Piecing Together the Garrett Mitchell Puzzle

[Matthew Trueblood]

In a fistful of recent Cactus League games featuring much of the presumed regular lineup, the Brewers' leadoff hitter has been their 2020 first-round pick. He remains very much an enigma, but since the team looks ready to lean heavily on him this season, we had better figure him out quickly.

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

It's no one's fault, exactly, that Garrett Mitchell remains such a wild card. Entering pro baseball during the pandemic season and having significant injury issues since, he's been tough to fully evaluate all the way through his journey to the big leagues. The team has seemed pretty certain of his quality since he was called up for the first time in late 2022, and it sure looked like he was going to establish himself as a regular in the lineup last spring, but then he wrecked his shoulder on that fateful slide in Seattle.

Therefore, we still can't say with any real certainty whether the unique skill set Mitchell is trying to unleash will work in MLB. By now, you probably do know the following, because they seem fairly clear:

• Mitchell is an elite defender in the outfield, and a fast runner on the bases (though, perhaps, not a truly elite baserunner in terms of instincts and aggressiveness).
• Mitchell also strikes out at a near-calamitous rate. He's fanned in 28 percent of his professional plate appearances, In the modern game, strikeouts have been destigmatized, and there are guys who can succeed with that many punchouts in their profile, but that number includes games played in the lower levels of the minors, too. In his 141 trips to the dish in MLB, he's on the wrong side of 40%, which is limiting. Especially because:
• While he's shown the ability to launch the ball a long way and certainly has both the build and the bat speed to produce power, Mitchell has been limited by an overweening tendency to put the ball on the ground. 

His exceptional athleticism and non-batting value have gotten Mitchell to the big leagues in a hurry, and he's not likely to go back to the minors any time soon. He's quickly proved himself too good for non-MLB competition, which is encouraging for any player, but especially for one who has had their development interrupted by injury multiple times.

It's still hard to pin down the possibilities for him as an offensive contributor, though. If he's going to strike out at a rate north of 30% (and he's fanned 15 times in 48 plate appearances this spring, so it's hardly as if that problem has gone away), he needs to both draw plenty of walks and hit for some significant power. Alas, there's no slug on the ground, and all the way up the chain, he's put the ball on the ground far too often.

Interestingly, though, the big leagues are the exception to that. It's only been a very small sample of batted balls, but when Mitchell has connected during his brief MLB tenure, he's had just a 40.5% ground-ball rate, down from a fatal 61.8% combined in all his minor-league stops. Has he made a sufficient swing adjustment to start lifting the ball and tapping into his raw power?

There's some evidence of one, but it's more like Mitchell has been healthier during his big-league time than during some of that minor-league run. He was sidelined by a muscle strain behind his knee in May 2021, and by an oblique strain in May 2022. He came back from each, but it took a while, and even once he was back in the lineup, it often looked as though he wasn't getting off his 'A' swing. It might well be that his terrifying grounder rate is just a statistical artifact of playing while still working through the accumulating effects of injuries. On the other hand, good hitters have to be able to swing effectively at much less than 100 percent, because that's where most players spend most of the long, grinding big-league season.

Here's Mitchell's spray chart for his time in Triple A and MLB, over the last two seasons, with the field broken down into segments. 

One problem is that Mitchell, a left-handed hitter, rakes so many of his ground balls right to the first baseman. Sure, one or two of them might get past him and into the corner for a triple, but that's a lot of virtually automatic outs. Not even Mitchell's elite speed can consistently yield safeties when the ball is nearly delivering itself to the fielder and the base.

Overall, though, he has shown the ability to drive the ball to left and left-center, where a lot of singles and doubles can live. Importantly (and not really shown in this way of displaying the spray chart), when he gets into one to his pull side, it's not a lazy fly ball. It's gone.

Mitchell makes great swing decisions, on balance. He swings more often within the zone than the average batter, and considerably less often outside the zone. That's good. His one vulnerability is the ball down, which is bad for two reasons: it tells us that he's not recognizing breaking balls or changeups as well as we might like, and even when he makes contact down there, he's likely to hit one of those rollover, 3-unassisted ground balls.

Again, though, overall, that's an encouraging heat map. That's a guy who doesn't expand the zone away virtually at all, but doesn't cut the plate in half and give up on the outside corner, either. He's cut down the ground balls in these higher-level stops, too, by having a fairly grooved swing. In other words, he knows his bat path and tries to find the ball on it, rather than manipulating the shape of his swing from pitch to pitch. Obviously, that feeds into the very high strikeout rate, but it also means he's more likely to lift and drive the ball when he connects. Here's his whiff rate by pitch location; you can effectively imagine the blue slash here as his bat coming through the zone.

If Mitchell continues to show excellent plate discipline and draw walks at a rate north of 10 percent, he has a chance to be a really productive hitter, and a credible leadoff man, even with seemingly disqualifying strikeout and ground-ball rates. The question, as Baseball Prospectus stat maven and noted Brewers fan Jonathan Judge has remarked, is what BABIP he'll need to sustain in order to make it work. That depends greatly on the power he produces, of course, but Judge threw out a figure of .350 as a benchmark.

I find that to be about right, but it makes for a tall order. He's done it up to this point in his short career, of course, but that BABIP would be north of the 90th percentile for big-league batters with at least 400 plate appearances. Mitchell hits the right kind of grounders in terms of launch angle (higher ones, not choppers right into the dirt in front of home plate), and the speed helps, but all those balls right to first base worry me. Last year, Christian Yelich and Austin Hays were the 90th-percentile BABIP guys in MLB, at .346. Yelich is an encouraging comp, of course, but Yelich's profile wouldn't work if he struck out 30 percent of the time. That's what 2021 was. Hays, like many BABIP specialists, is a right-handed batter who puts the ball on the left side of the infield, so he doesn't offer much new hope.

I think Mitchell's better chance of becoming an above-average hitter on a sustainable basis has to lie in generating consistent lift and hitting 15 or 20 home runs, while toning the strikeout rate down to around 25 percent. If you hold the punchout rate at 30%, give him an 11% walk rate and a few times hit by pitch, and peg him for 18 homers, a .320 BABIP would lead to roughly a .235/.327/.405 line. That would be plenty to keep his tremendous glove in the lineup, but it would be a major disappointment from the leadoff spot. Give him that .350 BABIP, and he's at .254/.343/.432. Now you'd be downright excited, and he'd even be tenable in the leadoff spot. That seems like a bit of a pipe dream, though. The BABIP-reliant version of Mitchell just isn't going to be a great one. He'll have to adjust and improve.

Mitchell has such crazy tools that letting him get a lot of plate appearances and prove himself either capable or incapable seems like a solid move. He hits the ball hard, runs well, and swings at the right pitches, for the most part. It seems unfair that he's expected to do even more in order to become a truly valuable top-of-the-order bat, but he is. If he doesn't thrive in a hurry, there will be calls for Sal Frelick (whose superb contact skills give him a much higher OBP floor, although perhaps a lower ceiling, and who doesn't hit the ball hard but does lift it enough to generate a consistently solid BABIP) or Jackson Chourio (should he get off to a hot start and show himself to be one of those rare rookies who can take over the game) to replace him atop the order.

For now, all we can do is try to diagnose the hurdles Mitchell is attempting to clear, and guess at whether or not he'll clear them. It would have been great if he'd hit three or four home runs this spring, to alleviate any doubts, but he's done enough to earn his manager's trust. In just five more days, we'll get to see whether that trust was well-placed.

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How high are your hopes for Mitchell in 2024? Are you comfortable with him as a frequent leadoff hitter for the team? Join the discussion in the comments.

Research assistance provided by TruMedia.

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[GasserFace]

I understand the metrics that have always tamped down the excitement around GM but every time I have seen him play, he produces.  I truly believe that availability is his biggest hurdle. If he gets some good health luck this year, I believe he will be an average to fringe above average offensive player.

The power/speed combo could be special.

[keephopealive]

Great stuff, Matthew.  I recently discovered your site, which is fantastic.

The analyis is actually not too encouraging in my mind, but I'm not an expert on these things.  It looks like he makes great decisions on what to swing at (so can't really improve on that dimension), but he just doesn't adjust his swing enough from pitch to pitch to make great contact.  Grounders to first, make it hard to leg out ground balls, and fly to left make it hard to stretch doubles to triples.  

I am curious if you know how often he bunts to get on base.  That would seem a good strategy.  It would also keep the infielders (and pitcher) honest.  Together with his speed, bring the infielders in a bit, and more of those chopping ground balls get through.   If he's already done with bunts, it's one less thing to improve upon though.

It would be great if Chourio, Frelick, and Mitchell all get off to a hot start.  If so I'd look at trading Adames and Mitchell before the break. Our ETA for a WS is at least a year or two away in any case.  Move Ortiz to short. If Frelick sticks at the hot corner great, but otherwise we can move him to the outfield, and Ortiz to shortstop.  I think Wilken will be a Brewer by next year.  If he can cover 3rd great, but otherwise he's DH.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, keephopealive said:

Great stuff, Matthew.  I recently discovered your site, which is fantastic.

The analyis is actually not too encouraging in my mind, but I'm not an expert on these things.  It looks like he makes great decisions on what to swing at (so can't really improve on that dimension), but he just doesn't adjust his swing enough from pitch to pitch to make great contact.  Grounders to first, make it hard to leg out ground balls, and fly to left make it hard to stretch doubles to triples.  

I am curious if you know how often he bunts to get on base.  That would seem a good strategy.  It would also keep the infielders (and pitcher) honest.  Together with his speed, bring the infielders in a bit, and more of those chopping ground balls get through.   If he's already done with bunts, it's one less thing to improve upon though.

It would be great if Chourio, Frelick, and Mitchell all get off to a hot start.  If so I'd look at trading Adames and Mitchell before the break. Our ETA for a WS is at least a year or two away in any case.  Move Ortiz to short. If Frelick sticks at the hot corner great, but otherwise we can move him to the outfield, and Ortiz to shortstop.  I think Wilken will be a Brewer by next year.  If he can cover 3rd great, but otherwise he's DH.  

Welcome to Brewer Fanatic!

[eddiemathews]

Shrug. This feels a bit like a Chicken Little approach.

[Matthew Trueblood]

7 hours ago, eddiemathews said:

Shrug. This feels a bit like a Chicken Little approach.

Hmm. How do you mean?

[eddiemathews]

11 hours ago, Matthew Trueblood said:

Hmm. How do you mean?

I mean that I keep hearing how Mitchell can't be a good hitter, but he keeps producing acceptable or better results. This spring included.

[Matthew Trueblood]

17 minutes ago, eddiemathews said:

I mean that I keep hearing how Mitchell can't be a good hitter, but he keeps producing acceptable or better results. This spring included.

He barely has a full MLB season's worth of professional playing time, across many levels and three different seasons. He's either hit grounders or struck out at what would typically be catastrophic rates at every stop, and he has maybe 60-grade power, not top-of-the-scale stuff. He's slugged .372 this spring, in Arizona's warmth and thin air and against pitching much less robust than what he'll face in the regular season. He's a great athlete and we all love his upside, but if you don't see a huge downside risk still lurking here... well, then yes, this article would sound like Chicken Little. Haha. Suffice to say, I think there's AMPLE reason for the level of skepticism with which he's been treated so far, even though there's just as much cause for hope and interest. That's what I was trying to get across in this piece.

[eddiemathews]

22 minutes ago, Matthew Trueblood said:

He barely has a full MLB season's worth of professional playing time, across many levels and three different seasons. He's either hit grounders or struck out at what would typically be catastrophic rates at every stop, and he has maybe 60-grade power, not top-of-the-scale stuff. He's slugged .372 this spring, in Arizona's warmth and thin air and against pitching much less robust than what he'll face in the regular season. He's a great athlete and we all love his upside, but if you don't see a huge downside risk still lurking here... well, then yes, this article would sound like Chicken Little. Haha. Suffice to say, I think there's AMPLE reason for the level of skepticism with which he's been treated so far, even though there's just as much cause for hope and interest. That's what I was trying to get across in this piece.

Slugging is .426, OPS .811 this spring. SSS's change quickly.

[Diamond Dog]

Mitchell on the bench, cut Perkins, Frelick in OF, Black at 3B, and Ortiz at 2B.

 

Simple.

[Diamond Dog]

MT -- Another well thought out article with many facts/stats.  Thanks.  Your critical eye and thinking are greatly appreciated.

Perhaps Murphy might read these articles...........

 

[Hambone]

I love the analysis on this website. The spray charts and heat charts really help to evaluate a player and their skills or lack thereof. That, along with your analysis and concise language paints a clear picture. Thanks so much.

When I watch Garrett Mitchell at bat, the thing I notice most is his easy swing and pop off of the bat. He really makes it look effortless and the ball really travels. Not all players have an approach like that (easy swing/sweet spot contact/great power).

 

I do agree with another commenter concerning his lack of at bats in the majors. It would be interesting to see how many at bats he has against each MLB pitcher he has faced.

I really do think that with more time and more at bats against major league pitchers he would really hone in on their tendencies against him and make the necessary adjustments to be a more successful hitter.

[Brock Beauchamp]

8 hours ago, Hambone said:

I love the analysis on this website. The spray charts and heat charts really help to evaluate a player and their skills or lack thereof. That, along with your analysis and concise language paints a clear picture. Thanks so much.

When I watch Garrett Mitchell at bat, the thing I notice most is his easy swing and pop off of the bat. He really makes it look effortless and the ball really travels. Not all players have an approach like that (easy swing/sweet spot contact/great power).

 

I do agree with another commenter concerning his lack of at bats in the majors. It would be interesting to see how many at bats he has against each MLB pitcher he has faced.

I really do think that with more time and more at bats against major league pitchers he would really hone in on their tendencies against him and make the necessary adjustments to be a more successful hitter.

Thank you and welcome to the site!

[eddiemathews]

Well, Mathew, you were right and I was wrong. Mitchell is hurt again. sigh