Joe Gray Jr- eyesight

[igor67]

In case anyone missed here is an explanation for why Joe Gray Jr. has struggled so much for most of the year.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2022/07/28/brewers-prospect-joe-gray-jr-struggled-after-lasik-surgery-went-wrong/10167688002/

 

[Hopper]

Can't read that link, only available to subscribers ?

Can you summarize for us?

[KeithStone53151]

Apparently Lasik eye surgery in the offseason didn't work. Starting June 22, Gray started wearing a corrective lens in one eye and has had much better results since.

[CheeseheadInQC]

I am usually skeptical of the “took an eye test and now everything is going to be fine” stories, but having clear vision with one eye and poor vision with the other would absolutely mess with your depth perception.

[igor67]

This is a little different than the normal 'eye test' stories in that he did the Lasik in the offseason presumably to fine tune his vision and it clearly didn't work. The timing of everything lines up very strongly with the performance as well. His season stats are likely stuck being bad, but it's worth looking at his splits in a bit to see how they are doing.

[sveumrules]

From what I could find on Fangraphs splits JGJs wRC+ was at 65 through 06/21 with a 36.3% K rate. From 06/22 onward it has been 101 wRC+ with a 25.6% K rate.

[homer]

I had a similar issue in high school. I could sort of switch hit albeit with zero pop from the left side. I could, however, always make contact from that side of the plate...right side was a lot more swing and miss but more power so I never tried to hit lefty in a game. I learned 20 years later that my left eye was 20/20 but my right was like 20/60 or something. 

 

If you ever read The Sports Gene there's a whole chapter on the importance of eye sight and hitting a baseball.