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Bombs (And Whiffs) Away!

Steve Balboni owns the Royals single season home run record. He hit 36 dingers in 1985.

I didn’t just uncover a new Royals fact. The above is something every single Royals fan knows. It’s a source of…what, exactly? Embarrassment? Bewilderment? Confusion? Bizarre pride? It’s difficult to figure since the record is such a low number and because it somehow survived the Steroid Era intact. The Royals are the only team in the majors who have never had a player top 40 home runs in a season.

I mention this because it’s January and my cabin fever is clashing with my hot stove and the Royals just traded for Peter O’Brien. O’Brien was acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks after being DFA’d late in December. He hits home runs. Apparently, the Royals tried to trade for him previously before they finally got their man. Dingers. In his minor league career, O’Brien has hit a bomb once every 16.8 at bats. He’s going to DongTown. He’s something the Royals haven’t had in a long time – a bonafide power hitter.

O’Brien also became something of a Statcast legend for a feat of strength he performed on a baseball in a Cactus League game last March. According to Statcast, the rawhide met the barrel of the bat and had an exit velocity of 119.5 mph. Bombs away. That made it, at the time, the hardest hit ball of the Statcast era. Obviously, Statcast hasn’t been around for all that long, but mercy. Taters. There are plenty of boppers already in the league. Mike Stanton routinely destroys baseballs. (He’s the current record holder with a ball that left his bat at 123.9 mph that was cashed into two outs. Yes, a double play.) The only other batter who hit a ball harder than O’Brien’s in the regular season is Jonathan Schoop who hit a 121.6 mph worm burner.

O’Brien has been one of the more prodigious power hitters in the minors the last couple of seasons. Think 70 to 75 grade raw power. That added up to 50 home runs in his two seasons in Triple-A.

OK, we’ve established that when O’Brien connects, the ball can jump off the bat. As Jeff Sullivan pointed out last spring, it’s not an accident when a player makes the kind of contact O’Brien made in that spring game. It should mean something that only two other humans have ever hit a ball with such violence.

Except when he doesn’t barrel the ball…yeah. That’s a problem. O’Brien features a long swing that misses more than his fair share of pitches. His strikeout rate in the minors has been as majestic as his home runs. In nearly 900 Triple-A at bats, he’s whiffed over 30 percent of the time. In the small sample size of his major league career, it’s above 40 percent.

Maybe you could live with the whiffs if O’Brien was a Three True Outcomes type of hitter, but he lacks the plate discipline gene. He’s walked in less than six percent of his plate appearances in Triple-A. In his brief time in the majors, the walk rate is a little above six percent.

Like most right-handed power hitters, he likes to get his arms extended. The following chart is from the catcher’s perspective.

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It’s easy to see his happy zones. But that also illustrates how his swing is long. He’s going to reach. And he’s going to miss. A lot.

How does he fit on the Royals? He doesn’t run well. He’s caught and played the corners in both the infield and outfield in the minors, but let’s just be nice and say it’s better when he leaves his glove in the clubhouse. Then, there’s that whole swing-and-miss aspect to his offensive game. It’s quite possible he’s the most unDayton player the Royals have employed in the last 10 years. Although, he’s a right-handed hitter, so if he does pick up some designated hitter at bats, he can provide some balance in a lineup where the most of the key batters tilt to the left following the departure of Kendrys Morales.

It’s a good acquisition because O’Brien didn’t cost anything. Sam Lewis is just a guy. Plus, O’Brien will make around the major league minimum and he has a couple of options left, so adding him to the 40-man roster (which the Royals have done) carries minimal risk. It’s likely he’ll crush a few moon shots in the thin desert air in March and then will open the year in Omaha. He’ll get summoned to the big club, crush a few dingers, swing and miss at a ton of pitches, and leave us wanting more.

The home run record will continue to stand for another year.

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3 comments on “Bombs (And Whiffs) Away!”

Dave

Better than bringing back a certain double-play machine who toiled in Oakland the last couple of seasons. Strikeouts only cost you one out…

Scott McKinney

This is fine unless he gets a lot of PA for the Royals this year. Someone has to DH. I could see a budget conscious Royals team choosing to roll the dice with power potential, and unfortunately getting bad overall hitting from the DH.

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