The fully realized Wil Myers
Eight years after winning the AL Rookie of the Year award, Wil Myers has finally begun to reach his potential as a hitter with the Padres.
The Padres extended their winning streak to four games on Monday, moving them to 4-0 on the road early on, with a 6-2 victory over the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates.
Yu Darvish looked like an ace, giving up just 1 run in 7 innings, but the story of the day might just be Wil Myers and his 5 RBIs. He now has a 6-game hitting streak, but what’s even more remarkable is that he’s safely hit in 9 of the 10 games he’s appeared in so far this season.
I wrote before the season that it looked like Myers’ 2020 was no fluke and that we could probably expect some of the same production. What I didn’t expect was him being even better in 2021, but that’s where we are.
Myers went from a pure fastball hitter, with a batting average between .260-.300 on fastballs in any given year, to an all-around hitter due to changes in his swing and stance. Where he used to hit .200 or worse on breaking and offspeed pitches, he hit about .300 on them last year and is hitting nearly .400 on them this year.
Wil has turned himself from a player you never wanted to throw a fastball to, unless you had to, into a player that you want swinging at your fastball because he’ll do more damage against the slower stuff.
It’s not just dumb luck, either. Myers is barreling the ball on offspeed pitches at insane numbers:
That’s a lot of really hard contact! Even if he doesn’t barrel 100% of the offspeed pitches he swings at this season (he won’t), these numbers show the result of hard work more than luck. We’ve seen Myers get hot, this is different.
Here is an excellent article showing the difference between Myers’ swing in 2019 and 2020, and it has only gotten more dramatic since.
By getting down in his stance, Myers is able to attack the low breaking balls instead of swinging over them. It also eliminates a ton of head movement, making it easier for him to read the pitch when it’s on its way to home plate.
Perhaps the most amazing part of this change is that Myers hasn’t lost any of his power or ability to hit fastballs, he’s just added more and eliminated some key weaknesses.
With 0.5 fWAR in just 10 games, Myers is on pace to be an 8 fWAR player this season. That kind of transformation would easily take him from being an albatross on the Padres’ books to being an underpaid asset whose offense is needed on a contending roster.