Kevin Pillar And His Inconsistent Power Bat
Earlier in the off-season I wrote about Kevin Pillar's bat. He has shown streaks of greatness, but cannot find consistency. I used Devon White as a comparison because of their similarities as elite defenders and how White was a late bloomer with the bat.
While browsing Baseball Savant's Statcast data I noticed Pillar ranked quite well in max hit distance. The 451 foot home run he hit off Corey Kluber July 22nd was the 69th longest personal best among 444 hitters with at least 60 batted ball events (set to 60 to eliminate pitchers). His furthest hit was longer than notable power hitters Kris Bryant, Miguel Cabrera and Bryce Harper. Pillar's max exit velocity of 111.9 came against new teammate Jaime Garcia and ranked 112th out of 444 last season.
What this all tells us is that Pillar is capable of hitting the ball harder than a lot of players in baseball. Max velocity and distance show us what a player is capable of at their best. You don't see guys like Ezequiel Carrera or Ben Revere producing high max numbers because it's just not in them to hit the ball hard. There is above average power in Pillar's bat, we just don't see it often.
Raw talent isn't what keeps Pillar from being a good hitter. It's consistency. Among that same group of 444 hitters he ranks 321st for % of hits above 95 MPH. His 85.6 MPH AVG exit velocity was below the league average and ranked 308th.
It's not just hitting the ball hard that Pillar does well. He is also quite good at making contact. He ranked 29th out of 144 qualified hitters with a 84.8% contact rate. When swinging at pitches in the strike zone he ranked 3rd with an elite 94.2%. Pillar is actually one of the best contact hitters in baseball.
Unfortunately, he also ranked 8th for swinging at pitches out of the zone 40.1% of the time. Despite the ability to make consistent contact and hit the ball hard, his poor plate discipline is getting in the way of him producing sold results. His contact rate outside the zone was 72.5%. He is making contact with a lot of bad pitches that result in him making weak contact and leading to outs. His 22.5% soft contact rate was the 14th worst among qualified hitters. It's not just that he is swinging at a lot of bad pitches, but that he is putting a lot of those bad pitches into play.
What this all means for him going forward is uncertain. It is rare for players to transform their plate discipline significantly. A slight shift could unlock some added offensive ability for Pillar. Not every hitter is capable of driving a ball 450 feet or hitting it over 110 MPH. If I were a betting man I wouldn't put money on Pillar suddenly figuring things out, however, you also can't write off a player that has shown the skills Pillar possesses.
