Matt Vierling’s quick start

Matt Vierling excited me from the start. His propensity to draw walks in 400+ PA at AA/AAA, his defensive versatility, his speed. I really felt they could have a pretty good player here. And with just a handful of games played so far in the regular season, I still believe this to be true. For now, let’s take a look at Matt Vierling’s quick start to the season.

Analysis

Batted ball data

In his 28 AB, he’s accumulated exactly one barrel. Not great, right? What is great — more than half of the balls Vierling has put into play this early in the season have been hard hit. 11 of the 21 to be more exact, with 6 of them being 100+ MPH. His 11 is second to Torkelson on the team, his 52.4% HardHit% first. What’s very interesting is Matt’s spray chart. Below are a couple of plots. First is showing the trajectory of the ball and the second an above shot to show the spray chart.

He isn’t pulling the ball much. But given he’s hitting it hard, I don’t believe he’s late or being fooled. Here’s his hard hits in the same plots:

It might be worth noting here — he does need to lift the ba

Defense

Thus far he’s made one catch out of four plays that have been 4 or 5 stars. His 25% success rate puts him tied for 16 out of 75 OF who have had at least one chance. But even better is he’s tops of the list in OF Jump, having a quick reaction and direct to the ball while also having a great burst of speed. 79th percentile in OAA and 100th in OF Jump is a huge improvement from last year. If he keeps this up and, hopefully, with his arm strength from last year and he could end up being one of the top OF defenders on the year.

What to keep an eye on

Last season he struggled against sliders (-5 runs) and sinkers (-4 runs). So far in the limited time that seems like it might still be the case. 3 of the 13 PA ending with those two pitches have resulted in Ks, 13 of the 47 pitches have been whiffed at. All of which are higher at this point than in 2022. But he is also 4-for-13 this year, including his only HR. I’m alright with some swinging and missing if it also means a .300 BA and .500 SLG!

Matt is also putting the ball on the ground more than his career average. His current 57.1% GB% is a full 13% points higher. Given it’s 30 PA, I’m sure that number will even out in the end, but it’ll need to be watched.

Conclusion

As I mentioned initially, I think that Scott Harris got himself a really good player in Matt Vierling. Early into the regular season he’s hitting the ball hard, playing defense among the best in the league, and is even clobbering pitches that he struggled against last year. He’s someone I will enjoy watching each time he’s out in the field.