What to make of Wil Myers' hot streak
Is there reason to believe that Wil Myers' recent hot streak is a sign of actual improvement? Only if you want there to be.
28 days ago, I wrote an article titled Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Wil Myers. It was about the roller-coaster season (and career) of Wil Myers, who had started the season looking like a greatly improved hitter before seemingly falling off a cliff.
A lot of people have said that this is just who Myers is, a low-average high-power hitter who strikes out a ton and can get hot every now and then. While his track record would tend to agree with them, I (somewhat foolishly) believe that the guy we saw in 2020 and early 2021 was who Myers can be.
Simple goals
In the past, when talking about Myers specifically, I would really get into the weeds of his statcast numbers. Today, I just want to give him one simple number to shoot for.
I’ve often said that a .800 OPS is the marker of a “good hitter”. Not a great one, but definitely a good one. The Padres currently have four hitters with an OPS over .800, if you don’t count Ivan Castillo, and Myers is not one of them.
As a matter of fact, Myers has only finished two of his eight seasons with an OPS over .800: His rookie season (when he won Rookie of the Year) and last season (a 60-game season where he got MVP votes).
So, this what I’m looking for from Myers. Can he finish the season with an OPS over .800? Getting the Padres to five good hitters in the everyday lineup (plus Ivan Castillo!) would go a long way towards making the San Diego offense consistent and scary for opposing pitchers.
Following a pattern?
Perhaps the weirdest thing about Wil, a guy who has all the talent in the world but has spent most of his career either being red-hot or ice-cold, is how consistent his numbers have been.
Watch how his OPS looks in every season since he was traded to the Padres:
.763
.797
.792
.763
.739
.959
.751
Outside of the 60-game season, that’s almost the same hitter every single year.
Even now, when he seems to be once again heating up after an extended slump, it’s hard to not look at his past numbers and think that he does this every year.
Let’s take a quick peek of Myers’ OPS by month for his career, compared to what he’s done this season.
March/April: .798 vs. .824 in 2021
May: .695 vs. .675 in 2021
June: .831 vs. .719 in 2021
July: .826 vs. .840 in 2021
Okay, it’s not a one-for-one. Myers’ was worse in June than he typically is, and a little better in the first month than he normally is, but it’s close. Heating up in the summer months is almost expected from Wil, although August is his worst month historically (and it’s not particularly close).
I want to believe
I could’ve written about Manny Machado today. I probably should’ve! Machado has been on fire lately, his shoulder looks healthy, and he’s turning himself into a legitimate MVP candidate despite missing out on the NL All-Star team.
Machado is also the team leader, and absolutely deserves to wear the captain’s C on his jersey. He’s the one that gets the team moving in the right direction, and his OPS over the last month is Tatis-like. (I’ll probably write about him tomorrow.)
That being said, I’ve been saying for the better part of a year that this offense will go as far as Myers does. Most offenses have three good hitters they can throw at you, what makes the Padres different is that after Tatis-Machado-Cronenworth they can (in theory) also throw Myers and Grisham and Nola and Pham at you. Having seven good hitters in an NL lineup makes your team borderline unbeatable.
While we wait for Nola to return from injury, and for Grisham to find his stroke after returning from injury, Myers is the guy who can really drive the second half of the San Diego lineup. So when he starts to get hot, I immediately start imagining a utopia-like existence where he never goes cold again.
If we’re looking for excuses…
It’s been about two months since Wil Myers tested positive for COVID-19 and missed about two weeks worth of games. When asked about it after a recent game, he mentioned that it’s something that he’s still dealing with. As in, he’s still not feeling 100% recovered.
Wil had a .757 OPS for the season when he was pulled from the game in Colorado, and that number plummeted when he came back. It was down to .686 about a week after his return. It hovered in that area, between .680-710 until mid-June, which is the definition of struggling for a player of Myers’ caliber.
However, since June 18th, Myers is slashing .302/.339/.642. That’s good for an OPS of .980.
If you wanted to convince me that it was going to take Wil about a month to feel right after missing time with COVID-19, I could be convinced. If you wanted to show me those numbers for the last three weeks and tell me that’s the guy he could be in the second half of the season, I would definitely get myself excited dreaming about it.
There’s a reason the Padres are 12-5 since Myers starting hitting better. Much like Grisham, Myers is a real key to the offense. It’s the good hitters outside of the meat of the lineup that will determine if Tatis and Machado can be pitched around or not. Right now, they can not, and we’re seeing the results.