Left-Handed Pitchers Keep Giving Brewers' Willy Adames Trouble

[Jason Wang]

The Crew's star shortstop has been swinging a hot bat, but still seems to struggle against southpaws. Why?

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

Since the All-Star break, Willy Adames has been excellent at the plate. His .883 OPS across 108 plate appearances is the third-best among qualified Brewers hitters, behind Jackson Chourio (.972 OPS) and William Contreras (.883 OPS). With a season OPS+ of 116 so far, it’s a big step forward after a disappointing 93 OPS+ in 2023. 

But alas, everything has a price. Throughout his career, Adames has been slightly better against righties than he has against lefties. The OPS difference is .087, so while meaningful, it's not totally off-putting, and he’s still able to hold his own. In fact, he actually hit lefties better (.763 OPS) than he hit righties (.701) last year, an interesting change of pace. This year, he’s gone in the other direction and has produced very lopsided splits.

	BA	OBP	SLG	K%	BB%
vs. RHP	.271	.338	.500	25.9%	9.1%
vs. LHP	.191	.318	.300	21.2%	15.9%

At first glance, the difference in his slash line is clear. It seems like he’s able to hit for greater power against righties, but is being more conservative against lefties, striking out less and walking much more. But a closer look at the exit data actually shows that the opposite is true, sort of.

	Exit Velocity	Launch Angle	>95mph EV	Barrel Rate	Flyball Distance
vs. RHP	88.3 mph	17.8	38.5%	22.2%	336.8
vs. LHP	90.6 mph	24.1	47.0%	22.9%	358.8

Interestingly enough, Adames has a higher average exit velocity against lefties, and almost half of his batted balls against lefties are hit harder than 95 mph. That's what we'd expect from a right-handed hitter, but the results aren't. So what gives? Are we being deceived? The culprit is the term “average,” an imperfect and incomplete metric measure of center. A quick peek at a vertical launch angle heat map helps add clarity to this predicament. 

vs. LHP (left) & vs. RHP (right)

Adames tends to get a lot more batted balls with steep launch angles against southpaws. The “average” launch angle of 24.1 degrees would be cool if he could hit it every time, but realistically, the figure is a result of a more bimodal distribution of high fly balls and low ground balls. The launch angle distribution against righties is much more even, and his most frequent 10-degree launch angle band against them is 20-30 degrees. Against lefties, the band in which he's hit the ball most often is 40-50 degrees. Southpaws have induced a whole lot of high, catchable fly balls from Adames. 

On the bright side, he’s had nearly three times more plate appearances against righties (400, vs. 132 against lefties), so his overall production hasn’t been dragged down by much. On the other hand, it seems to be getting even worse. In the 26 plate appearances against lefties since the All-Star break, he has a .364 OPS. It’s a small sample, but it’s part of a larger pattern that has gone on all season. One can only hope that he doesn’t see too much southpaw opposition come the playoffs--or that he makes a dramatic adjustment by then.

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