Cincinnati Reds top outfield prospect Jesse Winker is out to a hot start for the Triple-A Louisville Bats. The left handed hitter is currently sitting on a .350 batting average, a .438 on-base percentage and a .375 slugging percentage. He also has more walks, seven, than strikeouts, six.
With just one extra-base hit, a double that came in the game yesterday, the power hasn’t shown up this season, but there shouldn’t be a concern as he’s shown in the past that he’s got power to tap into and I don’t doubt that it’s going to start showing up at some point soon.
Last season Jesse Winker got out to a very slow start for Pensacola, going about seven weeks into the season before really turning things around. The reason for the struggles, according to Winker was that he was making poor choices in his pitch selection. That resulted in him hitting an extremely high rate of ground balls, which for a hitter like him, isn’t a good thing. In the end, things worked out fine as he would hit .305/.412/.482 over the final 86 games of the season after he made the proper adjustments.
Looking at his fast start in 2016, what is he doing that’s helping him perform so well? The first, and biggest thing, is that when he swings, he’s making contact. Winker has struck out just six times in 48 plate appearances. His 12.5% strikeout rate so far this season is the best of his career. He’s also doing what he’s always done, and walking at a high rate. His 14.6% walk rate is very high and slightly better than his career average.
When we look at his spray charts for the season one thing jumps out: He’s going to left field a whole lot. While it’s early and small sample sizes are funny at this point in the season, Winker has hit the ball to left field three more times than he’s hit the ball to center or right combined (11-4-4). He’s always used the entire field, so it’s not a surprise that he’s going to left, but it could perhaps explain the low extra-base hit total some.
Like the 2015 season, his ground ball rate is quite a bit higher than his career norms early on. We are only two weeks in, so this can change very quickly, but his current ground ball rate sits at 54%, which is up from his career rate of 43%. We are dealing with a sample size of 35 balls in play though. It’s worth keeping an eye on over the next few weeks to see if it improves, but for now I wouldn’t be concerned in how things have played out in this area over 11 games.
His .400 batting average on balls in play isn’t likely to stay there – no one consistently does over the course of their careers – but it doesn’t have to unless you expect him to hit .350 moving forward. While he’s certainly benefited from such a high BABIP in the early goings, as long as he continues to have a strong approach and keep his walk rate in line with his strikeout rate, he should continue to keep a high average. Especially when the power starts to show up more.