Can Connor Wong Maintain His Success?

Red Sox catcher Connor Wong is amidst a breakout year at the plate. Per Stathead, Wong is leading catchers with at least 100 PA with a .857 OPS.

One of the biggest and most impressive changes that Wong made is that his strikeout rate is down 15% and his contact on pitches in-zone is up 8%. When we see major contact changes like this, they are typically tied to a swing adjustment. When comparing video from last season to this season, it appears that Wong made several changes to his swing.

Starting with pre-pitch, Wong made two major changes:

1. His hands are starting higher and his bat is less vertical.
2. His stance is slightly more closed. His knees are more bent.

Watching more video from 2023 will reveal that later in the season, Wong was trying out an even more open stance pre-pitch. It is likely that he started experimenting with some changed starting in August/September of last year before finding his adjusted swing in the off-season.

This next part is easier to visualize in the video above, but Wong eliminated a mid-delivery toe tap.

Instead, he raises his front foot and moves it to be more in-line with his back foot for contact.

At load, there is more separation between his bat/hands and his body. There is also slightly less counter-rotation and he is standing slightly straighter up.

Lastly, at contact his front foot is remaining planted. In 2023, his toes would elevate and his weight would be on the heel of his foot. This season’s swing with his front foot planted looks a lot more controlled and balanced.

So far, the swing seems to be allowing Wong to reach more balls in-zone. Overall, it seems to be simplifying movement and creating more overall balance.

Can Wong Sustain this Pace?

Due to his swing changes, I believe Wong can maintain his improved contact rate. However, I expect regression in his surface stats and strikeout rate through the second half of the season.

1. Contact Quality is Below Average

A big factor in Wong’s surface stats is how good his SLG is, at .459. However, his .388 xSLG puts him in only the 39^th percentile of the league.

This stark difference is coming from his results against left-handed pitchers. While the actual vs expected SLG and ISO against right-handed pitchers are similar, there is a bigger gap when Wong faces left-handed pitchers.

This can be visualized using heat maps from TruMedia:

Wong has better contact quality on more pitches against right-handed pitchers in-zone than against left-handed pitchers.

So as the sample size grows and Wong faces more left-handed pitchers, it is likely that the results get closer to those in his splits.

Now going back to looking at overall contact quality, another hesitation I have is where in-zone he is doing damage. Based on Wong’s overall heat map below, it looks like Wong is doing damage almost exclusively mid-level on the inner half:

This provides opportunities for opposing pitchers to expose Wong on the outer half and upper half.

The final hesitation I have with his contact quality is the type of hit Wong is getting. Looking at his spray chart (via Baseball Savant), we can see that Wong’s success is mostly coming in the form of singles:

The location of these singles, coupled with a high .394 BABIP, indicates that many of these hits were luck-based.  

2. Swing Decisions are Below Average

In addition to improving his contact rates, Wong also improved his swing decisions this season. However, when looking at his plate discipline compared to MLB average, Wong’s plate discipline is still below average.

Note: While Wong’s zone swing rate is above average, we cannot say that his plate discipline is above average. This stat alone is misleading because Wong also swings overall at pitches at a rate that is 5% higher than MLB average. Therefore in this case, the walk rate and chase rate are more telling of his ability.

The combination of below average contact quality and below average plate discipline leaves us with a contact hitter who does not provide high quality contact.

Concluding Thoughts

It is clear Wong put a lot of work into creating a more contact-oriented swing, and is reaping the rewards. However, it also seems that Wong is lacking in other important areas like contact quality and plate discipline. These two below average skills indicate that Wong will see regression as the season progresses in his surface stats and his strikeout rate.