Roundup: Anatomy of Mark Trumbo’s Home Runs

Every baseball fan’s guide to the galaxy: don’t panic based on one week’s worth of games. Despite being in the wake of two losses Down Under, the 2-5 week has no greater an impact on the season in early April than it would in the middle of June. That said, where the D-backs now sit is the opposite of the catbird’s seat in the NL West. With just 2 wins in 9 games, to now reach a playoff-likely mark of 88 wins, the team would have to go 86-67 the rest of the way. So is this team a team that can maintain a .562 winning percentage for the rest of the season?

The next four series: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York Mets, Dodgers again. It’s just early April, but we may learn a lot about this team in the next two weeks. And as strong as Tim Hudson was in his Giants debut against this team, I like the D-backs’ chances of taking two games in San Francisco, as the Giants also line up Tim Lincecum and Ryan Vogelsong.

It could be, then, that home runs remain the theme in the next week. By launching his 6th career home run off Lincecum last week, Paul Goldschmidt has hit a ridiculous 9% of all of his career home runs against just one man. And some guy named Mark Trumbo is in the midst of a club-record home run streak: 4 consecutive games with a dinger. We’ll see what Tim Hudson has to say about that.

Will Mark Trumbo hit bombs in most games going forward? Of course not. But if you thought he would hit 40 this season, you can revise that estimate to 43 or so. I thought it might be fun to take a look at the Trumbo at bats that resulted in home runs.

Home run #1: vs. Kenley Jansen, 0-0 count, Dodgers (Sydney Cricket Ground). This one was pretty simple. In the bottom of the 9th with 2 out, Trumbo got around on a fastball up and in. Sorry, no Pitchf/x data! But the home run was estimated at 352 feet.

Home run #2: vs. Tim Lincecum, 2-1 count, Giants (Chase Field). Trumbo fouled off a changeup low and in, took a high 91-mph fastball, and got a ball on slider that was actually in the zone (low, middle). Then Lincecum made a mistake: a middle-middle 82-mph slider that Trumbo crushed to center field. 435 feet.

Home run #3: vs. Juan Nicasio, 0-2 count, Rockies (Coors Field). No hitter’s count this time. Trumbo fouled off a slider up and in and a 92-mph fastball up and away, before, again, a mistake middle-middle 84-mph slider that Trumbo took to the left-center power alley. 446 feet.

Home run #4: vs. Jorge De La Rosa, 2-1 count, Rockies (Coors Field). Back to a hitter’s count, and back to the middle of the plate. Trumbo watched a slider in the dirt and a changeup that rolled harmlessly out of the zone, down and away. Trumbo then swung through a low and away changeup before De La Rosa went back to the change (84 mph) near the middle of the plate (right on the edge between middle-middle and middle-away). Opposite field this time, but still crushed: 395 feet.

Home run #5: vs. Brett Anderson, 2-0 count, Rockies (Coors Field). This one was fun. Anderson really missed the plate with a 88-mph fastball away, then threw a change in the dirt at Trumbo’s feet. Not sure what the point of that change was, or if it was just a miss, but it seemed to ready Trumbo for another pitch inside. That’s what he got: a 79-mph curveball that was actually off the plate, middle-high but in. Despite turning so much on a pitch that was already in close, Trumbo managed to keep it fair. 418 feet.

Not enough data to draw conclusions, of course. But so far, Mark Trumbo has hit into outs just twice when putting a ball into play in hitters counts. In hitters counts, Trumbo is 7 for 9 with 3 HR. He’s also feasted middle-high: 7 for 15 with 4 HR.

Also a little odd: Trumbo is just 3 for 21 on “hard” pitches (including that Australia HR), but 8 for 14 on “soft” pitches. So we’ll see if teams go back to fastballs low and away or up and away.

To the links:

• If you read one link this week, read the scouts’ notes on D-backs players that Nick Piecoro published at his blog. Specific to spring training, but extremely thorough, and, to me, extremely helpful, especially for the newer players and Cody Ross. The scouts are pretty frank; not a pair of rose-colored glasses in the bunch. This is not to say I agree with everything, though. The note that Gerardo Parra should start just three games a week reflects a backwards-looking approach to the game, and is just plain wrong. It’s not whether his skill set matches what is expected from right field. The only question that matters: does this player help the club win games more than another player?
• Nick Piecoro has the details on Dan Hudson’s financial arrangement: it’s $700,000 this year, with an option for $800,000 next year and a possible $300,000 in performance bonuses. The handshake part of the agreement had the team adding Hudson to the 40-man roster and putting him on the 15-day DL, which has been done. It looks like Hudson and the club are both thinking he could come back to contribute by the end of this season, which could be a great boost. In another addition of the blog, some really interesting notes about the Chase Field capacity being too big, and some of the changes the D-backs might consider to reduce capacity.
• Paul Goldschmidt’s hit streak ended at 26 games on Saturday, and the Snake Pit’s Jim McLennan has the details.
• Thomas Lynch of Venom Strikes notes that Didi Gregorius has been playing second base at AAA Reno, alongside SS Nick Ahmed. Weird for a shortstop whose strength is defense to be moved over? Yes. But Nick Ahmed is a plus plus defender, and moving him makes even less sense. If Aaron Hill went down with an injury, one wonders how the team would fill in. This Gregorius move is obviously related to that, but Eric Chavez could get more starts if Martin Prado moved over sometimes. If Hill went down and Gregorius got called up, it looks like Didi would get more starts than Cliff Pennington.
• The D-backs’ new D-Bat Dog got some national media attention in the last week. I’ll admit… I want one (but probably just one…).
• ESPN’s AJ Mass thinks that if the D-backs struggle through this next stretch of games — the Giants/Dodgers/Mets/Dodgers stretch mentioned above — Kirk Gibson could be on the hot seat or fired. What good would that do? I think Gibson has handled an unusual team with complicated moving parts very well. It’s early, and even then, it’ll be early. We’ll learn about the realism of our expectations after that stretch, but players gotta play.