Technically, there wasn’t a lot at stake. Although Mason Miller was seeking to defend a one-run lead with two outs within the tenth inning of an early September conflict, the A’s and Rangers had been enjoying out the string, battling for wins in a misplaced season. For Wyatt Langford, nonetheless, it meant one thing extra.
On the primary pitch, Miller fired 101 mph down the center. Langford was aggressive, fouling it straight again for strike one. He watched 102 mph sail excessive, then flicked his bat to foul off an up-and-in 101-mph heater to fall right into a 1-2 gap. A slider sailed exterior earlier than he fouled off pitches at 102 mph and 103 mph to remain alive, after which he laid off two depraved sliders to safe the bottom on balls. Langford confronted down among the finest stuff in baseball, and emerged the victor.
It was only a stroll, nevertheless it sparked a resurgence. After a dismal 5 months, Langford exploded in September, posting a 180 wRC+ and main the American League in WAR. Within the sequence following his profitable encounter with Miller, he blasted titanic tanks off Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes, catching as much as heaters on the high of the zone and depositing hanging sweepers deep into the left discipline bleachers.
It led to a query: Was September reflective of Langford’s new stage? The reply, partially, was conditional on prior expectations.
And the expectations had been definitely excessive heading into the season. After touchdown in Texas with the fourth total choose within the 2023 draft, Langford incinerated the excessive minors, posting a .360/.480/.677 line throughout 4 ranges and 200 plate appearances. ZiPS pegged Langford’s fiftieth percentile consequence above three wins, moderately assured that Langford would go from the SEC to an above-average common within the span of a 12 months. As Cactus League play started, the hype practice picked up steam; Langford hit .365 with six homers, leaving little question as as to if he’d begin the 12 months on the large league roster.
It seems hitting within the majors is tough. Now not was Langford tasked with warding off the pitching workers of Mississippi State or the El Paso Chihuahuas; as an alternative, he needed to take care of Chris Sale sliders, Hunter Greene fastballs, and Tarik Skubal changeups.
Fittingly, he regarded like a rookie. The plate self-discipline was there early on; his stroll and strikeout charges hovered round league common, suggesting that Langford was not fully overmatched like his rookie counterpart Jackson Chourio, who struck out over 32% of the time in March and April. However Langford’s batted ball high quality was missing. He slugged simply .314 in April, lifting heaps of lazy fly balls into outfield gloves.
Whereas Chourio discovered his footing in the summertime months, logging a 144 wRC+ in June and by no means trying again, Langford’s line remained stubbornly subpar — till the ultimate month of the season. Lastly, because the Rangers slogged via their September schedule, Langford went bananas. His .300/.386/.610 line and glorious baserunning led to 1.6 WAR in that month alone, trailing solely the infernal Shohei Ohtani.
There are a couple of potential tales to inform concerning the Langford rookie marketing campaign. One is that he bumped into a couple of poorly situated pitches throughout a small pattern. One other is that Langford made his changes, simply as Chourio clearly did, accumulating sufficient expertise in opposition to main league stuff to leverage his immense instruments.
ZiPS, as at all times, splits the distinction. The projection system sees Langford as a 3.8 WAR, 128 OPS+ man subsequent 12 months, baking in Langford’s transcendent minor league outcomes with a slight talent bump as he heads into his age-23 season.
However splitting the distinction isn’t any enjoyable. This strategy, utilized to gamers throughout the league, will result in extra correct projections. There isn’t any good empirical purpose to weigh September outcomes extra closely within the subsequent season’s forecast. However there’s a temptation, at the least on my finish, to imagine that Langford goes to be the participant we noticed in September transferring ahead.
On this model of the narrative, the expectation for Langford’s sophomore marketing campaign isn’t simply an All-Star 4-WAR season, as ZiPS forecasts; it’s one thing extra like 5 WAR because the fiftieth percentile expectation, mirroring the age-23 projections for current breakouts Corbin Carroll and Julio Rodríguez.
To make that argument persuasively, it could require proof that Langford recognized after which fastened the issues that held him again throughout his first 400 or so plate appearances. And there may be at the least some purpose to imagine he did.
There isn’t any one offender for a hitter’s poor efficiency. The explanations are layered and sophisticated; it could possibly be a difficulty with sure pitch sorts or sure places, for instance. In Langford’s case, it appeared like at the least one of many points was structural, tied to his hitting mechanics. Each he and Rangers offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker believed his swing was too vertical.
Even two weeks into the season, it was clear that Langford wanted to regulate. There was one clear potential space of enchancment: His distribution of weight on his swing. In a story written by Steve Kornacki (no, not that Steve Kornacki) at MLB.com, Ecker was quoted as saying that Langford’s mechanical tendencies wanted a reboot.
“[Langford] got here from school and often has not confronted breaking balls which can be breaking 18 to twenty inches,” Ecker informed Kornacki. “So, among the physique place he was in in school is now beginning to evolve. When you look the place the stress is at, perhaps in school it was on his again aspect. All the finest hitters within the massive leagues, their stress, once they land [on swings], is in the midst of their physique. So, he’s slowly evolving from a man that’s again, to having to recover from the middle that’s in the midst of our physique.”
Esteban Rivera, FanGraphs’ resident hitting mechanics professional, defined to me that loading up weight on the bottom makes it simpler for hitters to whip their barrel beneath the ball and due to this fact generate energy. This strategy works nicely in school, the place hitters aren’t usually uncovered to excessive velocity and see lots of mistake pitches. It really works much less nicely when Brandon Pfaadt is spinning sweepers that teleport throughout the width of the plate. Esteban additionally identified that fastballs on the internal half or sliders off the plate might hassle a hitter with a swing oriented towards crushing middle-middle errors.
Langford, for his half, appeared nicely conscious of the issue.
“We’re engaged on getting again to that middle mass, and never staying again an excessive amount of,” Langford stated in April. “It’s triggered me to swing a bit extra up than I wished, and I’m leveling out my swing. That’s serving to me see the ball higher.”
The early outcomes weren’t favorable. Langford’s common launch angle climbed every month, from 16 levels in April all the best way to 23 levels in August. Maybe consequently, he was flummoxed by sweepers and sliders thrown by same-handed pitchers; via August, his wOBA was .234 on these pitches. He was even worse on exhausting inside fastballs; his .205 wOBA on high-velocity sinkers and four-seamers thrown on the internal half ranked among the many worst within the league.
However in September, the swing leveled out. Langford’s common launch angle in September — 11 levels — was the bottom of any month within the 2024 season. And the outcomes — maybe coincidentally, maybe not — adopted.
On inside warmth, Langford by no means actually adjusted. However he began crushing fastballs unnoticed over the plate in addition to hanging breaking balls, staying again lengthy sufficient to establish spin and punishing errors. portion of his harm got here on swings like this double in opposition to Marcus Stroman, lasering sliders on the knees into the right-center discipline hole:
These enhancements coincided with a change to his setup. In April, he was hunched in the intervening time of the pitcher’s foot strike, seeking to my beginner eye extra like a slap hitter:
However throughout his month of destruction, Langford stood far more upright, able to assault balls at any depth or width.
Langford’s obvious mechanical changes, prospect pedigree, and chronologically handy harm distribution results in questions concerning the nature of projections. Prospect evaluators, together with our personal Eric Longenhangen, had been unbothered by his gradual begin. In his Prime 100 Prospects Replace in Might, as Langford sat sidelined with a hamstring harm, Eric wrote that he anticipated Langford would “be an offensive star upon his return, and doubtless fairly rapidly,” noting that the “enormous instruments and plate protection” remained intact. It was only a matter of adjusting.
In his ultimate month of the season, Langford regarded just like the offensive star Eric anticipated. Typically, an enormous month shouldn’t be trigger for altering a projection. Langford, although, could possibly be an exception.
