make-offline-request.sh

curl -X POST -d '{"value": "There are varying tactics when it comes to approaches at the plate. Getting ahead and waiting for the right pitch is one. Swinging at the first good pitch you see because you might not get another is a second. Protecting the plate when behind in the count comes up often. Hitters use some or all of that when they step up to bat, but Yoan Moncada’s patience last season ended up hurting what could have been a much better season. A more aggressive approach thus far has shown much better results this year as Moncada attempts to take the next step in his development. Last season, Moncada has a walk rate of 10.3%, which is good, and a strikeout rate of 33.4%, which is bad. The only players at 23 years of age or younger to put up double-digit walk rates and a strikeout rate above 30% (which is going to limit how far back we go given the massive rise in strikeouts) are Kris Bryant (2015) and Joey Gallo (2017). Gallo hit 41 homers to make himself an offensively valuable player. Bryant was constantly making great contact when he did put the ball in play on his way to a Rookie of the Year campaign. Moncada hit the ball hard when he made contact, but not at the same level as Bryant, and ended with a 97 wRC+ on the year. Changes are necessary to improve on that mark, and it looks like Moncada may indeed be making them. Last week at MLB.com, Mike Petriello also wrote about Moncada, noting just how terrible he was on two-strike pitches, notably pitches on the edge, which caused an absurdly high number of called third strikes. That made the problem easy to diagnose, if not easy to solve. Don’t get to two strikes. But also, don’t get to two strikes being so desperate that you start expanding your zone and flailing at bad pitches. We know this, because Moncada and the Sox spent a lot of time talking about it. “As long as he maintains an aggressive approach within the strike zone, which he has been increasing,” Chicago manager Rick Renteria said to MLB.com in July, “he has a chance of having really good success obviously.” “We made a plan,” Moncada said to MLB.com in December, referring to extensive offseason work with White Sox coaches. “Right now, I am in a better position to succeed and to be a better player next season. It was a very good experience, overall.” “We ended up attacking the topic of his strike-zone approach,” Renteria said. “He has great ability to take pitches. That’s something that’s innate in him.” Petriello noted that Moncada was being a bit more aggressive, particularly with the zone, and he was hitting the ball harder and striking out less, all good outcomes. Moncada has lowered his strikeout rate to 24% on the season, and while that might not necessarily represent a new skill level, even after 66 plate appearances it is enough to change our expectations considering last year’s 33% mark. Moncada’s walks have gone down to about 6%, but he is tearing the cover off the ball with a .242 ISO and a .395 BABIP, which has helped lead to a 152 wRC+. The decrease in walks isn’t great for Moncada, but the lowered strikeouts more than make up for that. Consider that when Moncada put the ball in play last season, he put up a 175 wRC+, one of the top 30 marks in the game. This year, he’s putting up a 227 wRC+ when he puts the ball in play, but he doesn’t need that to keep up to make a different to his overall line as we know that BABIP is going to come down some even if we reasonably expect him to post a high value. By taking 13% of his plate appearances that were walks and strikeouts last season and turning them into batted balls, even with just the .164 ISO and .344 BABIP from last season, his wRC+ would go from 97 up to 114 and result in a 3.5 WAR season instead of an average one. To determine how sustainable these changes might be, it helps to pinpoint them. Petriello focused on the two-strike pitches, but let’s take an earlier, slightly broader view to reveal the two different Moncadas. One of the keys is to avoid getting to a bad two-strike count. Last year, Moncada had one of the biggest disparities in terms of results depending on whether the first pitch was a ball or a strike."}' http://localhost:3000/summarize | jq .