Tauchman leading Cubs’ quest to spend a long time at the plate
With the Cubs starting a nine-game road trip in San Diego, this is a good time for a deep dive into a mundane topic.
Let's look at pitches per plate appearance.
It's not hard to appreciate the benefit of making an opposing pitcher work. By fouling off good pitches, driving up the pitch count, it could end an effective pitcher's night early and lead to more innings by the bullpen, which can pay off later in a series.
No one's been better at that so far than outfielder Mike Tauchman. The Palatine native drew walks in 7 of his first 15 plate appearances to start the season.
According to baseball-reference.com, Tauchman has seen an average of 5.72 pitches per plate appearance, which would lead MLB by a wide margin if he had enough at-bats to qualify.
Since Tauchman is the Cubs' extra outfielder, he has a relatively small sample size. The MLB leader in the category is Grant High School grad Ryan Noda from the Oakland Athletics at 4.69 pitches per plate appearance.
“I think that's Mike's strength is his ball-strike recognition and swinging at the right pitches,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “He continues to do that.”
Are Tauchman's long at-bats a case of how pitchers are working him, or with more than 1,000 big league at-bats under his belt, has he just reached a new level of confidence at the plate?
“I think it's a combination,” he said Sunday. “I think as a general theme as a team, we've been really, really locked into our approach and our idea of team offense and competing against the (opposing) starters as a group. I think that's been kind of reflective in the way we've been able to drive pitch counts up on starters since the last day in Texas.”
The Cubs have a couple other league-leaders on the baseball-reference.com list of pitches per plate appearance. Ian Happ ranks fourth at 4.60, while Dansby Swanson is tied for ninth at 4.51.
Overall as a team, the Cubs are closer to the MLB average, ranking 12th with 3.94 pitches per plate appearance.
Leading off the second inning against the Dodgers on Sunday, Tauchman walked after a seven pitch at-bat. He took second on a single by Miguel Amaya, then came around to score on two fly balls. In his second at-bat, Tacuhman saw nine pitches and hit an opposite-field double.
So if Tauchman walks 7 times in 15 trips to the plate, does he consider that a job well done?
“I think if you want to do a deep dive, there's probably a couple at-bats that ended up in walks that's like, 'Ahh, I think I got a good pitch to hit,'” he said. “But if they're not throwing strikes, me swinging outside the zone does nobody any good.
“Run production is really important. If I can work walks, (along with) guys having really quality at-bats in the bottom third of the order; the more at-bats Ian and Seiya (Suzuki) and Belli (Cody Bellinger) have with runners on base, the better it's going to be for us.”
Counsell also described how an aggressive approach to hitting has become popular in MLB, specifically with the World Series champion Texas Rangers, who faced the Cubs to open this season.
“There's a big portion of the league from the pitching perspective that's just, 'Get to two strikes as fast as you can and then try to expand, expand, expand (the zone),'” Counsell said. “One way to counteract that if pitchers are going to be focusing on being in the zone early is to be super aggressive early.”
Counsell mentioned Christopher Morel as a Cubs player who's been aggressive at the plate early this season with good results. Morel is at 3.50 pitches per plate appearance. Bellinger (3.17), Amaya (3.06) and Nick Madrigal (3.00) are all lower.
Tauchman was back in Monday's lineup in right field, while Suzuki was DH. At this point in his career, Tauchman, 33, has played for four different major-league teams, plus college at Bradley, the minor leagues and Korea. As his experience grows, does the sense of calm and confidence at the plate rise along with it?
“I don't think hitting ever gets easier.,” Tauchman said. “But I think it's easier to have perspective on things, it's easier to control your emotions a little bit, it's easier to prepare because you've experienced more. There are components that are easier, but hitting is still extremely difficult.”
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