I do believe Kyle Tucker has figured it out. The adjustment he made with keeping back on the ball seems to have worked well. Blum keeps mentioning it on the broadcasts. His recent performance is certainly offsetting the loss of Alvarez. Anyway, TED:
Reddick likely won’t be here next year when Alvarez returns. And who knows if Brantley and Springer are back.
Tucker has cut his Ks by 75% such that instead of getting 6 Ks for every walk, he's now getting 2 Ks for every 3 walks. As a result, he's just getting a lot more batted balls, and he's in a good run of elevating them. I expect he will go hot and cold on elevating pitches, but the command of strike zone is what interests me. That usually doesn't have as big a swing in hot and cold streaks.
If Kyle Tucker is actually a star player than can give 3 - 5 WAR a season over the next 4 years, that is absolutely massive for the future of this team. I think it's the difference between having to think about rebuilding after Brantley/Springer leave to thinking about reloading and keeping the team all-in for much longer.
I don't know why y'all were worried about Teddy Triple. In his career, he has just over a half season worth of at Bats. He just needed consistent at Bats, every day.
The 2 things he said he worked on, that helped him, were - thinking about middle to lcf (and thus letting the ball get farther in, i.e. no more early swings and ripped grounders to the right side) - not swinging at shitty pitches he can only hit into the shift It's amazing how little things like that can help
He's still pulling the ball more than any other starter except Hook Monster going from 55% pull down to 52% pull. I'd say it is almost all plate discipline, confidence, and a metric ton of less bad luck.
Remember all the people who had seen enough of him after 100 or so ABs in 2018 and 2019 to know that he would never be a good MLB player?
I know hes having a ok season, but here hoping the guys get back to normal. It has been a very slow stat jump offensively. Thou Gurriell and Correa have been doing alot of the dirty work. Thou tucker has been hitting some nice bombs. Its been good to see them win few here, they started out there looking like they were gonna slump bad. Tucker very well is a bright spot now in Houston lineup.
I agree that he will be a guy that likely always has hot and cold spells. The command of the strike zone AND ability to read pitches has always been my issue with Tucker.... the rest of it is there to be very good, if not better.
I will admit I had serious concerns about his command of the strike zone and pitch recognition. He just wasn't good at it. He was very poor the first time up with any real at bats. He did show some improvement through hot streaks last year. Even at the start of this year he wasn't recognizing the strike zone. I know Luhnow a handful of years ago said with Tucker it is all about confidence as he can get down on himself.
"If you believe you’re playing well because you’re getting laid or because you’re not getting laid or because you wear women’s underwear, then you are. And you should know that!"