Is This New Luke Maile Here To Stay Or Just A Mirage?
At the end of spring training I did an article about whether any Blue Jays players showed significant changes in their strikeout and walk rates that could signal a potential change in approach. Of all the players on the team, the only one who appeared to have a shown a dramatic change in their walk and strikeout numbers was Luke Maile. His overall spring batting line of .226/.342/..323 didn't look promising, but the sample size was too small to get anything of value from his batting line. It was his strikeout and walk rates that I was interested in. Those numbers normalize much quicker than most stats and he showed potential improvement in those areas. The results early in the regular season suggest Maile is an improved hitter, but how seriously should we be taking his early season results?
Last year was an unmitigated disaster for Maile and he produced one of the worst batting lines in major league history. He had nowhere to go but up, but it would take serious improvement for him to be even a viable back-up catcher. In 15 games he has been worth 0.5 fWAR and has raised his wrc+ from 0 to 111.
The bulk of his offensive production comes thanks to an excellent 12.1% walk rate. Last season he walked in just 2.2% of his plate appearances. During the spring he drew a free pass 13.2% of the time. Between spring training and the regular season we now have 96 plate appearances of improved walk capability and reason to believe the adjustments may be here to stay. Then again, Ryan Goins also showed an improved walk rate in 2015 and we all know how that turned out. I am pleasantly surprised with Maile's performance, but remain skeptical.
Maile also showed a dramatically reduced strikeout rate in spring training. After whiffing 25.7% of plate appearances last season, he went down on strikes just 7.9% this spring. That improvement has not carried over into the regular season. His strikeout rate is all the way up to 29.3%. He is swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone and his swinging strike rate hasn't gone up considerably. He is taking a lot more pitches per plate appearance. Maile is taking a more patient approach that is leading to deeper counts as he waits for pitches to drive. This selective approach seems to be working for his overall batting line, even if it means a few more strikeouts. His rate of hitters counts has gone up considerably compared to last season. His percentage of 3-0, 2-0 and 3-1 counts has gone up more than double for each count.
Maile's ISO has also taken a step backwards. His .085 ISO last season was well below league average. He claimed that a knee injury sapped his power. However, this season his ISO is down to .078. After having 7 of his 19 hits go for extra bases last year, only 4 out of 15 hits have gone for extra bases this year. It's awesome that he has already almost equaled his hit total from last year, but it would be nice to see some improvement in the power department.
Maile is hitting .294, but that is largely to do with a .441 BABIP. That's a number that is completely unsustainable. With a strikeout rate nearing 30% and little to no power, Maile will have trouble staying above the Mendoza line, let alone push .300. While .441 is unsustainable, Maile could possibly run an above average BABIP if he is able to maintain his top notch line drive rate. After hitting just 9.5% line drives last year, he is at 29.4% this season. This huge jump in line drives has seen his soft contact rate go from 22.9% to just 2.9%. His quality of contact has improved dramatically from last season.
Statcast also likes his performance so far and shows that he is hitting the ball with more authority than last season. His average exit velocity is 92.7 MPH this season after averaging a measly 83.3 MPH last year. This is good news for those hoping that he can increase his power output going forward. Increased power is vital to him being able to hit enough to hold down a major league job. Since he hasn't reduced his strikeout rate he's going to have a hard time producing a solid slash line without better power. The walk rate will come down if pitchers don't have to worry about him doing damage when they pitch in the zone. His xwOBA is .360 compared to his wOBA of .335 so statcast has seen him being a little unlucky in the results department despite his unsustainable BABIP. This is because his xSLG is .440 compared his actual .373 SLG.
Since his last multi-hit game on April 19th he has slashed just .115/.207/.115 in 8 games. He is still drawing walks, but the results on batted balls just haven't been there. His average exit velocity has gone down to 87.7 MPH during his slump. The slump is obviously concerning after what we saw out of him last season. It will be interesting to see if the positive changes in his approach hold up as he tries to work his way out of this slump, or if he returns to old habits.
Maile really does seem to be taking a different approach to at bats this season. He is hitting with more authority and is utilizing a more patient approach. He seems to be content waiting for a pitch to drive. We will still need a lot more data to draw any firm conclusions about Maile's bat, but at least there are some positive signs. We can't just ignore what happened last season and for that I remain suspicious of his ability to maintain his hot start, especially with the recent slump. I'm still leaning towards the bad version of Maile just because he was so bad last season and it's hard to get past that, but at least there are promising underlying numbers that suggest he may be improved. If he continues to take walks and hit the ball with authority the numbers should be pretty decent overall. He probably won't hit enough to be a greater than 100 wrc+ player due to his high strikeout rate, but if he can come in around 75-90 wrc+, combined with his defence, he should be good enough to justify a spot as a back-up catcher.
