Kyle Manzardo has a runners in scoring position problem. How significant it is and how likely it is to last is up for debate.
For his career, the 25 year-old has a 107 wRC+, overall. At 959 plate appearances, he’s at a bit of an inflection point for the rest of this season; if he can raise that wRC+ for this season from its current 102 to something more like 115, I think we should feel pretty good about him being in the Guardians’ lineup for the future, given his youth. He has admirably worked on his atrocious defense to become a non-negative at first base, which is a point in his favor as we consider if he can work and grow on areas of deficiency.
Speaking of those trouble spots, Manzardo has a troubling split you have probably noticed at this point. For his career, with empty bases, Manzardo is a career 119 wRC+ hitter. I can’t seem to sort on FanGraphs or Savant for just runners on first, but he has a 93 wRC+ with runners on, which, given the next stat I’m about to give, has to mean he hits very well with just a runner on first. Because, with runners in scoring position, Manzardo has a career 74 wRC+ in 259 plate appearances.
Now, I think it is, first of all, fair to note that 259 plate appearances is still not even half a season’s worth of opportunities. Perhaps this is only an article I should write three years down the line when Manzardo has 600 plate appearances with RISP. But, I don’t think either he or the Guardins have that long to wait, given Ralphy Velazquez’s near advent. Manzardo and the Guardians need to consider the possibility that he has some kind of block once a runner reaches second base.
In looking under the hood, a couple things stand out right away. With no runners on or just a runner on first, Manzardo has a 26% chase rate on pitches out of the zone. With runners in scoring position, that chase rate rises to 34%. With no runners on or just a runner on first, he swings at the first pitch 27% of the time. With runners in scoring position, he swings 33% of the time. I think these numbers show he is getting antsy when there are RBI opportunities, perhaps feeling the pressure of performing as a middle of the order hitter. Now, overall, Manzardo has a 105 wRC+ in high leverage situations. He’s not afraid of pressure, he can handle to a reasonable level the elite relief pitching he sees late in games, and he even displays a cool demeanor. I just think he literally needs to tell himself “No one is on base, and I’m going to approach this at-bat as if it was any other.”
You may be laughing at this simplistic conclusion, but Manzardo has the ability to recognize when most pitches are out of the zone. He has the ability to be selective when deciding which pitches to damage. But, a noticeable portion of these abilities are unaccountably deserting him when a runner reaches second base. Since there’s no logical reason for that, I would argue that it indicates a mental block that needs a mental solution.
Finally, there’s one other stat that stands out about Manzardo, overall. While in the upper levels of the minors, Manzardo ran opposite-field hit rates steadily over 30%. In the majors, he’s at closer to 25%. Manzardo needs the pulled-ball ability to get to his power, but I do think it is reasonable for him to begin thinking in terms of “If all I’m gonna get is pitches on the outside of the plate, I am going to need to serve a few into left field to earn myself pitches to hit on the inside part of the plate.” This is easy for me to type, and hard to do, but I think it’s, again, a slight mindset shift. Yes, you need to get pitches over the middle and inside and pull them in the air. BUT, to get those pitches, you need to make people realize they can get hurt by your good eye and decent contact ability if they insist on going outside, outside, outside. He has flashed a 75% contact rate and a swinging strike rate as low as 11% last season. Those kind of metrics should enable him to discover a few more opposite field hits and make pitchers respect his ability to do harm to stuff thrown on the outside part of the plate.
I love Kyle Manzardo and I still believe he can be a middle of the order hitter for the Guardians. The time for him to put the pieces together and make it happen is now.
