Q&A: Guardians hitting coach Chris Valaika talks team struggles, keys to a turnaround
May 7, 2023; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians left fielder Steven Kwan (38) hits a single during the first inning against the Minnesota Twins at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
By Zack Meisel
Jun 4, 2023
MINNEAPOLIS — The Guardians have hit 10 fewer home runs than any other team. They rank 27th in on-base percentage, 29th in slugging percentage and 30th in wRC+. They are averaging 3.6 runs per game, ahead of only the lowly Athletics and nearly three runs per game behind top-ranked Texas.
They’ve shown some signs of life in the last week, with 36 runs in their last seven games and better performance from Will Brennan, Andrés Giménez and Gabriel Arias. Are there better days ahead, or will the punchless attack be what sinks the Guardians in 2023?
Hitting coach Chris Valaika chatted with a few reporters Sunday morning in the visitors dugout at Target Field about what he’s seen from various players, as well as the team’s hitting approach and what has changed from last year. (Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.)
This is your second year in this role. How have you learned to deal with the ups and downs, especially with the way this season has unfolded?
It’s important to be the same guy for the players every day. You might feel those ups and downs a little more personally, (but) being the same guy in the cage, in the dugout for the players, I think they feed off of that, the consistency. They have a tough job to do, and you don’t really want to ride or live those highs and lows. I don’t think that’s a healthy way to go about a season when, a third of the games you win, a third of the games you lose. That middle third is the third that makes the season, so just trying to be as consistent as possible.
Do you see guys putting too much pressure on themselves because of the expectations on the team?
Yeah, we talked about that coming into spring training, the expectations and the pressure. It’s a good thing. It’s their doing. They came out last year and played well and now there is that standard. Internally, when we don’t play up to that standard, it’s frustrating, but for these guys as well, having the success they had last year and having some adversity this year — (it’s about) not getting selfish and chasing those numbers, trying to continue to play a team game that we really need to play to be successful.
What have you thought of the way Will Brennan handled early struggles to get to this point now (when he’s hitting better)?
He’s done a great job. His track record and the things he’s done in the minor leagues have set himself up for this. The big leagues are a different beast. Seeing him go through that adversity the first month, struggling with the at-bats he had, the part-time playing time and to take that position over and put up the at-bats he has and continue to make the adjustments and continue to grow as a player, kudos to him.
Will Brennan was 10-for-19 in his past five games before Sunday. (Tommy Gilligan / USA Today)
On Thursday night, you guys strung together a bunch of singles to spark a five-run inning. Is that still the playbook? Is that what you’re still trying to accomplish, or can you do things differently than you did last year?
The goal is never to string together singles. We’ll take it. We don’t preach, “Hit singles.” We want slugging just as much as anybody else. With the identity and makeup of the team, it’s something we don’t want to hide behind, either. We make contact. We also don’t want that to be our Achilles’ heel, that we’re giving away at-bats because we can make contact. So continuing the message to these guys to get their swing off, look to do damage early in the count and then having the ability to tone it back down with two strikes or whatever the game state may be. We’ll take those innings where we put up five runs hitting singles, but it’s definitely not something we’re harping on.
Where’s the line between giving away at-bats but relying on contact? Sometimes you swing early and make contact but it might not be the best pitch.
I think you take the hair with the hide with that. You want to stay aggressive on those pitches you can handle — we want to be aggressive, but we want to be intelligent in the box. It’s not just swinging at the first three pitches you see. It’s looking to do damage, it’s doing our homework before that. We’ve seen of late, in Baltimore and even the series against St. Louis, we were a little bit more aggressive early in the game. We’ll have five, six, seven-pitch innings, but (if) we turn some of those pitches around, you make them change the game plan against you and they start using their spin a little bit more and you force them back in the zone on a fastball that you can handle.
Along those lines, Steven Kwan’s first-pitch swing percentage has doubled in the last few weeks. Is that what you’re talking about? Pitchers know the scouting report on him, so now it’s his turn to counteract it.
Yeah, exactly. Pitchers know certain guys on our team. Pitchers know our identity as an offensive unit. We see a lot of fastballs. We’ve taken a lot of fastballs. I think teams try to exploit that. We all have computers. It’s nothing that we’re hiding. So for us, it’s just continuing to stay aggressive. We had the same conversation last May with the guys. We were really passive in April and we had to flip the script. It just happened a little bit later this season.
Teams try to get ahead of us early with fastballs. For us to flip the script, we need to stay aggressive on the pitches, intelligently, that we want to look to impact, not just swing because it’s a fastball. We’ve run into some really good arms that have a lot of weapons; we also don’t want to get too deep into some of these counts where they can get to those weapons. So if we can change the script and jump on those fastballs early, maybe they have to use their spin early and maybe they don’t execute those pitches and then, deeper in the count, when we force them to throw a strike, we get those fastballs that we can impact.
Has Arias done a better job with that lately?
He’s done a really good job of controlling the zone, especially against right-handed pitching. I’ve been proud of him with that. His slugging has been up. You see the exit velocities with him. I think continuing to preach consistency. We don’t want the all-or-nothing mentality. I think he’s done a great job of late handling the pitches he can handle. He’s hitting the home runs, but he’s put together some pretty good at-bats for us as well, taking walks and driving in some big runs.
You’ve talked about Josh Bell’s contact point and he’s mentioned his launch angle representing when he’s going well and when he’s not. How do you remedy that when he’s going through a tough stretch?
I know we haven’t seen some of the slug or the big numbers we know he has in there. The way our lineup has been built, the way he has been pitched has been difficult. Sure, he’s missed some of the pitches that maybe he can look to impact, and he’d be honest and tell you that. I think there are certain guys in our lineup other teams circle, like, “Don’t let these guys beat us.” I think he’s one of those. I think he’s done a good job. His OPS is close to .700. He’s finding ways to get on base, outside of slugging. When he gets those opportunities, the more traffic we have with other guys getting on base, I think we’ll see the production we want out of him.
Has the opposition changed their attack against you guys offensively?
As far as the way we’re pitched, it seems pretty consistent. … Some of the rules, like the shift, I didn’t think it would affect us as much as it has, but I think it’s affected us more than I anticipated. Not necessarily on the pull side, but some of those off-side hits that we would sneak through, something going the other direction, the shortstop or third baseman is standing over there. Before, those were base hits. I thought the way we hit the ball all over the field that shifting us wouldn’t matter as much, but I think the off-side now has affected some of our play.
The metrics suggested Josh Naylor was one of the league’s least fortunate hitters early on, but he’s made up for it the last month. Is this what you envisioned for him at the start of last season from a production standpoint?
We tried to keep him positive as much as possible, showing him some of the peripheral numbers and all the expected numbers. Stay the course. He very easily could have gone south quick and gotten caught up in the chase of trying to get those results, but he stayed consistent with his work and we’re seeing that stuff pay off, especially hitting behind José (Ramírez). We all know how teams attack José. They don’t want him to beat us. Naylor has done a great job picking up those RBIs for us.
Better luck on balls in play allowed Josh Naylor to bat .293/.341/.549 in May. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
In spring training, you said you have to have patience with power. Do you still feel that way? Will this team ever develop more power?
I think so. I don’t think it’s overnight. I don’t believe that one season in the big leagues makes you a veteran, either. We have a lot of young guys still who are going through growing pains. I still believe you’re going to see power output out of a lot of these guys. It just takes time, especially the way our lineup is and the way we started this year. There were a lot of guys who got pitched to differently. They have to continue to grow and evolve and make those adjustments. We saw with Oscar Gonzalez, he struggled to make those adjustments and he’s back in Triple A trying to work on those things.
How big of a hit was it that Oscar wasn’t as productive as he was last year?
Early on, not a ton changed as far as some of the mistakes he would get in the zone, he wasn’t impacting. We see the aggressive nature of his approach. I think he just got exposed this year, and for him to go down to Triple A and make those adjustments and have the freedom to work on things, rather than being in the big leagues where production matters every day, it’s good for him, and hopefully we get the best version of him when he comes back.
Anything you’re seeing with Amed Rosario that stands out?
Yeah. We have to get him going. He ebbs and flows. We saw the April he had last year. And then we saw him get up to, like, .280. He was starting to impact the ball. He’s a guy we want in the lineup. He’s aggressive on the bases. He can do some special things when he does get out there. He ended last year with 180 hits. He got super hot around this time and carried us. Just getting him back on track and getting him positive and confident and continuing to run him out there and giving him those opportunities to do what he can do.
How has Tyler Freeman handled sporadic playing time for someone who’s accustomed to playing every day in the minors?
It’s impressive. That’s not an easy role, especially as such a young player. We worked hard with him this winter about making some adjustments with his swing. They really showed up when he was playing every day in Triple A. The simplicity and low-maintenance (style) of his swing is really helping him at this level. He prepares really well during the game, hits a ton on the machine, so he’s kept himself ready. It’s a tough role, though, not only physically, but mentally, going (many) days between at-bats and not putting that pressure, hanging your hat on that one at-bat or two at-bats you get and that carries into your next 12 days of not playing. He’s done a really good job. I’d like to see him continue to get those opportunities. I think he makes us a better team being here. He’s making the most of his opportunity right now.
What were those adjustments geared toward?
(He has) a high-contact profile. He would almost default to some of that. So a lot of the stuff we did this winter was giving him some space off the plate, allowing him to free himself up so he had the space to look to impact balls. He has a really effortless swing to get up to full speed, so we really wanted him to tap into some of that. It’s hard to break some of the profile when guys make a lot of contact. It’s hard for them to swing-and-miss. We’re OK with some swing-and-miss if you look to take chances to do more damage. Some of that mental training. There are times when the contact plays and then there are times where, go look to do damage. Go get your swing off.
(Those tweaks came at an offseason swing camp in Cleveland that Freeman, Brennan and Myles Straw attended.)
Did Andrés Giménez feel those expectations after the season he had?
Big time. Coming off a year he had, all the accolades — he’s still only 24 years old. There’s still growing up. He got off to a good start, but he had some of the struggles there. You can look at the way he’s been pitched, the amount of spin he’s seen through the at-bat. We’ve seen some mechanical things, trying to get him back on track, widen him out, keep him behind the ball. He’s been really good of late. As much success as he had, it’s still him going through some of those adjustments now that he’s two-plus years into the big leagues.
