Cleveland Indians: The Renaissance of Jason Kipnis

Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Batted Ball Outcomes

Last season saw Jason Kipnis completely change where and how he hit the ball. He drastically changed where he hit the ball, and he reduced the percent of pitches that he pulled – which had hovered in the 37-39% range for four seasons – to just over 35%. To complement this, the Indians’ second baseman began to hit the ball to the opposite field and the outfield more frequently. Below are two diagrams, courtesy of Baseball Savant, that clearly display this shift.

The top picture shows the 2015 season; the bottom, the 2014 season. Kipnis cut down on a number of pitches he grounded to the pull-side, and he increased the number he sent to left field.

Another big change in 2015 was how he hit the ball. As one might have noticed by looking at the diagrams, the top one had many more yellow dots. This perfectly displayed the second batted ball phenomenon Kipnis underwent. From 2014 to 2015, the percent of batted balls that were linedrives increased by over four percentage points.

While this may seem insignificant, this was a major change for the 28-year-old. After his home run per flyball ratio consistently dropped from his debut to 2012, Kipnis realized that it was inefficient to keep putting the ball in the air. Instead, he turned flyballs into linedrives. Rather than trying to hit for power, Kipnis switched to a more contact-focused approach.

The following table displays the percentage of pitches Kipnis saw that he turned into a linedrive. Note that the rate is as a total percentage of pitches thrown, not batted balls.

[table id=26 /]

This table tells the whole story. Kipnis had been gradually hitting more linedrives on fourseam fastballs, but he made big jumps on sinkers, changeups, and cutters last season. Kipnis did not just start hitting more doubles and triples for no reason; he started hitting more linedrives on pitches that did not move as much.

Explaining why this happened would be difficult. Kipnis possibly went home in the offseason and practiced making better contact with the ball instead of hitting grounders or flyballs. Equally possible, Kipnis simply saw the ball better last year. Typical pitch locations stayed the same, so he likely just made a few adjustments that culminated in a combination of the two above propositions.

Next: The new Kipnis has arrived