Bryce Eldridge, Samuel Basallo Headline 10 Statcast Standouts (June 23)

10 Statcast Standouts

Bryce Eldridge, 1B, Giants

Aaron Judge paved the way, and now several six-foot-seven sluggers are following in his footsteps, intent on changing the narrative on what is possible to achieve with a massive frame. It’s rare to be able to give a player top-of-the-scale power, but Eldridge’s combination of raw power (80-grade 90th EV, 80-grade average EV) and hard-hit launch angles strongly suggest that as a reasonable projection.

When we look at Eldridge’s Statcast card, we see a potential hole against sliders, breaking balls and offspeed pitches, especially when he chases. Let’s take a look at his deep dive charts and see what they tell us.

Keeping in mind that we’re talking about a very small sample of pitches, we do see some patterns emerging here. The bad: Eldridge has trouble barrelling sliders at the bottom of the zone, especially below the zone. The good: He absolutely crushes hanging sliders, with elite damage-on-contact somewhat offsetting the swing-and-miss.

This will present a challenge against major league pitching, who will command sliders better, but Eldridge is not swinging recklessly at a lot of bad pitches:

It’s not a pristine swing decision profile, but we’re also talking about a player who is very young and only switched to full-time hitting last season. This is likely to improve substantially as he adjusts to Triple-A pitching.

Eldridge’s performance against breaking balls (again, very small sample) is a tad more worrisome, as he is struggling mightily against pitches down and away.

He’s also struggling a little to make great swing decisions against curves and sweepers, though he hasn’t gotten a ton of “cookies” yet. The Giants will likely want to see some improvement here.

Eldridge against four-seamers is a different story altogether: Elite damage everywhere in the zone, with almost no swing-and-miss.

We also see how he leaves the pitches down and away and attacks the pitches in the upper half of the zone. That’s a very targeted, disciplined approach, and it provides optimism that he’ll be able to improve his decisions against sliders and breaking balls.

Eldridge is a rare power bat with the elite power potential and enough bat-to-ball to suggest he’ll be a middle-of-the-order-type bat for a very long time. He needs time to work on his approach against non-fastballs, but when that starts showing up, he’ll be more than ready to make a few splashes in McCovey Cove.

Samuel Basallo, C, Orioles

We took a look at Basallo about a month ago and marveled at his precocious ability to barrel pitches almost everywhere in the zone. Since then, he’s improved his 90th percentile exit velocity and average exit velocity, and he is getting the ball in the air even more. While his early metrics were impressive, his larger sample metrics are even more astounding, especially when you account for his age.

Theoretically, Basallo’s discipline and contact metrics against fastballs aren’t stellar. He whiffs at an above-average rate, chases a lot and isn’t overly aggressive in the zone. However, whenever he puts one in play, he’s one of the most dangerous hitters on the planet. Let’s see what that looks like in more granular detail:

This is one of the most eye-opening, mind-blowing, jaw-droppingly good damage on contact profiles you’ll ever see. Basallo’s ability to generate hard contact in the air, from his ankles to his midsection, demonstrates an incredible ability to crush almost any fastball, in any location. No fastball is safe. Are we really concerned that he likes to chase the fastball above the zone? Perhaps, but he’s also crushing those pitches, so the pitcher has to take the risk of not quite getting it all the way above the zone and paying the price.

The major impact of this profile is that there is no real safe spot for a pitcher to attack Basallo with a fastball, expect perhaps down and in. Indeed, we can see, he’ll pretty much entirely lay off of fastballs located inside:

He’s picking and choosing which fastballs to pounce on, and excelling when he picks the right ones. While he doesn’t have to make better swing decisions to be successful, any improvements there will only further magnify his prodigious potential.

Righties will likely want to attack him low-and-away with changeups. We see that he’ll swing over it when well located out of the zone, but if it creeps up, even into the bottom right corner, he can absolutely crush it. The threat of Basallo mashing a hanging changeup will make it a risky proposition, especially for pitchers with shaky command.

Pitchers who attempt to sneak a curveball in for a strike will be in for a rude awakening if he recognizes the pitch early enough.

We also see that he doesn’t chase very many breaking balls below the zone. He could perhaps stand to be a little more aggressive, though, especially with two strikes.

Basallo is also crushing sliders in the zone, with three home runs. There’s pretty much no pitch type that a pitcher can feel safe throwing him in the zone. He’ll likely benefit tremendously from improving his swing decisions, but even with where he’s at right now, we’re talking about elite level damage on contact potential.

Caden Dana, RHP, Angels

Dana has the classic pronator’s arsenal, but with a clear weakness: He doesn’t get nearly enough ride on his fastball and doesn’t throw it hard enough to make up for it. Despite that, he throws the pitch over 50% of the time to righties and roughly 60% of the time to lefties—with very poor results. So how do you make this work? We need look no further than former org mate Griffin Canning:

Dana and Canning have very similar fastballs. They’re equivalent in velocity and shape and both below major league average. Canning has reduced his usage of the pitch to roughly 34% in order to hide it as much as possible. They also have broadly similar sliders, with Canning’s coming in a few ticks harder and showing similar “death ball” shape. Canning throws his version as his primary offering to righties, and it may serve Dana well to up the usage of his slider even more and perhaps throw a variant a few ticks harder, if possible. Canning’s changeup is simply better, coming in harder than Dana’s with more depth. Dana’s changeup is still getting good results, but there is room for improvement shape-wise.

A key difference maker is the bridge cutter than Canning throws. He mixes it in roughly 6% of the time against righties, helping to mask the movement profiles of the fastball and slider. It’s a narrow path for Dana to walk, but Canning has largely paved it for him. The Angels would be wise to learn from what the Mets have been doing with Canning.

Luis Morales, RHP, Athletics

Morales’ raw tools are phenomenal. He has plus velocity from a low slot and an electric feel for spin, as he hits roughly 2900 rpm on his sweeper and almost 2800 on his cutter. These traits give Morales a very high ceiling, but he does have some challenges.

The fastball is an above-average pitch, but it is only effective against righties. His low, wide slot allows lefties to see the ball very well, and they’ve crushed those pitches, whiffing only four times total to this point. Developing an effective arsenal against lefties can be a challenge for pitchers of this ilk, especially when they don’t have a dominant changeup.

Most of the pitches classified here as cutters are actually sweepers. The quality of the pitch has allowed him a measure of success, albeit much greater against righties than lefties. The changeup, used exclusively against lefties, has performed exceptionally well, getting whiffs on over half of swings. He may be well served to significantly increase his usage of the pitch, as well as the cutter.

Let’s zoom out a bit. Against righties, Morales is getting whiffs on 40% of swings and 18% of pitches. Against lefties, it’s a much more paltry 17.2% and 7.7%, respectively. This makes putting Morales up against lefty-heavy lineups a major challenge. The upside here is substantial, but he’ll need to figure out how to get lefties out if he wants to turn lineups over multiple times.

Chase DeLauter, OF, Guardians

DeLauter has one of the easier profiles to break down. It’s plus-or-better contact skills with elite swing decisions against all pitch types and plus-plus raw power. The only flaw is the present inability to get the ball in the air. He’s definitely worthy of a headline feature, which we’ll save for later this year when we’ve accumulated more data.

Jesus Rodriguez, C/3B, Yankees

This profile screams “viable major league bat”. While there’s nothing exciting about the exit velocity profile, he has at least 45-grade raw power, along with 70-grade bat-to-ball ability. He’s too aggressive, but he makes a ton of contact, including high-quality chase contact. On top of that, he’s hit at every level:

Year	Batting Average	wRC+
2021	.294	132
2022	.348	174
2023	.310	134
2024	.302	145
2025	.312	119

Sometimes, a player’s on-field performance profile exactly matches his analytical profile. Rodriguez is going to hit for a good average and sneak in enough home run power to keep pitchers honest.

Ben Peoples, RHP, Rays

Any time you see a four-seam fastball on top of or the left of the zero line, it means the pitch is more of a cutter than a fastball. The pure vertical nature of the pitch makes it theoretically platoon neutral, allowing Peoples to use it against righties and lefties over 70% of the time. That said, the pitch has been dominant against righties but much less so against lefties. He mixes in a hard slider at 89 mph that generates a ton of whiffs, making him an interesting late-inning option.

Add Peoples to the list of Rays pitchers who become interesting bullpen pieces later in their careers.

Wyatt Sanford, SS, Pirates

Sanford has the type of profile I love to dream on. He makes great swing decisions and a ton of contact against fastballs. He gets the ball in the air and does more damage on air contact than overall. However, the raw power just isn’t there yet. This is where the wishful thinking comes in. This profile is interesting as is, however. And if he can add enough bat speed to get that raw power to average, we’re suddenly looking at an impact bat.

Sanford is still very young, so there’s plenty of time for him to grow into it. Keep an eye on this one.

Marco Luciano, OF, Giants

It’s been a long and winding road for Luciano, but it looks like he’s finally starting to display the raw power that was promised many years ago. He’s showing easy 70-grade raw power and making his best contact in the air—promising signs of power potential. It’s coming at the expense of bat-to-ball, but it’s very encouraging to see him hit the ball this hard. Nearly all of his power metrics are up significantly—by at least 3-4 mph—so he may need a little bit of time to re-adjust to swinging this hard.

I’d love to see Luciano get a shot away from the Giants, as a change of scenery might do him wonders. He was formerly a consensus top prospect, and while he might never reach the lofty expectations put on him many years ago, he could still be a premium power bat just waiting for an opportunity to prove those rankings right.

Anthony Seigler, C/2B, Brewers

Seigler was the fourth-ranked prospect in the Yankees system way back in 2019, but he struggled mightily, and he was granted free agency this past offseason. The Brewers scooped him up, and it looks like the change of scenery has worked wonders for him.

Seigler has one of the more unusual profiles you’ll ever see. His 90th percentile exit velocity and maximum exit velocity are significantly below-average, rating as roughly a 35 or 40 on the 20-80 scale. However, his average exit velocities—both overall and in the air—are well above-average. This can be interpreted in one of two ways: Either he’s been very lucky, and the averages will regress to the raw power, or he has a knack for making consistent hard contact, and he’ll out-perform his raw power.

The rest of his profile is sparkling, as evidenced by exceptional swing decisions against all pitch types, great contact quality in the zone against all pitch types and above-average zone contact. If you buy the average exit velocities in this profile, as opposed to the top-end exit velocities, this is a very exciting hitter who has taken a massive leap forward.

Regardless, this is a massive win for the Brewers’ player acquisition and development departments.