As we continue to explore the Cleveland Indians’ expected April outfield, the simple question must be asked: What is Tyler Naquin?
He was so excellent for about 50 or 60 games, hitting .313/.392/.663 over a stretch from the beginning of June through the middle of August. He was dreadful for the rest of the season, hitting .250/.358/.315 from August 15th onward. He had some insane moments, from walk-off inside the parkers to multi-hit, six RBI games. He was dreadful in the playoffs, logging a grand total of four hits and one walk in his 11 October games. He captured our hearts and broke them, all in about half a season. More than anything, he looked the part in center, and yet somehow wasn’t very good at it. But there is one thing for sure: Tyler Naquin is the Indians’ starting center fielder.
Actually, even that isn’t totally true. He’s going to get platooned against lefties, even though in limited time against them (40 plate appearances) he at least had a 7/6 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The hitting wasn’t there, but he wasn’t a non-factor. He’s got most of the job until someone takes it from him, at least. This isn’t good news, unless he proves he can do that job.
The problem with giving center field to a rookie is that by the very nature of rookieness you feel the need to defer to others. That isn’t something you can do in center. Effectively, every ball is yours unless you don’t want it. That’s why that ball fell in Game Six of the World Series. By all rights Naquin should have had that. It was a blooped gapper that he could have easily reached, but he deferred to Lonnie Chisenhall. He needs to take control of the outfield for this not to happen. It’s not something statistical, it’s not something you can really chart or see happening, it’s just him growing up at the role. It’s one of the most important developments that can happen with the Indians this year.
That’s also why I’m a bit heartened by Grady Sizemore joining the coaching staff. Aside from being even more of a heartthrob than Naquin, Sizemore did one thing amazing — command center field. He was, for a brief moment, the best in the game in center.
Despite being a soft-spoken, lead by example type of player, Sizemore was still a leader and he was the crux of whatever defense the Indians rolled out in the mid-2000’s. It led to his downfall because he thought he could catch everything, but if he can be a voice in Naquin ear about this, that could be huge.
I do think Naquin could be a good, or at least competent, center fielder. He has the speed to cover ground he just needs to get better at tracking balls and getting jumps. These aren’t innate things, these don’t come from athleticism that he does possess.
That’s where Sizemore comes in.
The dreamer in me thinks Grady has some tips and tricks to get Naquin to put himself in the best possible position, whether mentally or literally on the field. To do the little things that make a huge impact. Naquin is still a great unknown despite his 116 games in the majors, which allows us to pour hope into him. He didn’t make errors when he got to the ball much, the problem was getting to the ball. Here's one of those sweet charts showing the catches he made.
Just for reference, this is the same chart for Kevin Pillar, one of the best center fielders in the game.
As seen, Naquin doesn’t make the hard plays quite like Pillar does. This next chart shows he doesn't really let balls he can get to drop.
He does the basics of the job. He can be better otherwise. This is something that can be at least partially fixed with fundamental adjustments. If a converted outfielder in Jason Kipnis can turn into a plus defender at second, Naquin can become at worst a competent outfielder.
The positive with Naquin is, he's always hit at every level of ball he’s played. Even when he was going bad last year he got on base, at least until October. While the history of baseball is littered with the bones of minor leaguers who just couldn't handle major-league pitching, the odd thing about Naquin is that he crushed off-speed and breaking pitches to different degrees. He hit .426 against changeups, .378 against sliders and .250 (with a .500 slugging percentage) against curves. He just couldn't handle fastballs, especially up in the zone. Everyone knows this though. Our own Matt Lyons wrote aobut that right here. Here’s his strike zone based on whiff rate.
It’s a glaring hole in his swing. And yet, it took forever for people to go after his weak spot. Maybe this is the long game. Maybe he pulled a Manny out there and faked like he couldn't and now in 2017 he'll hammer those. Or he will at least get a little bit better at it, since if we know it and pitchers know it, surely he knows it. I still think he'll hit, even if it's not a .900 or better OPS kind of a thing. Like with his fielding, he has the most unfound potential in the outfield corps. it allows for dreaming, and it could betray all of us.
It's unfair to call 2017 a referendum on all that Naquin is. For better or worse, he's a key cog in the outfield mishmash that we get to watch this year. Will he be what we saw in midsummer? Or was his autumn swoon for real? The unknown is exciting as it is frightening.