Number Crunch: the new and improved Andrés Giménez

Remember all those struggles with high fastballs?

Welcome back to our second edition of Number Crunch. Last week, we looked at how José Ramírez’s penchant for pulling line drives and flyballs has put him back on MVP pace before having one of the best weeks of any player this season. Today, we will examine Andrés Giménez and how Chris Valaika and co. have helped the perennial Gold Glover’s bat start to look more silver.

Chasing high fastballs has been the achilles heel of Andrés Giménez since he got to Cleveland. Today, we're going to examine how he’s worked on gaining an immunity to that kryptonite with some rehashing of changes we went over during Spring Training, namely within his stance.

Back in February and March, Giménez’s stance changes were noticeable, and it’s something I even pointed out in Buy or Sell, and it’s maintained through 54 games this season so far.

Giménez home run in 2023:

Giménez home run in 2024:

The hand placement is the immediate first thing to notice, but his balance difference between the top and bottom is pretty glaring as well, and it’s all in his base. By the time he gets his toe-tap timing mechanism down, his shoulders are already pulling through the ball.

So, we’ve looked at mechanically why he’s finding it easier to hit the high fastball, but the biggest difference he’s made is in the pitches he’s *not* swinging at this season, so, I want to dive into the numbers.

Quickly, I want to add a visual aid: Statcast’s “attack zone” from baseballsavant.mlb.com, as it will be my primary point of reference when talking about fastballs in the strike zone.

The green dotted line within the orange area indicates the strike zone. Within the strike zone is a purple shaded region which represents the “heart” of the plate. The entire orange area represents the “shadow” of the zone while the yellow represents “chase” zones. All gray areas are “waste” zones.

We will be primarily focusing on the higher up orange and yellow zones that are more emboldened below. In these darker shaded zones, Giménez has seen his results improve considerably, and there’s one major reason: He’s not swinging at everything.

Here is how Andrés Giménez fared against fastballs in the yellow and orange attack zones as well as the top third of a standard strike zone since 2021:

His whiff rate overall is down nearly 14% since 2022 and 8.3% since just last season, and it’s all because of, again, what he’s not swinging at. Look at Giménez’s swing rate at fastballs in the chase zones a season ago. A 41.7% rate is extremely high, but he’d also been over 40% for two straight seasons. Now, that number is 16.7%. That’s a crazy, almost un-baseball-like kind of season to season change, but a part of it now is that teams are seeing he’s no longer wanting to chase up there, so they find a different way to attack him.

Going from wanting fast food every day to actually sitting down and learning to cook will take you from McDonald’s to steak and potatoes in no time. These are things you learn as you get older, and between the team’s overall approach change and Andrés’ adjustments to his stance, he’s finding those pitches much less appealing, and in turn, he’s focusing more on what’s meatier in the zone and finding much more success. A whiff rate below 20% coupled with a SLG over .500 is a thing of beauty. Giménez is never going to be a huge impactor of the ball, but better decision making on the fastballs up will create more opportunities for big time swings when he does get one to his liking.

Andrés posting positive run values against all three phases for the first time in his career is just another indication of his ability to crush fastball types up in the zone when making better swing decisions.

Below is a 2023 pitch chart of all fastballs Giménez saw last season. Highlighted are fastballs above the top of the zone.

Here is that same chart, but for 2024:

Now, here is how Giménez’s 2023 versus 2024 stack up against each other in the swing department:

Again, another near 15% decrease in swing rate. It’s a tremendous improvement, but that’s not all. That home run above off Taillon? It was his only XBH off a fastball high and out of the zone last season. He tallied just 5 hits altogether. His biggest improvement from last season to now was simply not swinging. Even against fastballs down in the zone, he’s seeing success with it reminiscent of his 2022 campaign that saw him in LA for the All-Star game.

Andrés’ improvements against the gas have been stark, but teams adjust. Giménez is seeing his lowest rate of fastballs of his career while seeing a career high amount of sliders. Naturally, there has seemed to be a trade off with Giménez. This improvement at the plate is far from finished.

As we took a look at him against high heat, we must now look at him versus those career high amount of sliders he’s seeing. Between sliders, sweepers, and slurves, Giménez is seeing them at a 23.9% rate, per Statcast. In fact, it’s the first time in his career he’s seeing slider types at a rate over 20%.

We’ve taken a look at the top of the zone with fastballs, so now we take a look at the bottom of the zone with sliders.

It’s been an area of struggle for Giménez that has gradually gotten worse year to year, but this season, he’s seen some serious struggles get exploited below the zone against breaking pitches.

Here is how Giménez has fared against slider types in the orange, yellow, and gray areas above:

His 55.3% whiff rate against sliders down and below the zone is a career high, and it’s not close either. A big reason is because of how many un-hittable sliders he’s offering at. Giménez has never posted a swing rate over 3% in the “waste” areas, but now that number is at 16.7%.

All of a sudden, pitches in those waste and chase areas of the attack zones are being exploited at a much higher rate, and it’s something Andrés has to make an adjustment on. Of the 80 sliders, slurves, and sweepers he’s seen down there, 2024 marks the first time that the bulk of them haven’t been in the shadow zone up to this point. Of those 80 pitches, 63.8% of them have been out of the zone, and he’s swung at 31.4% of those pitches, running a whiff rate just south of 70% at 68.8%.

This isn’t something teams are shy about doing now either. From the start of the season through April 30, 4.5% of all pitches Giménez saw were curveballs or slider types down below the zone. Since May 1, that number is up to over 8%.

I attribute his struggles with sliders as to why Giménez hasn’t seen major improvement to his numbers from last season. His major improvement against fastballs this season would indicate a season closer to that of his 2022 campaign, but it hasn’t quite been the case just yet. Giménez is getting close to a final form that will be a lock at the top of this lineup for years to come, but it can only happen with a little more discipline against breaking pitches.