As the old saying goes, “patience is a virtue” but there is such a thing as being too patient, and Los Angeles Angels rookie first baseman Nolan Schanuel is experiencing this firsthand.
The 11th overall pick in last year’s draft was called up to the majors last August after only playing in 22 minor league games. Schanuel’s greatest strength by far is his plate discipline, walking 20 times and only striking out 19 times in his 29 games in the majors last season, sporting a .402 on-base percentage. Last year, Schanuel had an impressive sense of the strike zone for a guy who had minimal time facing professional-level pitching, only chasing out of the strike zone 20.4% of the time when the league average is 28.4%, according to Baseball Savant.
Schanuel is off to a slow start this season, hitting .203 and only having a .300 on-base percentage despite being even more patient at the plate. He is still chasing pitches out of the zone at a similar rate at 20.8% of the time and has an above-average walk rate at 10.3%. But Schanuel is too patient to the point where he is just not swinging the bat at all. Schanuel’s 36.6% swing percentage is the sixth lowest in the majors and he owns the third-lowest in-zone swing percentage in the majors, only swinging at 51.2% of pitches in the strike zone, according to Baseball Savant. When he sees pitches in the middle of the strike zone (referred to as “Meatballs” on Baseball Savant), Schanuel swings at them 56.0% of the time, which is also the sixth lowest in the majors. Schanuel is also not afraid of strike one, as he only swings at the first pitch 19.2% of the time when the MLB average is 29.7%.
Because of his patience at the plate, Schanuel’s 21.8% strike-out rate remains better than the league average, but it also means that he is taking pitches that could be hit. The 56.0% Meatball swing percentage is especially concerning, considering Schanuel is 6’4 and 220 pounds and his greatest weakness is hitting for power. He only has one home run in the 2024 campaign so far and has well below average barrel and hard hit rates (3.9 Barrel% and 33.3 Hard Hit%). His lone home run is also Schanuel’s only extra-base hit this season and getting more swings off on pitches in the heart of the plate seems like an obvious fix.
When Schanuel swings the bat, he does not miss. His whiff rate is at 17.9% whereas the league average is 24.8%. Schanuel’s contact rate on pitches in the strike zone is 86.6% (league average is 82.0%) and his contact rate on pitches he chases out of the zone is 70.0% (league average is 58.0%). He has the bat-to-ball skills to be more aggressive earlier in the at-bat so he does not have to constantly hit behind in the count, but because he takes so many pitches, Schanuel often finds himself behind in the count. Schanuel has faced 101 pitches while behind in the count with 95 of those coming with two strikes and 67 pitches while ahead in the count, according to Baseball Savant. It doesn’t take much explaining to figure out that hitters are more successful when they are ahead of the count, but just to emphasize it, Schanuel is hitting .429 when ahead of the count and .067 when behind in the count.
It is still early in the season and Schanuel is currently on a seven-game hitting streak, but if he wants to take the next step in his development and be more consistent at the plate while also tapping into some of his power, Schanuel has to start swinging the bat.
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