, Margot's playing time has been sporadic at best. He's started only 52 of the team's 118 games entering Tuesday, and only once all season has he started four consecutive games: July 27-30. Margot's playing time is pretty evenly split, though he has been far more productive against lefties, which is his role and is consistent with most of the entire rest of his career.
| PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | HR | BB% | K% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
vs. RHP | 135 | .208/.259/.296 | 1 | 4.4% | 16.3% |
vs. LHP | 128 | .270/.328/.400 | 3 | 8.6% | 15.6% |
Margot is a textbook fourth outfielder and righty platoon option, and when you're a platoon guy, it means you're going to pinch-hit. You're going to pinch-hit a lot, in fact, and no player in baseball has pinch-hit more times this season Margot. His 31 pinch-hit plate appearances lead the league. Andy Ibáñez (29) is the only other player with more than 25 pinch-hit plate appearances.
And in those 31 pinch-hit plate appearances, Margot has precisely zero hits. Not one. He is 0 for 27 with four walks and five strikeouts as a pinch-hitter. It's a .000/.129/.000 line. Margot's not striking out excessively as a pinch-hitter, but the hits aren't falling in. Unfortunately, he's closing in on a record. Here are the most pinch-hit plate appearances in a season without a hit:
- Jonny Gomes, 2011 Nationals/Reds: 34
- Manuel Margot, 2024 Twins: 31
- Jim Holt, 1974 Athletics/Twins: 30
- Bobo Osborne, 1959 Tigers: 29
- Several tied with 27 hitless pinch-hit plate appearances
Coming into 2024, Margot was a career .213/.273/.311 pinch-hitter, so it's not like he's excelled in this role in the past. Also, he had only 66 career pinch-hit plate appearances before 2024, so 32% of his career pinch-hitting appearances have come this season. It's hard to come off the bench cold and hit. It's a relatively new role for Margot and he's struggling with it.
Lefty swingers Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner need platoon partners, and when he's not pinch-hitting, Margot is a pretty good platoon option. The problem pops up in the late innings, when the other team brings in a southpaw for left-on-left matchups, and Margot comes off the bench. At this point, maybe the Twins are better sticking with their lefties rather than pinch-hitting Margot?
