Another level to Oscar Mercado’s game? How he’s showing Indians it’s true
T.J. Zuppe Mar 18, 2019 20
GOODYEAR, Ariz. — It was the first week of December. Some were gearing up for the holiday season. Others were dreaming of sugarplums and deserved time off.
Oscar Mercado was fixated on his swing.
“He came in for two weeks to Cleveland,” Mike Chernoff said. “Nobody does that.”
Mercado journeyed north on two occasions to participate in the team’s offseason swing clinics. Each time, he met with the Indians’ development staff, seeking ideas on how to become a more complete player.
Then, he carried those concepts back to Tampa, where he continued to refine his offense.
As a result of that winter work, Mercado’s place on their radar has been affirmed. He’s opened eyes with an impressive stat line. He has stood out as a bright spot in an outfield lacking shine. Most important, a lot of the elements he targeted this winter have translated.
“He worked so hard in the offseason, trying to kind of revamp his swing,” Terry Francona said. “I don’t care if it’s spring training or not, he’s swinging the bat really well.”
Mercado, the 24-year-old prospect acquired from the Cardinals in July, had already made the successful transition from shortstop to center field a few years ago (though, he considers his early days in the outfield to have been “a circus”). His speed was already a factor. He had even added a bit more pop over the past two years. But he wanted more.
Mercado had already been working with a private hitting instructor, Aaron Capista, a former second-round pick of the Red Sox in 1997. But Mercado also wanted to make sure his offseason work meshed with the Indians’ development path.
So, with baseball’s Winter Meetings underway, Capista and Mercado’s agent, Jason Romano, sat down with Alex Eckelman, the Tribe’s assistant director of player development, to ensure the delivery of a coherent message.
“It worked out perfectly,” Mercado said. “When we met, they asked me what I felt like I needed to work on this offseason. I told them I just wanted to work on driving the ball a little more consistently, especially center, right-center.”
Of course, driving the ball isn’t an uncommon theme given the growing appreciation for keeping the ball off the ground. Mercado understands his speed is still an asset, but he also wanted to make sure he was ready to unload when a hurler made a mistake.
Extremely pleased with Mercado’s response, the organization mapped out a similar idea for how they felt his game could blossom. Then, they formulated a plan for getting him to that level.
“That was something that helped out a lot,” Mercado said. “Just getting taught the same thing from different minds.
“The fact that they kind of sat me down and told me what they thought (was key). My biggest thing was like, ‘OK, so, if I’m here, how can I get there?’ That was my biggest question mark, my biggest starting point this offseason to kind of get to that next level.”
Mercado already had the makings of an interesting prospect. Acquired at the trade deadline in a prospect-for-prospects swap, the right-handed hitter’s offense had just started to show. He was always a stolen-base threat, but in 2017, he flashed a little power, smacking 13 homers at Double A.
When the Indians snagged him last year in an under-the-radar move, he was in the midst of another above-average offensive campaign, this time at Triple A, where he had belted eight more homers and swiped 31 bags.
He struggled a bit in Columbus following the trade — a reality he attributed to pressing in a new environment — but when considering his permanent move from shortstop to center field in 2016, his standing as an above-average defender at one of the Indians’ weakest positions offered a conceivable path to soon demonstrating his talents in the majors.
That, in itself, wasn’t satisfying enough. Given the profile of a guy without massive swing-and-miss totals in the minors, a targeted swing adjustment could prove meaningful.
“You always want to keep working and working,” Mercado said. “That’s something that (was reinforced) when they told me, ’OK, we’re happy to have you. Now, this is what we think, what we kind of know you can be.’ ”
During his first trip to Cleveland, Mercado’s swing was tracked by Blast and HitTrax technologies. The Blast swing analyzer slides onto the knob of the bat and tracks each swipe. It delivers data on the swing plane, bat angle, time to contact and any other piece of information you could ever find useful.
When combined with HitTrax, a hitting simulator that projects each cage connection into video form using data like exit velocity and launch angle, Mercado left the swing camp — with help from Eckelman, Indians hitting coach Ty Van Burkleo and Double-A hitting coach Justin Toole — with a healthy idea of how to accomplish his goals, getting on plane with each incoming pitch sooner.
To continue on the right path, they allowed him to take a Blast unit back to Florida.
“It’s always nice to understand, you take a swing and you look at the numbers,” Mercado said. “You’re like, ‘OK, is it translating?’ It’s good because it gives you a starting point. You could go out in the cage and take a thousand swings and be like, ‘OK, I feel good, but are they good swings? Are they swings that can translate into the game?’ ”
With the right technology in hand, he didn’t have to wonder. And when Mercado returned to Cleveland in mid-January for a second clinic, the work he had put in was notable.
“We saw it firsthand, the changes he was making and the dedication that he had to it,” Chernoff said. “Those changes were real in the batting cage.”
But spring training is littered with players that are in the “best shape of their lives.” Many spent the offseason crafting a new pitch or working on a new stance or maintaining better balance at the plate. It’s rare a player might say they didn’t work on a thing over the winter. There are even fewer who aren’t convinced that big things are on the horizon.
However, it’s hard to knock his results, even if they have come in an unreliable environment.
The right-handed hitter is batting .400 in 20 games. More important, he’s posted a .750 slugging percentage. He’s belted a trio of homers, and nearly half of his hits have gone for extra bases. Those are precisely the type of outcomes Mercado was hoping to generate.
“We’re not sitting here evaluating spring training performance,” Chernoff said. “But from a process level, we feel like, yes, the changes he’s made have transferred. Those are ones that will have the potential to make him a much better offensive player.”
And in Mercado’s opinion, those targeted adjustments to his swing plane and balance are becoming more natural.
“When you start understanding that you’ve got to get somewhere,” he said, “you put in the work behind it and you start seeing results — it can be in any sport, it can be any job — it’s exciting. It feels nice to be able to understand that you worked on something and it’s paying off.”
What his strong spring means for his opening day chances is still tough to fully grasp. The addition of Carlos González on a minor-league deal puts another veteran body in his path, and there’s always the possibility that they’d prefer to let Mercado refine his offense in an everyday environment at Columbus.
Regardless, his production in camp is a positive reflection of his offseason goals. If he’s not part of the group that begins the season in Minnesota, there is little reason to believe he won’t be called upon at some point to contribute in the majors.
Of course, the exact verdict on how much Mercado’s offseason adjustments have raised his ceiling is still murky. Only time and an extended sample can tell us for certain. But the fact they’ve added an additional layer of intrigue can’t be disputed, that much is clear.
“It was an offseason of repetitions and kind of doing things the right way,” Mercado said. “The way it was needed.”
