After an abysmal rookie season for the Phillies, Scott Kingery is performing much better this year at the plate. What, if anything, has changed?
We all know the story of Scott Kingery‘s rookie season by now. The Phillies gave him the second contract in MLB history to a player yet to make his major-league debut. Kingery then was one of the worst offensive players in the league, making his contract look worse by the day.
Kingery has flipped the script so far this year, posting impressive numbers while healthy this year. Among Phillies with 90 or more plate appearances, Kingery has the best batting average (.323), slugging percentage (.552), OPS (.915) and wRC+ (140).
So how has Kingery gone from one of the worst hitters in the league to one of the team’s best performers in a year? What is he doing differently to improve his numbers so drastically?
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Strikeouts were a huge issue last year for Kingery as he racked up 126 in 147 games played. Kingery’s strikeout rate this year is almost the same as it was last year, only dropping from 26.0% to 25.3%. His already low walk rate dropped even further from 5.0% to 4.0%.
Diving further into Kingery’s plate discipline numbers, you start to see why he is improved. While Kingery’s overall swing rate is up by about two percent, he is swinging more often at the right pitches.
According to Baseball Info Solutions, Kingery went from swinging at 40.4% of pitches outside of the zone to 34.3%. Meanwhile, he is swinging at 71.7% of balls in the zone this year compared to 60.9% last year.
By being more selective with his swings, Kingery is avoiding the 0-2 counts that plagued him last season. In 2018, Kingery fell into an 0-2 count 154 times in 484 plate appearances, about 32%. That rate has fallen to about 21% this season with 21 0-2 counts in 99 plate appearances. By removing a significant chunk of these counts, he is in far fewer bad situations at the plate.
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Looking at the type of contact Kingery has made explains why he has improved even more. Last year, Kingery had an average launch angle of 16.8 degrees and average exit velocity of 85.5 miles per hour according to Baseball Savant. He hit plenty of fly balls at 40.8% of his total batted balls according to Fangraphs, but just six percent of those fly balls were home runs.
Kingery is taking a more ground ball/line drive approach this year, and it has done wonders. His average launch angle decreased to 12.2 degrees, and average exit velocity increased to 89.6 miles per hour. While he is hitting far fewer fly balls at just 30.9%, he is doing more damage with them as four of his 21 fly balls led to home runs.
While Kingery’s expected statistics from Baseball Savant indicate his numbers should be somewhat lower, they would still be much better than 2018. His .292 expected batting average, .480 slugging percentage, and .353 expected weighted on-base average are still light years ahead of last season.
Even if Kingery had his expected batting average and slugging percentage, he would still have about an .812 OPS if his walk rate stayed the same, which would still be among the best on the team.
We may now be witnessing the turnaround we were hoping for from Kingery all last season. At this point, he should be an everyday player, especially with the shortage of outfield depth and Maikel Franco‘s continued struggles. If Kingery keeps this up, his contract will look much better after this year.