How Close is Tyler Black to Being a Force at the Plate in MLB?

[Matthew Trueblood]

With a Nashville hot streak, one of the Milwaukee Brewers' best prospects is garnering some attention and making a case for a promotion to the big leagues. It's not yet clear, though, whether he's actually ready to be a valuable hitter at the highest level.

Image courtesy of © Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Back in December, I wrote about Tyler Black's batted-ball profile during a second-half promotion to Triple-A in 2023. The piece focused on the fact that Black can be a valuable contributor, but also highlighted the remaining deficiencies in his game--namely, a dearth of power. Black entered pro ball as a ground-ball hitter whose profile centered on his overall athleticism, including good speed. Last year, he tapped into more power by lifting the ball much more consistently, but he didn't truly turn the corner and break out.

Some of that was about the difficulty of adjusting to Triple-A competition, rather than the Double-A variety, in the middle of the season. As the team looks ahead at its season and considers Black as a potential addition to the lineup before it's over, though, an even bigger adjustment looms for him.

In order to be a credible candidate to help the Crew offensively, then, Black needs to show some real and major progress at Nashville, such that we can reasonably project him not to need a major overhaul in approach in order to find success if brought up to the parent club. 

On the surface, it looks like time to get excited. Black is batting .316/.423/.519 on the young season, with seven extra-base hits (including three homers), 13 walks, and just 13 strikeouts in 97 trips to the plate. He's also been hit by three pitches, stolen three bases in four tries, and avoided grounding into a double play.

Last week on the Brewer Fanatic podcast, co-host Spencer Michaelis talked about his feeling that Black's bat is ready, and that the only thing holding him back (rightfully) from a big-league debut is his poor glove work at first base. In watching Nashville's games, it's easy to see what Spencer is seeing. Black looks exceptionally athletic and dangerous against Triple-A competition.

Dig deeper into the data, though, and the signals are more mixed, even at the plate. That's not a euphemism for something worse; there really are both good and bad signs through which to sift. Let's consider a few of them.

Firstly, the good news: In addition to those improved topline numbers, Black has made the requisite adjustments to bring along the loft in his profile that allowed him to surge so impressively last year at Double-A Biloxi. Black's average launch angle on batted balls is up about 6 degrees from where it stood during his time in Nashville in 2023, but just as importantly (and perhaps more so), the percentage of his batted balls clustered between 10 and 30 degrees--the most valuable range, where most extra-base hits live--has leaped from 23% to 39%.

Last year, the average launch angle on Black's well-hit balls (95+ miles per hour) was 7 degrees. This year, it's 16. Admittedly, the samples here remain tiny, not only because we're still in late April but because Black has walked so often. Still, this is all good news. Black doesn't look likely to deliver enough defensive value to be a good player without significant power, and you can't hit for power until you get the ball off the ground.

Now, alas, we need to talk about the negative indicators around Black's performance so far, and most of them center on that very aspect of his game: power. After running a tepid average exit velocity of 86.3 miles per hour last year with Nashville, Black is actually down one mile per hour this year. On the batted balls he hits in the most valuable launch-angle range, he's down all the way from a 92 MPH average to 87 MPH. His 90th-percentile and maximum exit velocities remain right in line with those of Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, who (as we've seen) struggle to generate much power at all.

That doesn't mean there's no good news. Last year, Black was working so hard just to keep up with the changes he was being asked to make that his weighted Sweet Spot Exit Velocity (wSSEV, which I created for and introduced in this piece about Rhys Hoskins) was just under 83 miles per hour. This year, he's not just hitting the ball hard when he rolls over on it. His wSSEV is up to almost 88 MPH. For a hitter with such good control of the strike zone, that's not bad at all. It sits just outside the top quartile among Triple-A hitters.

It still isn't a dazzling number, but this is how we can start to envision future success for Black in MLB. That wSSEV would be more like upper-tercile than upper-quartile in MLB, and that doesn't account for the fact that he'll see a decrease in that number when he again has to adjust to tougher pitchers. Still, it's the same one currently maintained by Brandon Nimmo, and if Black turns out to be a hitter similar to Nimmo, it will count as a huge win for the Brewers, even at first base.

The team shouldn't be in any hurry to call up Black. He's not as ready for the jump as his surface-level numbers suggest. He is, however, making the right rounds of adjustments, and he still has a good chance to be part of the big-league team before this long season is over.

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[jay87shot]

I would still give him some AAA time and hope he picks up 1B well. It kind of depends on if the big league club starts hitting, if our struggles continue I might be advocating for him to come up in a week and DH (occasional 1B or LF) to jump start the offense. If things go perfectly and the offense comes back I would hope that maybe come June his glove would be up to the task and we could give him Bauers and Sanchez's combined AB's (if they both are hitting under .200).

I think our perfect lineup by the end of the year should be 1)CF Sal 2)C Contreras 3)LF Yeli 4)SS Willy 5)DH/1B Black 6)1B/DH Rhy 7)2B Brice 8) RF Chourio 9) 3B Ortiz    bench)Mitchell, Perkins, Dunn/Miller/Monte, Sanchez/Haase/Mejia