Are Ground Balls... Good? Carlos Correa's Low-Trajectory Liftoff - Caretaker Exclusive

[Parker Hageman]

Carlos Correa’s recent surge has been refreshing, and it’s going against the modern trends of hitting.

Image courtesy of © Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

Josh Donaldson is arguably the poster child for the new era of hitting. In an interview on MLB Network back in 2016, he explained his entire approach.

“If you're ten years old and your coach tells you to get on top of the ball, tell him no,” Donaldson said emphatically, staring into the Studio 42 camera. “Because in the big leagues, these things that they call ‘ground balls’ are outs. They don’t pay you for ground balls.”

Donaldson was coming off an MVP season with the Blue Jays, and he won the award by air raiding the entire league. He was second in the American League in slugging and third in home runs. He led the league in both runs scored and runs batted in. Elevating the baseball paid him handsomely.

Most hitters and organizational philosophies agreed. In today’s game, we see fewer ground balls than ever before. Apparently, those 10-year-olds (along with everyone else) listened to Donaldson. In 2024, just 42.9% of all batted balls in play have been the ground-ball variety – the lowest rate in the last 30 years.

While the league attempted to spice up the game by eradicating defensive shifts and biggie-sizing the bases, the results have mostly stayed the same in the new environment. In 2016, when teams could stack their infield to the pull side and gobble up any worm-burner ball headed their way, players had a batting average on ground balls in play of .246. All that maneuvering resulted in (or at least failed to prevent) an even lower batting average on ground balls: .242 this year. It would seem foolish for anyone to lean into this mess. But that’s exactly what Carlos Correa has done.

Often, when you start to see players heat up, you’ll find a common trend of them elevating the baseball more, hitting the ball harder, or pulling the ball more frequently. Pulled, hard-hit line drives and fly balls result in more home runs and extra bases. It's the signature and symbol of the Twins' approach. That’s not what happened with Correa, however.

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[bean5302]

If Correa's philosophy is to hit grounders, I don't think he's going to be successful long term as teams will just adapt their fielding positioning to try and take those hits away. Surprising to see his line drive rate at a terrible 10% since June. I guess he's getting it done and his xBA and xwOBA seem to both look good overall. Him putting the ball on the ground last year was the reason so many people felt it was a career low season. Seems risky to me.

[Karbo]

Whatever he's doing he needs to keep doing it!

[Dman]

So the moral of the story here is hitting the ball, even if on the ground is better than missing it all together and striking out? I thought most all data points said hard hit line drives were the best way to increase OPS?  Maybe this bat to contact stuff has some value after all.

[bean5302]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

So the moral of the story here is hitting the ball, even if on the ground is better than missing it all together and striking out? I thought most all data points said hard hit line drives were the best way to increase OPS?  Maybe this bat to contact stuff has some value after all.

Well, if you can hit it where they ain't, grounders are good, haha.

I've heard very good baseball players talking about how the game has changed over the past decade or two in terms of that approach. Back in the day, you could time things up on a 80mph changeup or a 85-90mph fastball. Today, so many pitchers are throwing their fastballs at 95mph or even 100mph there's just not a lot of leeway in between "just make some contact" and "try to hit it somewhere in particular"

In Correa's case, it's astonishing how many of the pitches he's seeing are "down and away"



Those pitches are extremely hard to lift up into line drives and hard fly balls. It sounds like Correa is trying to find a way to force pitchers to play fair and give him something in the zone. As the Twins lineup gets more and more dangerous, it'll be harder to cheat Correa as well. It's quite a testament to Correa's skills that he's able to find an approach which works. Opposing teams will have to make some decisions.
1. Throw strikes and hope Correa doesn't mash them.
2. Shift fielders to the middle and hope Correa doesn't adjust to pull the ball down the line.
3. Get killed by grounders up the middle.

[Jocko87]

He's practicing something to overemphasize a feeling that shows different results in real use. My golf instruction has had some similar stuff, I do a drill hitting half driver hooks on the range but in action it becomes a low (for me) fade. I assume he wants to stay on top of the high fastball, lest he hit all pop ups.  Derosa on MLB network did a feature about Miranda and his hand positions the other day.  It's all about the high fastball, the pitch in vouge to counter the fly ball era.

Any trend comes to a logical oversaturation and diminishing returns. High fly balls are outs almost as often as ground balls but only because of more ground to cover. The money has always been in a line drive. Add in the shift restrictions and it evens out a bit.

I've never thought the Popkins way was similar to what Donaldson describes, despite TD lore.  Correa is doing what good hitters do, work the at bat and hit what you're given. Sometimes it's a pitch to turn on, sometimes you go the other way.

[LambchoP]

Donaldson was a total dousche. Anyone else remember him getting ejected AFTER hitting a home run a few years back? That was so stupid, first time I'd ever seen that!

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

2 hours ago, LambchoP said:

Donaldson was a total dousche. Anyone else remember him getting ejected AFTER hitting a home run a few years back? That was so stupid, first time I'd ever seen that!

To be fair to Donaldson, while he is a total douche so is Dan Bellino. That I can remember his name tells me all I need to know about him as an ump, he's in it for personal glory. 

[Parfigliano]

Correa's hitting .310 13 HR and 47 RBI.  Throw in great D too.  I wish they had a couple more of him.

[Doctor Gast]

Correa isn't stupid. As a smart INFer, he knows the poor quality of defense of the INF (due to prioritizing bats) throughout the years & the ban of the shift created an opportunity to be taken advantage of. So that's what he's doing while focusing on maximizing his contact rate & minimizing SOs. 

More Twins should take advantage of this while focusing on improving our INF defense 

[Parker Hageman]

On 7/9/2024 at 1:48 PM, bean5302 said:

If Correa's philosophy is to hit grounders, I don't think he's going to be successful long term as teams will just adapt their fielding positioning to try and take those hits away...

Keep in mind he has 8 home runs in that span as well. It definitely has an element of picking his spots with the defensive alignment and how a pitcher is pitching to him. He punched a 3-2 pitch the other way for a hit against the White Sox this series with the second baseman playing him up the middle. 

Teams will certain counter -- that's baseball, after all -- but Correa has been a good example of a headsy player who added a tool to his tool box trying to eliminate a weakness. 

[Parfigliano]

Correa carry this team.

[specialiststeve]

Had said at the time that the "lift" and arc was a flawed approach as the bat and the contact point are such a small percentage... thus the bottoming out of the batting average... Getting back to fundamental "old school" baseball that the Twins have used this year is what baseball is supposed to look like. 

What is Truly amazing is how they have flipped the switch to the old school approach. Says how amazing these players really are considering the pace of the pitches these days. That is another discussion though...