The New Weird Jacob Wilson Stat

Heading into Sunday's game against the Colorado Rockies, former No. 1 prospect Jacob Wilson had not struck out. In the first inning, facing Rockies' No. 1 Chase Dollander in his MLB debut, Wilson *gasps* struck out for the first time in 33 plate appearances. In fact, he'd strike out twice in the game, which is just the second time he's done that in 38 career games.

Wilson graduated from prospect consideration on Saturday, giving the A's a new No. 1 prospect in their system, but he still continues to have some of the most intriguing stats attached to his name in today's game.

Now that his strikeout-less streak is over, we had to find something new to keep an eye on.

Last year in the minor leagues, Wilson batted .433 between Double-A and Triple-A, which is what led to his promotion to Oakland in his first full season in pro ball. This year, he is batting .351 through ten games, collecting a hit in each of them.

Wilson's calling card is his ability to make contact on seemingly any pitch, as demonstrated by the recent strikeout-less streak, and his high batting averages. In his time with the A's, he is a combined 36-for-129 (.279).

That all leads us to the weird new stat.

According to Baseball Savant, Wilson has yet to record a hit off an off-speed pitch. In total, he's 0-for-8 on the off-speed pitches he's put into play, including 0-for-1 this season. Part of the reasoning that he's hitless is because he just doesn't see too much soft stuff. Last year they acounted for 7.7% of the pitches he saw, and this year that's down to 6%.

With Wilson receiving more exposure at the big-league level, the fact that he's seeing few offspeed pitches should be telling of a larger approach from opposing teams.

The idea behind that approach is likely something to the effect of: He can hit anything we throw at him, so why would we throw something soft that he'd have a better chance to square up?

That may not be the exact reasoning, but it makes sense. Wilson is also good enough with the bat that unless he sees an off-speed pitch he likes early in the count, he can wait for his pitch. With an off-speed offering, he'd also have to provide more of the power, and he's not the hardest swinger out there.

So he could also be waiting around to get one that he likes, which is a luxury he can afford. The eight that he's put in play could be more so that they came in a two-strike count, and were going to get called a strike, so he had to swing.

That all said, he also entered Sunday's game batting .364 against fastballs and .400 against breaking balls, so those aren't working out too well either. Both of his home runs this week (and in his career) have come on breaking balls, while he has seven singles and a double against fastballs.

All this is to say that if you're interested in the game behind the game when it comes to baseball, watching Jacob Wilson is probably for you. He can make contact with any pitch out there, and pitchers are going to be hard at work devising ways to approach him.

The opening series to this week against the San Diego Padres will provide a pretty cool show too, with Wilson set to take on the player that he is often compared to, Luis Arraez. The Padres contact guy has not struck out this season across 39 at-bats.