Of all the struggles that the Cardinals have faced this season, perhaps none is more concerning than the disappearance of Dexter Fowler’s bat. Entering the second year of a five-year, $82.5 million contract, Fowler’s offensive output has all but disappeared. As of this writing, his slash line stands at an anemic .180/.285/.298, and apart from a few heroic home runs, he has been the biggest hole in the Cardinals’ lineup.
A quick perusal of social media tells you that Cardinals fans are fed up, left wondering what happened and whether the 32-year-old outfielder is permanently damaged goods (we’ll leave the controversy that surrounded his error on June 7thfor another discussion). Let’s take a look at the numbers and see whether we can identify any patterns.
For starters, we should recognize that despite some injuries (he played only 118 games last year) 2017 was one of Fowler’s better seasons in his career, particularly as concerns hitting for power. His ISO (isolated slugging, a number that measures the difference between your slugging percentage and batting average in an attempt to identify someone’s raw power output) was .224, a very good number, and his OPS for the season was .851, .065 points ahead of his career mark and second only to his .863 mark, the best offensive season in his career. His batting average also exactly mirrored his career mark at .264. So while some had criticized Fowler’s debut season in Cardinal red, it was actually a very good one for him.
So what changed over the last year? Fowler’s batted ball profile (according to fangraphs) doesn’t explain a lot. While he is making a fair amount more soft contact than last year (up to 18.6% from 12.7% last year), it is not a major increase from his career rate, and he’s actually making hard contact much more than he has on average in his career, only slightly down from 2017. And while the shift is said to be the cause of a lot of his struggles, he’s actually pulling the ball less and going the opposite way more this season. He’s also hitting fewer ground balls and more fly balls, while his home run to fly ball ratio is considerably down from last year (which was at an elevated 14.6% rate).
Nothing in these numbers necessarily explains to us why Dexter Fowler is struggling so much this season. But there are other places we can look. According to the statistics we have on the pitches he’s faced, Fowler isn’t catching up to fastballs. His runs created above average against fastballs (WFA) are at 2.5, down precipitously from his 15.5 mark last season. And sinkers, a pitch he’s handled very well ever since his first two seasons in the league, are getting the better of him as well (his wSI is -2.8, meaning he’s hitting them below league average). But while these numbers are revealing, they tell us more about what Fowler is struggling with, not why he’s struggling.
The most concerning factor for Fowler so far this season is how he’s performed against left handed pitching. The switch hitter has always been weaker from the right side, but this season his numbers are abysmal. Fowler is batting .091 against lefties this season, tallying only three hits along with thirteen strikeouts in 40 plate appearances against southpaws. While these numbers are especially troubling, Fowler likely won’t succeed against lefties before he gains his confidence back from his stronger side (Fowler hit 16 of his 18 home runs last season hitting from the right side, and had a higher average as well).
Let’s compare some video: the first oneis a successful hit from Fowler this season. With two strikes and the bases loaded, he stays through a ball on the inside black and pulls it into left field. The hit resulted in two runs, but, like many of Fowler’s results this season, the contact was underwhelming.
Compare it with this videofrom 2017. Fowler takes a 3-2 pitch on the outer half (but fairly center cut) and pulls it to the right field wall for an RBI double.
While it’s dangerous to compare any two clips at random, several things do jump out. First, Fowler’s starting position. In the clip from this year, Fowler stands upright. His front leg is fairly parallel with his back leg, standing somewhat closed. In this clip, Fowler’s shoulders are slumped, and his elbow is drawn into his chest. This brings the bat head to a more vertical position. By contrast, the 2017 clip sees Fowler stand more open to the ball with his bat head higher and his elbows raised. This stance should allow him to better handle pitches as they break in towards him, and he should have more power in his core.
The results seem to bear this out. In the first clip, Fowler brings his bat forward as he kicks his front leg up, and then winds backwards to create space for the swing. There is little explosion in his approach to the ball, and while the results are positive, it feels like there is power left on the table. In the second clip, the stride and the swing are more fluid. Because of the placement of Fowler’s elbow, he is able to make this motion more quickly and fluidly, giving him more tension and power in his core. Interestingly, the finish of both swings is almost identical (about second three of the first video and 54 of the second). But because of the power that has been created in the second swing as opposed to the limited power in the first, the second results in a line drive to the wall, and the first in a seeing-eye single that falls in front of the right fielder.
Again, two clips cannot tell us conclusively what may be wrong with Fowler’s swing, but the mechanics do indicate that his approach has changed this season, which results in less power. This is borne out in the numbers as well, with his considerably diminished power numbers. Clearly, Fowler and his coaches are pouring over video and trying to find out what’s wrong, but Fowler needs to work to recover his swing to get more power in his bat this year.
For what it’s worth, Fowler himself remains confidence, at least on the surface. In a recent articlewith STLToday, Fowler told the Post’s Ben Frederickson: “I’m getting better. I’m feeling better at the plate. I’m taking some better at-bats. I’m not far off.”
For the Cardinals’ sake, let’s hope he’s right. The Cardinals have no other option right now than giving Fowler time to find himself. They cannot afford to just scrap the remainder of his contract this early in a five-year deal. But with a full outfielder, where rookie Harrison Bader is pushing for more playing time, Manager Mike Matheny needs to be smart about how and when he gets Fowler at-bats. For the meantime, Fowler should never start against a lefty, and his at-bats against righties should be chosen carefully. Fowler was brought to St. Louis to be an important bat in the line-up, and while he hasn’t shown that same sort of “you go, we go” drive for which he became famous in Chicago, it’s unlikely that he’s forgotten how to play baseball between this season and last. Cardinals fans should continue to be patient, because while cutting and running may seem like the easy solution in the short term, the Cardinals need Dexter Fowler, and his contract, to start performing up to expectations.
