Francisco Lindoris thinking about a game against the Miami Marlins about a week ago. In the first at-bat against Sandy Alcántara — the Cy Young award-winner who returned to the mound this season after missing a year — Lindor got ahead 2-1 before Alcántara induced a weak ground out.
“Then, the next at bat, there’s a guy on third base and I had a better game plan against him and [knew] how the ball was moving,” Lindor said, “ended up getting a base hit.”
Pregame, he’d prepared to face Alcántara, of course. Watched tape, maybe even took some swings against a robotic replication of the ace’s arsenal using the Trajekt Arc machine. But there are some things you can’t learn until you actually step into the batter’s box against a pitcher on a particular day.
“The way the ball moves,” Lindor said. “How the weather is, and how does that affect his outing. Whether he can locate certain pitches or is his fastball not the same way. Also, you learn the umpire. You understand the catcher a little bit more. Then you see how the infield is playing you. There’s a lot. Yeah, you could study film, but until you’re in the moment, doesn’t really mean that it’s going to go how you studied.”
The single scored a run, though the Mets went on to lose, 4-2. If he had gotten a chance to face Alcántara a third time in that game, the numbers show Lindor could have done even more damage
Hitters, as a monolith, do better facing pitchers a third time in the game. Historically, that phenomenon has been framed as a pitcher problem — the “times through the order penalty.” In fact, rarely do starters get the chance to face an order the third time through because of how entrenched that understanding has become in the modern game. Alcántara, for instance, has allowed a .603 OPS to opposing hitters the first time he faces them in a game and .718 if he’s left in to face them a third time.
There’s far less research done on the “times through the order” boost that batters enjoy. But a recent article in Baseball Prospectus looked at just that — and specifically whether improving as the game goes on is a skill that certain hitters excel at. What the researchers found was that there is “stickiness” to that ability — which is to say, the guys who are good at it, stay good at it year over year — and that, last year, no one was better at it than Lindor. His expected wOBA improved .027 points from the first time facing a pitcher in a game to the third time.
“It makes sense, it makes sense,” Lindor said when he was told this superlative on Monday. He does feel more comfortable as the game goes along. Still, he was a little surprised. “I know I’m good at getting better. I know I’m good at gathering the information and then making it better. But I never think of like, I’m the best, I’m the best, I’m the best. My confidence doesn’t work like that.”
His president of baseball operations, David Stearns, however, was not surprised.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he would do well on that list,” Stearns said Monday. He hadn’t seen the research but was intrigued by the concept. “[Lindor] is such an intelligent player, and I think he understands very quickly what many pitchers are trying to do to him on that given day. And so just the incremental data gain that he gets from (an) at-bat or from pitch to pitch, it does not surprise me that maybe it benefits him a little bit more than it would benefit another player.”
Lindor said he always watches back his at-bats on the dugout iPads as soon as he can. “But I’m not watching to see sequences because I remember sequences. I’m watching to see if I made the right decisions [on swings],” he said. “Because I can hit anybody. But if I’m not making the right decision, most likely won’t be successful.”
Brandon Nimmo was 10th last year in wOBA improvement from the first to third time facing a pitcher in a single game. And Juan Soto — then on the Yankees but, of course, now sharing a clubhouse, lineup, and any intel gathered mid-at-bat with the rest of the Mets — was third.
“On Soto,” Stearns said, “I would imagine you could look at almost analytic offensively over the last couple years, and he would rate pretty well.”
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