Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
It’s weird to be writing about a hitter and trying to figure out what’s wrong as he’s leading the club in runs batted in and has a wRC+ 20% better than league average, but that’s exactly what’s happening here.
Teoscar Hernandez began the season on fire and it was looking like his 3-year deal was going to be an absolute steal (and, let’s be clear, it still is). He was one of the Dodgers’ best hitters and best run-producers in a time when guys like Michael Conforto and Max Muncy were struggling.
Then, he suffered a left groin strain that partially derailed him and put a damper on his early season hot streak.
| Date | BA | OBP | SLG | ISO | BB% | K% | wRC+ |
| Thru 5/5 | .315 | .333 | .600 | .330 | 2.9 | 18.4 | 160 |
| After 5/5 | .174 | .230 | .290 | .116 | 5.4 | 32.4 | 47 |
Now, a .600 slugging percentage and .330 isolated power weren’t exactly sustainable for him, but the fall off has been quite dramatic. The biggest change since coming back from the injury has been his propensity to chase.
Before the injury, he was running a 29% whiff rate. Not great, but not out of the ordinary for his career. Since he returned, that has increased to 35%. Funny enough, he’s running about the same HardHit% rate, but his overall exit velocity has increased by almost 4 MPH (86.8 to 90.5 MPH). The counter to that, however, has been a lower average launch angle (14 degrees down to 11). When he makes contact, he’s hitting it harder than he was before the injury, but he’s also hitting more grounders (39.6 GB% to 44.4) and fewer line drives (23.6 LD% to 17.8%).
Here’s a visual of the pitch heatmaps from the two time periods:
He has definitely expanded the strike zone since coming back. He’s also seeing fewer 4-seam fastballs and more sinkers, curveballs, cutters and sweepers. He’s seen more total sweepers (16) he returned from the injured list than he did before (14) in significantly fewer plate appearances (136 vs. 74). He’s hitting .050 (not a typo) against sweepers this season after hitting .262 against them last season. It’s the only pitch he has a sub-.250 batting average against and he has been completely ineffective against them this season. It’s a small sample size, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on going forward. Funny enough, Hernandez has been much better against sliders this season (-6 RV in 2024, +3 in 2025).
Since his return, Hernandez seeing more pitches that tend to be outside the strike zone at their most effective could not only lead to swinging at more pitches outside the zone, it could lead to making less contact outside the zone. And that’s exactly what has happened since Hernandez returned from injury.
- Thru 5/5: 53.8 O-Contact%
- After 5/5: 21.6 O-Contact%
That’s a steep decline. If he’s making less contact on pitches outside the zone, yet swinging at roughly the same rate (2 percentage point difference), that’s going to lead to an increase in whiffs and strikeouts. It’s also going to lead in a decline in production overall, but especially on those pitches that aren’t classified as being in the “heart” of the plate.
His production on “shadow” and “chase” zones paint a stark difference, despite his hitting metrics being better since he came back from injury.
| Date | BA | SLG | ISO | BABIP | Whiff | EV | HH% |
| Thru 5/5 | .246 | .421 | .175 | .300 | 39.1 | 79.4 | 16.7 |
| After 5/5 | .114 | .143 | .029 | .182 | 40.5 | 84.3 | 27.3 |
Is this a result of the injury or just regression to the mean? As was stated earlier, Hernandez wasn’t going to be as good as he was before the injury for the duration of the season, but he’s also not as “bad” as he’s been since coming back.
——
Hernandez is going to be fine. He’ll probably end up near his 2024 level of production when it comes to rate stats while falling slightly short on counting stats. He’ll make adjustments and either stop chasing as much or get back to being more effective while chasing and/or swinging at pitches just outside the strike zone. It remains to be seen if he’s still getting over the groin injury, but the Dodgers could definitely use more of the early season production Hernandez provided rather than the not-great version they’ve gotten since he returned.
