Gavin Lux Has Let It Rip

The Dodgers constructed up a formidable seven-game NL West lead over the primary half of the season. Whereas they needed to face up to a late cost by the Padres — whom they’ll face in a Division Collection that begins on Saturday, a rematch of the 2022 pairing that ended up sending a 111-win Dodgers squad residence — they had been in a position to take action regardless of their beginning pitching fraying on the seams. Even earlier than Mookie Betts and Max Muncy returned from prolonged absences resulting from accidents, the emergence of Gavin Lux as an offensive power performed a key position within the group’s second-half offensive uptick.

Lux’s total numbers for 2024 — .251/.320/.383 with 10 residence runs — don’t scan as significantly particular. Dragged down by a September stoop that he started to emerge from through the season’s ultimate week, he completed with a modest 100 wRC+. Primarily based on his total batted ball information, together with a .262 xBA and a .393 xSLG, it’s powerful to make the case that he ought to have performed significantly better. The important thing level is that he needed to hit effectively sufficient to get his head again above water after a sluggish begin that seemed as if it may cost him his spot within the lineup.

The Dodgers have proven nice endurance with the 26-year-old Lux, each previously and this season. A 2016 first-round pick of a Kenosha, Wisconsin highschool, he positioned second on our High 100 Prospects checklist as a 70-FV prospect 4 years later (behind solely Wander Franco). Whereas he had already debuted within the majors the earlier September, he didn’t get a foothold till 2021, and wanted a robust September to forestall that season from being a disappointment, although interruptions resulting from wrist and hamstring accidents most likely performed an element in his woes.

Lux lastly spent a full season within the majors in 2022, hitting a decent .276/.346/.399 (113 wRC+) whereas splitting time between second base and left area. The Dodgers deliberate to maneuver him again to shortstop for the 2023 season after Trea Turner departed in free company, however on February 27, 2023, he misplaced his stability whereas operating to second base, and took a spill. He got here up clutching his proper knee; he had torn his anterior cruciate ligament in addition to his lateral collateral ligament. His season was over earlier than it had begun; he underwent surgical procedure on March 7.

The lack of Lux led the Dodgers to play light-hitting Miguel Rojas at shortstop regularly, with a handful of different gamers — Chris Taylor, Enrique Hernández, and Amed Rosario — pitching in. Essentially the most attention-grabbing of them was Betts; the six-time Gold Glove proper fielder, who initially got here up as a second baseman with the Purple Sox, moved again to the center infield in midseason when the Dodgers demoted rookie Miguel Vargas. Betts not solely made 62 begins at second base, he began 12 at shortstop, a place he’d solely briefly dabbled at within the low minors, and he seemed like a pure.

The Dodgers deliberate to maintain Betts at second base for 2024, however Lux’s defensive struggles within the spring — particularly together with his throwing, an issue that had intermittently reared its head earlier in his profession — led them to rethink their plan. With the group’s Opening Day in Seoul, South Korea simply 12 days away, supervisor Dave Roberts determined to take some stress off Lux by shifting him again to second, with Betts going to shortstop, a choice each gamers accepted.

“Simply to make this transfer proper now, it’s one thing that the whole group feels is the suitable factor to do to provide us the very best probability to forestall runs and to win baseball video games,” Roberts stated. “Particular to Gavin, it provides him a chance to get to the opposite facet of the diamond… So to get him again over there, shorten the throw, it needs to be much less of a toll on his physique total and provides him a chance to have success.”

Lux’s fielding proved much less of an issue than his hitting, as he collected simply eight hits in his first 16 video games. Even whereas largely being shielded from lefties (simply 13 of 83 plate appearances), he completed the month batting .182/.241/.208 (31 wRC+) with a pair of doubles being his solely extra-base hits. As he struggled, Roberts maintained that the group would stick by him, giving him an opportunity to regulate after such a protracted layoff. “I don’t suppose that will be truthful to anybody, to be fairly sincere,” stated Roberts of judging Lux too harshly too early, citing 150 plate appearances as a good pattern.

Lux improved considerably in Might (90 wRC+) however regressed once more in June (67 wRC+). He had blown effectively previous the 150-PA mark, however his total numbers nonetheless seemed unpleasant. After slumping by the primary half of July, he reached the All-Star break with a .213/.267/.295 slash line and simply three homers in 277 PA. Amongst gamers with at the least 250 PA in both league, solely 5 out of 207 had a decrease wRC+ than his 60. By his Statcast anticipated numbers, he wasn’t fairly getting his cash’s value, however even these (.251 xBA, .353 xSLG, .289 xwOBA) had been nothing to jot down residence about. Solely stable protection and projections for constructive regression stored him off my Substitute Stage Killers checklist, however it appeared fairly doable the Dodgers — who by this level had been with out each Muncy, who had strained an indirect in mid-Might, and Betts, who had suffered a fractured left hand after being hit by a pitch in mid-June — would store for an improve forward of the July 30 deadline, significantly with each Taylor and Hernández struggling as effectively.

In the course of the All-Star break, Lux went residence to Wisconsin, the place in response to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya he labored together with his uncle, Augie Schmidt, a former Golden Spikes Award winner and minor league infielder who has served because the longtime coach at Kenosha’s Carthage Faculty. Reviewing footage of Lux’s higher days, the coach and hitter concluded that he wanted to generate extra energy, and to place extra belief in his surgically repaired proper knee. “Collectively, they seemed again at his greatest swings. They had been violent, trying to generate slug extra than simply placing the ball in play,” Ardaya wrote. “To generate the power he needed, he was going to need to depend on flexing out, or ‘locking out’ his proper leg.”

“He’s like, ‘Screw it. If I’m taking place, I’m taking place aggressive,’” hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc advised Ardaya. “I believe there’s some freedom in that.”

The change in mindset rapidly paid off. Lux collected a number of hits in 5 of his first seven begins within the second half, and hit residence runs in back-to-back video games for the primary time all season on July 20 and 21 in Boston; he earned NL Participant of the Week honors for that stretch. The Dodgers reacquired Rosario and added a rehabbing Tommy Edman on the commerce deadline, however Lux continued to rake. Rosario made simply two begins at second base earlier than being designated for task; because it turned out, these two video games had been the one ones through which the Dodgers confronted lefty starters in a 22-game span. Betts returned on August 12, without any consideration fielder, with Rojas retaking the shortstop job after his personal IL stint, and Muncy returned on August 19.

Lux hit .333/.403/.610 with seven homers from the All-Star break by the top of August, a month throughout which the Dodgers went 19-8 however solely elevated their division lead from 4.5 video games to 6. His 180 wRC+ over that stretch ranked seventh within the majors behind some actual thumpers: Aaron Choose, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bobby Witt Jr., Yordan Alvarez, Juan Soto, and Lawrence Butler. Inevitably, he cooled off, with a 4-for-44 slide (all singles) from September 6 to 24, however he appeared to proper the ship within the ultimate days of the season, going 7-for-16 with two doubles in 4 video games towards the Padres and Rockies. General, he had the Thirteenth-highest wRC+ of any participant in both league after the All-Star break:

Among the many Dodgers, solely Ohtani and Muncy have been hotter, which has helped to offset extra tepid second-half showings by a few of the offense’s different stalwarts:

These gamers have given pitchers few locations to cover; over the course of the second half the Dodgers cranked out 5.58 runs per recreation, up from an already strong 4.94 per recreation within the first half, offsetting a rise in runs allowed per recreation from 4.03 to 4.53.

Statcast’s new-fangled bat-tracking information illustrate Lux’s growing tendency to let ‘er rip:

Lux added 1.6 mph to his common bat pace after the All-Star break, and kind of doubled his charge of quick swings (75 mph or quicker). He didn’t sq. up balls with fairly the identical frequency, which is to say that he didn’t attain at the least 80% of the utmost exit velocity doable based mostly on the pitch and swing speeds, however he did enhance his blast charge, which pairs a quick swing with a squared-up outcome. You may see that the distinction was a bit extra dramatic when evaluating his first half to the aforementioned post-break, pre-September stretch, however not by that a lot. As for the standard of contact, anticipated and precise outcomes, the splits by half are night time and day:

Lux’s common exit velocity improved by practically three miles an hour, his barrel charge practically tripled, and his xSLG rose by practically 100 factors. He did whiff and strike out extra usually (for the latter, the break up was 20.6% versus 25.2%), however that was a small value to pay for such strong manufacturing. Because the desk reveals, his common launch angle rose a bit, however the extra conventional batted ball stats truly spell out the development extra clearly:

Lux hit the ball within the air much more steadily, and he even prevented popping up as usually whereas doing that. What’s most attention-grabbing is his dramatically improved pull charge, which for some purpose doesn’t present as much as practically the identical diploma in his Sports activities Data Options splits (37.3% first half, 39.2% second half). Significantly as a result of we are able to get a twig chart visible from Statcast to assist the above numbers, I’m sticking with these for my evaluation. Statcast separates popups (caught by infielders) from fly balls (caught by outfielders) as a substitute of mixing them as SIS does (with infield fly ball charge then damaged out as a subset of fly balls), so within the desk above I’ve aggregated these two. Listed here are the aforementioned spray charts:

Have a look at all these doubles down the suitable area line within the second half, to not point out the loud fly balls. When Lux reached the warning monitor within the first half, it was up the center or to the other area, and it nearly by no means went out, whereas when he hit it far within the second half, he did extra injury.

Pitch-type sensible, Lux has struggled towards breaking balls all season (.168 AVG, .244 SLG), however he’s gone from weak performances towards four-seamers and sinkers (.222 AVG/.297 SLG for the previous, .267/.378 for the latter) to annihilating them (.429 AVG/.714 SLG for the previous, .444/1.056 for the latter), and he’s improved equally towards cutters and splitters.

For all of his in-season enchancment, Lux was mainly an automated out towards lefties (.152/.220/.174, 17 wRC+ in 50 PA), and that didn’t actually change throughout his grip-it-and-rip-it section (2-for-22 with 11 Ks), however the excellent news for him is that until the Padres begin Martín Pérez — who’s a giant step down from Dylan Stop, Michael King, Yu Darvish, and the injured Joe Musgrove — the Dodgers gained’t face any southpaw starters within the Division Collection. In Adrian Morejon, Yuki Matsui, Wandy Peralta, and Tanner Scott, San Diego has no scarcity of lefty bullpen choices if supervisor Mike Shildt wants a positive matchup, however Roberts has his personal levers to tug if that’s the case, with Enrique Hernández the most definitely possibility. I wouldn’t anticipate Lux to hold the Dodgers by the Division Collection by any means, however his in-season enchancment has lengthened their lineup, and he may effectively show to be a kind of low-in-the-lineup difference-makers that separate the winners from the losers in October.