“You can see a guy swinging and missing at high fastballs and in his stance and think he needs to get taller, or his hands need to get higher,” White Sox hitting coach Todd Steverson said. “That’s an easy thing for anybody to say that knows anything about hitting.”
With that compliment in tow, it’s time for a conversation about Eloy Jiménez, who is eventually going to hit and hit a great deal, but is not having the debut he envisioned. Jiménez ended Wednesday with a .237/.289/.456 batting line and a below-average 93 wRC+ in 384 plate appearances. That last figure — the scant number of at-bats he’s received and how they’ve been divided across two injured list stints, bereavement leave and most recently a couple days off for a sore hip — seems to be what grates on Jiménez most these days.
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“Everybody can do his best when they are healthy,” Jiménez said. “When you’ve got a problem on the field every day, it’s way harder.”
But in trying to piece together why Jiménez’s 2019 has not been as simple as plugging him in and watching him dominate, manager Rick Renteria made note of the 6-foot-4 left fielder’s unique crouched setup before a game in Minnesota. He remarked on how it required a lot of coordination from his large frame to stay on top of the frequent riding high fastballs thrown near the top of the zone. In striking out eight times in his last four games, Jiménez has seen a few more of those, and has shown an above-average swinging strike rate upstairs (also above-average slugging rates on contact).
While the larger struggles of the offense weigh on everyone’s mind, Steverson can stake his name on the offseason transformations of Yoán Moncada — who worked with him in Arizona last fall (and plans to do so again this November) to alter his approach and adjust his top hand placement on the bat — and Tim Anderson, who worked with him to install a timing mechanism to stay with off-speed pitches better.
If history repeats itself, Jiménez will emerge in spring training with a similar story, and it will probably include a slightly more upright setup. But Steverson cautioned that messing with Jiménez’s stance is “a slippery slope,” he needs to navigate.
“This is a different world up here than it is in Triple A and you’ve got to make some adjustments,” Steverson said. “Is it going to be getting taller? Probably some sort of way to make sure you have your head at the top of the zone and you can control the top of the zone on down.”
But at this moment, Steverson is more worried about getting Jiménez to make fewer physical reactions to how he’s attacked, which starts just below his shoulder blades and extends through the positioning of his head. Among hitters with over 350 plate appearances, Jiménez has seen the fewest fastballs by percentage, and instead has been spammed with off-speed pitches diving below the zone.
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Obviously most of the onus lies on Jiménez to lay off those pitches, but as he’s continued to be pounded low and away, Steverson has spied him hunching over subconsciously in response. In line with the location of where he’s mostly commonly being pitched, Jiménez can be goaded into forming a bit of a backwards letter “C.” As a result, it only makes him more vulnerable when pitchers change things up by going back upstairs with velocity.
Eloy Jiménez’s April vs. August stances.“I was a little bit before the first half and I started to feel more comfortable at the beginning of the second half, but with my problems, I’m not really finding the way I was last year,” Jiménez said. “Like (Steverson) says, I’ve been with my head moving a little bit more than last year. But we’ve been working on it and I think I’m getting better with that.”
With his large frame and deep knee bend, Jiménez conjures memories of the deep crouch of Kris Bryant, who changed his stance at San Diego State to allow him to better cover the lower portion of the strike zone, and would in turn need to tone down his uppercut slightly to handle pitchers near the top. While Jiménez says his stance dates back to 2015 when he was in the Cubs farm system, if the placement of his front leg to lower his core is helping him cover the bottom of the zone, it’s happenstance.
When he utilized a more straightforward stance, Jiménez said his front leg tended to stride away from the plate, making him pull off the ball and rendering him unable to cover the outer half. By setting up with his foot in the bucket, it serves as a reminder to step inside as he strides forward. That’s not a mechanism anyone employed with the Sox is going to take away without a second thought — what Jiménez was able to do in the minors after making the change is why he’s here in the first place.
“When I’m on my best timing, it’s not a problem, with high pitches, low pitches,” Jiménez. “But sometimes it’s hard to hit 98 mph up here (above the belt). But I’ve been working on it.”
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That assertion is not something Steverson will dismiss just because Jiménez has yet to have success at the major league level. In fact it’s because Jiménez has yet to get in rhythm beyond a six-week stretch from June 1 to his collision with Charlie Tilson in mid-July, that Steverson is hesitant to prescribe a systemic change. Basing a significant physical alteration on a track record that is likely affected by timing issues, pitch recognition and adjustment to the league would be “asinine,” in his view.
“He hasn’t even got real, like jungle hot, but he can,” Steverson said. “If his feel is there and it’s not happening, then you make the adjustment. But if his feel is not there, and he hasn’t had a chance to really get that feel yet, then that’s a hard sell.”
Renteria doesn’t just publicly speculate on player development moves for fun. Everyone should have a keen eye for how Jiménez looks in the box next spring training, because something is clearly at work, even word of an adjustment hasn’t reached Jiménez’s ears yet.
A healthy final month for Jiménez isn’t about changing his setup, but calibrating how much it’s necessary. Most hopefully for the Sox, the answer will be that they don’t need to do much at all.
(Top photo: John McCoy / Getty Images)
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