Article: Rowdy Tellez Should Change His Approach at the Plate to Reach All-Star Levels

[Tim Muma]

After joining the Milwaukee Brewers in the middle of 2021, Rowdy Tellez finally got the opportunity to play full-time in 2022, and he responded with 35 home runs and 89 RBI. Many see an even bigger year coming in 2023 with the new shift rules, but Tellez should use an adjustment in his plate discipline to take full advantage of restricted shifting.

Image courtesy of © Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

The conversation around plate discipline typically centers on refraining from chasing pitches outside the strike zone. If Rowdy Tellez is going to take the next step with the Brewers, though, he has to be more aggressive, especially on pitches in the zone. While there's value in working longer at-bats and seeing many pitches, it can be an overall negative to watch too many meatballs go by, missing the chance to produce damage. Before we get further into Tellez's plate discipline, let's look at the superficial stats.

Tellez owned a 10.4% walk percentage (BB%) in 2022, which was good for 31st in MLB. That marked his career-best BB%, 2.1% higher than his career average. Unfortunately, it only translated into a .306 OBP, tied for 100th among qualified hitters. The low OBP stems from Tellez's meager .215 batting average. Despite the lower-than-ideal OBP and average, Tellez's power stroke helped balance out his production with a .461 slugging percentage last season (37th in MLB). Yet for a man with the eighth-most homers in baseball, his 115 OPS+ in 2022 felt underwhelming. Tellez's OPS+ ranked just 63rd out of 129 qualified batters.

While hitting into the shift had something to do with the low average and muted OPS+, several other trends are as significant. Simply put, Tellez takes too many pitches that he could crush. Taking too many strikes can also put a hitter on his heels and at a disadvantage too often. Two key stats from 2022:

• Swung at 60.5% of pitches in the strike zone (Z-Swing%), the seventh-lowest percentage in MLB
• Had a 19.5% called strike percentage (CStr%), the 17th-highest percentage in MLB

That is a lot of hittable pitches in no danger of causing problems for opposing hurlers. Not only are many of these pitches wasted, they often put the hitter behind in the count and on the defensive. Considering Tellez was in the 98th percentile for maximum exit velocity in 2022 and the 80th percentile or better in average exit velocity, Barrel%, and HardHit%, more hacks earlier in counts could be a game-changer.


Another visualization of Tellez's missed opportunities last season can be seen in Statcast's swing-take zone mapping. As you can see below, there are four attack regions for a hitter:

• Heart: The ideal hitting zone in the middle of the plate, well within the top and bottom of the strike zone
• Shadow: This region is split in half vertically and horizontally both inside the strike zone and outside of it
• Chase: The area outside the strike zone that is tempting enough to make hitters chase high velocity or quality movement
• Waste: Well outside of the strike zone, where only free swingers and desperately fooled hitters take cuts

Statcast takes the data from these regions to create a run value based on the outcome of the pitch in each section (walk, home run, strikeout, etc.). If you peek back at Tellez's illustration above, he had a -4 run value on pitches in the heart of the zone and -8 runs in the shadow region. His 2022 rankings in each area:

• Heart - 130th
• Shadow - 87th
• Chase - 116th
• Waste - 96th 

The place to do the most damage is in the heart of the plate, and to do that, more swings (and hard contact) are necessary. Especially with MLB limiting defensive shifting in 2023, Tellez needs to take advantage by worrying less about taking pitches and more about hitting mistakes. As he has gotten more playing time over the past two seasons, the shifting increased against him, making a big difference in his weighted on-base average (wOBA).


Tellez also saw his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) plummet to .215 last season. The combination of shifting and rotten luck played a significant role for a player with a career .255 BABIP. These numbers should excite Brewers fans for 2023, and motivate Tellez to get more hacks in. Last year, he hit 129 ground balls into the shift and picked up just 16 hits (.124 average). With only two defenders on the right side of second base, coupled with Tellez's 86th-percentile average exit velocity, more hits should be coming. And if he puts even more balls in play, the production increases further. In fact, his expected batting average in 2022 was .252 vs. his actual .219 mark.

Hopefully, Tellez and the Brewers at least discuss an altered strategy at the dish. It's challenging to modify a hitter's tendency mid-career, but adjusting to changing environments and results is essential. Many people have suggested that Tellez is a strong breakout candidate because of the shifting rules. If he can also lose his patience more often, Tellez could find himself among the best offensive first basemen in the league and on the All-Star roster.

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[JohnBriggs12]

Before suggesting a hitter coming off a 35 HR 89 RBI season with several late inning very high leverage game tying HR change his approach, I think we should see how the shift ban affects his numbers.  Changing his approach is not without risk.

[Jake McKibbin]

Is there any particular situation in which he should change his approach that you've noticed?

[Brock Beauchamp]

22 minutes ago, JohnBriggs12 said:

Before suggesting a hitter coming off a 35 HR 89 RBI season with several late inning very high leverage game tying HR change his approach, I think we should see how the shift ban affects his numbers.  Changing his approach is not without risk.

Dunno, the evidence Tim presents here is pretty convincing. To have such a low swing percentage on balls in the zone and be negative value on the most hittable pitches is something that should absolutely be addressed. 

[Tim Muma]

27 minutes ago, JohnBriggs12 said:

Before suggesting a hitter coming off a 35 HR 89 RBI season with several late inning very high leverage game tying HR change his approach, I think we should see how the shift ban affects his numbers.  Changing his approach is not without risk.

Certainly there is a risk in making changes; however, the league also makes adjustments to attack players' weaknesses and tendencies. So staying the course carries its own risks. Considering his late-inning heroics last season, you can argue he shouldn't change his approach - in those situations. But there's no reason a Major Leaguer can't have one, general approach for the majority of their at-bats, but alter that approach in certain scenarios.

As noted in the piece, the concern is the little amount of damage he did on pitches in the heart of the plate. While the home runs are terrific, he left a LOT of production behind. For an offense who had consistency issues, I'd argue that 5 fewer home runs from Tellez, but an increase in AVG/OBP/SLG is better for the Brewers overall (and Tellez himself).

[Tim Muma]

33 minutes ago, jakedood said:

Is there any particular situation in which he should change his approach that you've noticed?

Tough to point out specific situations, in part because the more you break it down, the more you can argue small sample sizes of course. I think it's more in his day-to-day approach. Statistically, according to Baseball Reference's "Leverage" stats, his approach is working in high leverage, but terrible in "medium leverage." Sometimes a 2-run double in the 5th inning of a 2-run game is more "valuable" than a hit in a high leverage situation.  

Or wouldn't it have been nice if a few times last season the Brewers turned a 2-1 lead into a 5-1 lead instead of playing a tense, one-run game that tore through their bullpen. So I think it's more of a big-picture approach and how it would improve Tellez and the offense over the course of the entire season.

[LakeshoreLarry]

Your article gave us some great information on Tellez's hitting tendencies and your conclusions and suggestions are logical and well thought out.  Thanks!

[Matthew Trueblood]

1 hour ago, JohnBriggs12 said:

Before suggesting a hitter coming off a 35 HR 89 RBI season with several late inning very high leverage game tying HR change his approach, I think we should see how the shift ban affects his numbers.  Changing his approach is not without risk.

That’s definitely true. AND, be sure not to overlook the risks that come with NOT changing his approach, too. The league is always adjusting. If you’re not making at least minor changes, pitchers will find and detonate your weak points. I think Tim makes a cogent argument for a change with Rowdy, but you’re absolutely right that every change risks losing some of what your established way of doing things was doing well.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The article fails to mention the possibility that Tellez's approach with taking seemingly hittable pitches could have alot to do with scouting reports and him keying in on a certain pitch/location early in counts - if he's sitting on offspeed trying to jump on a get me over strike and the pitcher instead throws a mid 90's cutter, he's not going to do anything with that pitch.  It's easy to say, "Get more aggressive at pitches that wind up being in the heart of the zone" - but the approach Tellez has used to become a 30+ HR slugger at the highest level of the game appears to be one where he works counts as much as possible and likely is sitting on certain pitches in spots.  We've got to remember that he's never been considered an all-world hitting talent that can adjust to any pitch at any time - his swing path is actually quite long, which to me indicates he prefers to try and get into predictable hitter's counts to key in on a fastball headed for the strike zone to do damage...and until he gets to those counts he's probably got a specific pitch and location he's keyed in on to actually swing.  Nothing wrong with that approach.  For a guy like Tellez, limited shifting should lead to higher BABIP just by default with the exact same approach he has, so I wouldn't change a thing and hope for better luck to generate better offensive production overall while maintaining quality slugging output.

[Jake McKibbin]

2 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

The article fails to mention the possibility that Tellez's approach with taking seemingly hittable pitches could have alot to do with scouting reports and him keying in on a certain pitch/location early in counts - if he's sitting on offspeed trying to jump on a get me over strike and the pitcher instead throws a mid 90's cutter, he's not going to do anything with that pitch.  It's easy to say, "Get more aggressive at pitches that wind up being in the heart of the zone" - but the approach Tellez has used to become a 30+ HR slugger at the highest level of the game appears to be one where he works counts as much as possible and likely is sitting on certain pitches in spots.  We've got to remember that he's never been considered an all-world hitting talent that can adjust to any pitch at any time - his swing path is actually quite long, which to me indicates he prefers to try and get into predictable hitter's counts to key in on a fastball headed for the strike zone to do damage...and until he gets to those counts he's probably got a specific pitch and location he's keyed in on to actually swing.  Nothing wrong with that approach.  For a guy like Tellez, limited shifting should lead to higher BABIP just by default with the exact same approach he has, so I wouldn't change a thing and hope for better luck to generate better offensive production overall while maintaining quality slugging output.

He had a god awful BABIP last year too, which played a big part in it. He doesn't strike out much at all, I think he's prime candidate for a big big season

[igor67]

I'm in a bit of middle ground here, Tellez's approach may have been a natural outcome of the shifting on him where he started to layoff certain kinds of hittable pitches, because they were just too easy to hit into hard outs. But on the other hand this analysis does point to him being a big enough outlier that he may have also fallen too far into that passive approach regardless. It's collectively unlikely but there are a lot of players who could have very big bounces offensively this season.