News flash: White Sox slugger Eloy Jimenez is raking in Triple-A. After Friday night’s 3-for-4 display, the bambino-ish slugger is batting .387 with a 1.129 OPS. He hasn’t hit a lick under .300 between the two highest levels in Minor League Baseball all season and has forced an uncomfortable conversation about reaching the big leagues this season. Jimenez has also made other coaches and teams uncomfortable as well.
What they’re saying
Well, they are saying a lot. Endless comparisons have been made for the 21-year-old and much of it has been flattering. In fact, his teammate Michael Kopech offered this comparison on Friday night.
"When you have Babe Ruth in your lineup, it pretty hard to count yourself out of a game.” – Michael Kopech on Eloy Jiménez
— James Fegan (@JRFegan) August 3, 2018
Of course, Kopech was using Babe Ruth‘s name pejoratively, but the idea is clear: Jimenez is something beyond good. But what do other coaches and evaluators have to say about playing against him?
Here is how one Southern League manager explained the situation:
“He was extremely impressive. I think he missed about a week to start the year. He comes in, plays us against us, and he looked a little bit rusty. Then we see him the second time when he’s locked in, and I saw one of those swings that’s almost Miguel Cabrera-esque, one of those uncoiling swings that has the ability to let a fastball get deep in the zone and hit it hard to all parts of the field and then stay through the off-speed stuff. He’s almost unpitchable. If you watch what he does, he’s got that really, really relaxed front side. The way he positions his body, his hips are just coiled, and they just stay there. When the ball gets to the hitting zone, he just unloads on it and hits anything hard. It’s one of those guys that’s really fun to watch.”
I like the Miguel-Cabrera comparison. On this week’s Pinwheels and Ivy Podcast, we had a lengthy discussion about how Cabrera is exactly the kind of comparison Jimenez should strive for. The Tigers one-bagger has been an amazingly consistent hitter with a versatile set of tools that easily manufacture offensive production. If Jimenez turned out to have a similar career to Cabrera, I don’t think White Sox fans would have a problem with that.
But there is more.
“He makes adjustments at-bat to at-bat, so you can’t just attack him the same way every time. That’s something right now that I’m trying to pay attention to in hitters. If a hitter shows that he can do that, he’s telling me that he’s ready for the next level. There’s few of them down here in Double-A. That’s why he’s up in Triple-A right now, and that’s why I see he’s going to be a big league hitter. You cannot be a consistent big league hitter unless you’ve got the ability to make adjustments on the fly like that. He does it, and to do it at his age shows me that he’s going to have a long, good career.”
Adjusting from at-bat to at-bat is one of those pesky boxes White Sox officials watch closely hoping to check at the earliest sign of success. Given that another manager has witnessed this development in Jimenez is a foreboding sign.
…and more…
“We couldn’t do it in the zone. We couldn’t attack him in the zone in the same spot over and over. We had to attack him hard in one spot and then make our pitches out of the zone and hope he’s chasing. If he chased [in] one or two at-bats or one game, he wasn’t going to chase those same pitches the next day, so we had to adjust the game plan. It was a typical big-guy approach, hard in, soft away, breaking balls away. That’s what we got him with early on, threw him a lot of slop away. Sure enough, he wasn’t chasing it. So he’d hit the hangers. You had to be real careful with what you did. If we tried to go in on him, he’d notice that really quick, and he’d get the [bat] head out there. He’s also a guy [who] if you go in on, you better miss off the plate. You can’t miss on the plate at all. He’s got that swing that won’t just pull it. He’s not one of those cheat guys. If you miss middle-in, he’ll hit it out to center. That’s why I compare him to Miguel Cabrera. I watched Miguel Cabrera a lot of times hit some real nasty sinkers in off the plate and hit them out to right-center. You’ve got to be a big, strong guy with a really good swing to do that. Eloy can do that.”
Alright! I’m picking up what he’s putting down. If you weren’t sold on the wonder of Jimenez before, listening to someone else explain how difficult he makes the game for opponents should make the adrenaline pump.
The manager added another paragraph on the adjustments Jimenez made to the strike zone from one at-bat to the next and how he was able to change the game from one spot in the lineup. Yet, there are a few rough edges to Jimenez game.
He has a serviceable arm in the outfield and doesn’t cover much ground. This isn’t a shocking revelation considering most outfield prospects are bat-first players anyway. Still, it’s important to raise players that will create more runs than they allow.
“Position-wise, he’s not a fleet-footed outfielder, so he’s not going to give you a bunch of range. His arm isn’t a cannon, but it’s good enough to play left field and right field. He’s going to drive in more runs than he lets in, that’s for sure.”
According to this manager, even the simple observation of poise in the box is intimidating and changes the complexion of the game.
“He’s a presence. Just his setup in the box, a lot of times, the way guys stand on the plate, how far they are from the dish, their body language, it can do something to the pitcher. He’s got one of those really comfortable stances that doesn’t look like there’s many places to throw the ball and be safe. Because of that, pitchers are going to be really careful earlier in the count.”
This cuts to the center of what makes baseball such a beautiful game. There is so much going on at each moment that the subtle nuances can be lost in translation. It may be difficult to grasp, but a physical presence can alter the course of a game by intimidating an opponent. Jimenez seems to have this in spades.
The rest of the article went into further detail on how various teams scouted the slugger and you can read the rest of the article here. One Southern-League pitcher noted that he tried to get Jimenez to chase pitches up in the zone, something a second league manager agreed with. This isn’t surprising based on where Jimenez starts his hands, but it appears that high fastballs are just as convenient for the slugger as low fastballs.
It doesn’t matter where the pitch is, Jimenez has full coverage of the strike zone. Paired with patience and discipline, he has a winning approach at the plate.
