The French Canadian God of Plate Discipline (and Hitting)

[Aaron Weiland]

Everyone who watches the games knows from the eye test that Eddy Julien has an elite eye at the plate. But, just how elite is it? And is that all that is making him special right now?

 

Quick Glossary of terms before we begin for the uninitiated:

1. O-Swing%: Percentage of pitches outside the strike zone that the batter swings at
2. Z-Swing%: Percentage of pitches inside the strike zone that the batter swings at
3. O-Contact%: Percentage of swings on pitches outside the strike zone in which the batter makes contact
4. Z-Contact%: Percentage of swings on pitches in the strike zone in which the batter makes contact
5. Barrel%: Percentage of batted ball events that meet or exceed 98 MPH exit velo, within a specific launch angle range based on the exit velo. Most dangerous category of batted balls

 

Let's start with O-Swing%. Among MLB hitters with 200 PAs or more, Edouard Julien has the lowest O-Swing% at 18.9%. Second place is Juan Soto with 19%. There are only 5 hitters in the entire major leagues with an O-Swing% at or below 20%:

1. Edouard Julien (18.9%)
2. Juan Soto (19%)
3. Mookie Betts (19%)
4. Lamonte Wade Jr. (19.7%)
5. Travis Jankowski. (19.9%)

So, Eddy doesn't chase. At all. He's the best in the league at not swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. But is this just the result of passivity? If you or I go to the plate in the MLB and only swing when the ball is middle-middle (or not at all), our O-Swing% would look elite. So to find out if this is passivity or discipline, we need to look at his Z-Swing%. Here are those same five hitters from earlier, but listed with their Z-Swing%:

1. Edouard Julien (68.4%)
2. Juan Soto (59.1%)
3. Mookie Betts (64%)
4. Lamonte Wade Jr. (64.1%)
5. Travis Jankowski (60.3%)

Edouard Julien is THE most aggressive hitter in zone among hitters in MLB with an O-Swing% below 20%, while simultaneously swing at THE fewest number of pitches outside the zone. In terms of league wide aggressiveness vs. passivity, his 68.4% Z-Swing% would put him right near the median in the league, so he is not even passive relative to the league as a whole. There is only one conclusion you can draw from this. Edouard Julien, at least right now, makes the best overall swing decisions in the major leagues. Better than Juan Soto and Mookie Betts.

But, swing decisions are only one aspect of hitting. It doesn't matter if your O-Swing% is 0 and your Z-Swing% is 100 if all of your batted balls look like mine, right? Right. Enter Barrel% and HardHit%.

Of MLB hitters with 200 PAs or more, here are the list of hitters with an O-Swing% at or below 25%, a Barrel Rate at or above 15%, and a HardHit% at or above 40%:

1. Aaron Judge
2. Matt Chapman
3. Mike Trout
4. Jack Suwinski, and......
5. Edouard Julien

Jack Suwinski you may not have heard much about because he only broke out this year, but the other 3 you KNOW to be some of the best hitters in the sport, and two of them are some of the best hitters of all time. That's some good company.

So, what is the catch here? Well, part of what makes Edouard Julien such a strange profile of a hitter is his propensity to Whiff and K. Generally you find this level of elite swing decisions on profiles of hitters like LaMonte Wade or Jankowski who mostly sell out for contact. So let's take that first list of hitters, and I am going to list their (O-Contact%/Z-Contact%) like so:

1. Edouard Julien (52.4%/79.3%)
2. Juan Soto (63.1%/90.5%)
3. Mookie Betts (61.1%/93.6%)
4. Lamonte Wade Jr (60.4%/89.0%)
5. Travis Jankowski (79.4%/93.4%)

These are, as you can see, some quite remarkable differences. In fact, Edouard Julien's contact profile is closer to Joey Gallo's career numbers (42.6%/71.7%) than it is to his fellow plate discipline Kings.

Part of what makes Juan Soto, and to a lesser extent Mookie Betts, so unique is he is able to control this zone this well while not having to sell out for either contact or power. He will hit some HRs, he will hit for AVG, he will not chase, he will not swing and miss. Eddy Julien, on the other hand, controls his zone even better than Juan Soto does, but when he swings he is generally looking to do massive damage more than making contact. And he is getting the results while doing so, as neither Mookie Betts or Juan Soto outperform his Barrel%. But it comes at the cost of lower Contact rates and, as a result, more Ks.

This is, in my opinion, absolutely the space to watch as Eddy develops and improves. I think it is clear his current approach right now will absolutely play. But MLB hitters are always looking to improve. Can he increase his swing contact rates without sacrificing his power approach? If he can, he will become a no-doubt top 5-10 hitter in the sport.

I'm curious what you guys think, do you like his one-of-a-kind approach, or do you think he'd produce even better if he went bent more into the Juan Soto, balanced approach archetype?

[RpR]

It depends on if the pitchers figure his game out and adjust.

[SwainZag]

Honestly, you gotta love what you see, but I think it's way too small of a sample size.  Julien has also almost only hit right handed pitching (phenomenally btw) as well, while most of the other players on your lists are doing it against everyone.  What he does against RHP, yes I love his approach and has a chance to be a very special bat.

Julien has a whole 29 PA against left handed pitching.  Triple slash of .207/207/207, good for an OPS of .414.  I understand they have shielded him from left handed pitching, but he needs to be at least adequate against southpaws.  

[Linus]

He really has a knack for identifying strikes. And he doesn’t seem to be guessing which is a breath of fresh air compared to some of his teammates. I still subscribe to TKs theory that you don’t really know what you have until they get 1000-1500 at bats. 
who is this LaMonte Wade guy?  Name is familiar…….

[chpettit19]

He's got the approach down. Agree 100% with @SwainZag that he needs to figure out lefties if he wants to be looked at in the same view as Soto and Betts. And he needs to pick up his contact percentage. That can be done by cutting his swing down a little with 2 strikes to play for more contact, but it may also just come naturally from more reps and getting a better feel for individual pitchers and their stuff. Will be fun to track his career and see how he adjusts.