Unfortunately, in the 11 days since Jim last took a look at his season, Tim Anderson has come back to Earth. At the end of April 15th, he was posting an otherworldly .453/.463/.679/209 wRC+ line with 3 HR, 11 R, 10 RBI, and 5 SB.
In the 11 days since then he’s only managed a more mortal .324/.361/.559/145 wRC+ with 2 HR, 9 R, 6 RBI, and 5 SB.
The good news is that some of the underlying trends behind his approach continue to solidify. His overall contact rate is above his career line on all pitch types but still especially against offspeed stuff:
He’s making contact on more pitches in the zone, especially against offspeed and breaking stuff:
Pitchers have responded by nibbling and trying to get him to chase out of the zone.
Tim’s adjusted by chasing fewer offspeed pitches, swinging at more breaking pitches, and holding pretty steady on fastballs:
But he’s improved his ability to make contact when he goes out of the zone against fastballs and offspeed pitches:
And it’s not cheap contact with his average exit velocity on fastballs up to 90mph and 89.4mph on offspeed pitches. He’s got a solid contact rate at 10% for the season, double his career line, having essentially replaced every weakly hit ball with a well-struck one:
So he’s been hot, came back to earth a little, but the overall analysis suggests this better TA is sustainable?
I’d rather say the results to date aren’t a fluke, though they might just be a really long hot streak. So I wouldn’t wager on this being a new talent level because I don’t know how much of the improvement will stick.
All of this data is descriptive rather than predictive. ZiPS for example still thinks he’ll regress closer to his career line around .265/.294/.423/94 wRC+ rest of season
That still tacks on another 2 WAR to his season total.
If he’s going to build on the results, he’s going to have to get even more selective when pitchers decide to stop challenging him as much as they still are. But he shouldn’t make the adjustment until they force his hand.