The Evolution of Go Go: Goins Walks it Off



My fondness for Ryan Goins, at it's foundation, stems from the fact he has Jay Z's "U Don't Know" as his walk up music. "Turn my music high, high, high, high-er" -it's just good in a stadium.

It goes beyond that now because Ryan Goins, in the shadow of the epic play of Encarnacion and an MVP season for Donaldson, has quietly had a remarkable month of August. He put an exclamation mark on the start of September when he hit a tenth inning walk off homer against Cleveland. 

Goins has long been known as a second baseman with fantastic defence that nearly forgives his anaemic offence. Until August, he was mostly known for being who Jerry Howarth wanted to play SS over Jose Reyes, something that feels like two seasons ago rather than earlier in the year. 

Since July 26, when Goins became the everyday 2B, he has pushed his average up to .287, which is remarkable for him. What more remarkable is that his OPS is .802. This was a guy who seemed allergic to walking. Goins is currently riding an 11 game hit streak (EE's died last night at 26- an epic run.) 


"It's unbelievable, I can't even put it into words," Goins said of the walk-off two-run homer. "It's the best feeling in my career so far. ... You know what? I'd be lying if I didn't say I blacked out. I don't even know what happened, honestly. An unbelievable feeling and something I'll remember."


Post game, a rather misty Gibbons called Goins "remarkable" and talked about the adjustments he's made.

"To be honest, I thought his swing was a little bit long early on," Gibbons said. "If you have a big swing, you really have to have discipline. If you don't, you're chasing all of the time. You have to get started earlier because you got a longer swing.

"He tried some adjustments with that early in the [2014] season, didn't work right away and he abandoned it. This year, couple months in, he and [hitting coach] Brook [Jacoby] started doing that a little bit to flatten it out, and it has paid dividends. He's always held his own and hit pretty good down in the Minor Leagues, now he's getting the at-bats and that's a big part of it, too."

Blair

Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs talked about Goins' adjustment and points to the small adjustment in bat placement before he swings as the difference.

The thought is that Goins is a little quicker to the ball. By removing time from his swing, he buys a little extra time to look at the pitch, which can be beneficial for plate discipline. Discipline is part about eyes, and part about hitting mechanics. The argument now is the mechanics let Goins exercise better control of the zone. It’s hard to swing that much less often by accident. Goins has clearly been more patient, nearly equalling his previous walk total in a fifth of the plate appearances. I didn’t know pitchers were throwing Ryan Goins that many balls, but, here we are.
The piece also links to Jeff Blair's post about the change, with a quote from Goins himself:

“The change was made because the hitting coaches (Brook Jacoby and Eric Owens) knew I wasn’t going to be playing a lot when everybody was healthy – that I was going to be a utility guy – so the idea was to make myself as simple as possible at the plate so I wouldn’t get blown away by velocity.”

It's especially exciting to see this happening because this is the kind of thing winning teams do. It's one thing for the Encarnacions and Bautistas and Donaldsons of a team to drive an offence (which they certainly do) but it's the more fringe guys like Goins who need to contribute to push them over the top. It's starting to feel almost magical.



As Sullivan puts it, "Over recent weeks, Ryan Goins has resembled a legitimate, quality middle infielder. Yeah, he’s been about as good as he could ever dream of being. He’s going to walk less often than this. But, this is Ryan Goins. Consider what used to be Ryan Goins. It really is a small miracle. I don’t know who’s next, but if it can be Goins, it can be anyone."

In other news, to the shock of no one, Edwin Encarnacion was AL Player of the Month for August. He had a league-best .407 average for August, hitting 11 homers and driving in 35 runs over that span. He also finished first in the league in slugging percentage (.907) and extra-base hits (21).

Which is pretty okay. Encarnacion has this amazing ability to get blisteringly hot during a portion of a season. He's done it a few times over the five seasons he's been here, and it very fun. Encarnacion's natural shyness about talking to the media on camera is endearing (though I'm sure it drives the tv/radio guys mental.)


Also pretty okay, Marcus Stroman is actually facing live hitters in Single A Lansing tonight. Ben Lindbergh talked about the science behind Stroman recovered ACL.

“I store all those thoughts in my head, and every single time I’m in the weight room when I’m training, that’s everything that motivates and pushes me,” Stroman says, sounding like Arya Stark before bedtime. “I knew it was just going to be another reason for people to doubt me, to count me out or to say, ‘Oh, he’s not going to be able to come back from this,’ or ‘He’s not going to be the same pitcher.’”
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler talked to the man himself. For a fun branding experiment, Stroman should say "Stroman" in place of every time he says "Man." 

It's a great interview.  What a remarkable person.

Lansing brings a camel to the ball park for Wednesdays. This is the camel.