How the Guardians are cultivating an atypical offensive identity that’s working

CLEVELAND — When Steven Kwan reached first base on a single Saturday, the runner-up for the 2021 American League MVP Award was waiting with a message.

“Hey, you can kind of hit, bro,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. told the rookie.

“You can hit, too, man,” replied Kwan, who boasts a .316/.407/.461 slash line.

During the first month of his major-league career, Kwan has garnered considerable attention for his elite contact ability and advanced managing of the strike zone. Joey Votto, Brandon Belt and other infielders have showered him with compliments along his travels on the basepaths.

Kwan’s output, though, embodies the offensive identity that Cleveland is cultivating, part of the blueprint new hitting coach Chris Valaika has sketched out for the organization. For a franchise revered for its high-functioning pitching factory, the Guardians are finally establishing a new brand in the batter’s box, one that represents the antithesis of many hitting trends across the league.

They work counts. They string together singles and doubles. They make a lot of contact. They make pitchers groan. They make umpires dip into their pockets for more baseballs. They make more noise at the plate than they have in recent years.

To this point, it has been a more refreshing hitting approach to consume, a more palatable style of offense … right?

“You put the adjective and put my name to it,” manager Terry Francona said, “because, yes, I love it.”

Cleveland leads the major leagues with a .257 team batting average. The Guardians rank third in the majors in runs per game (4.71), fourth in on-base percentage (.323), sixth in slugging percentage (.400) and fifth in wRC+ (116, which indicates they’ve created runs at a rate 16 percent better than the average team).

It’s far from a finished product, and the Guardians are only a month into the season, so don’t confuse this for some dramatic proclamation that Mike Hargrove’s Hall of Famer-filled outfit has company in the pantheon of historic Cleveland hitter collections.

But there is, at last, some direction, a readily apparent plan and, perhaps, the proper personnel to execute it.

“I think Valaika has done a really good job of preparing and getting them to understand what we’re trying to do,” Francona said.

So what, exactly, are they trying to do?

When the organization set out to replace Ty Van Burkleo following his nine seasons as the hitting coach, it sought someone who could anchor a group of experts who would oversee the entire hitting operation. Instead of focusing solely on the big-league hitters’ cage sessions, the newcomer would aid in crafting the messaging and instruction that would be relayed via coaches and coordinators to hitters throughout the organization.

Members of the front office have admitted it’s a challenge to replicate the pitching factory setup on the hitting side. Data and technology on the pitching side are more advanced, and Cleveland has mastered the art of identifying the profiles of pitchers who can thrive in its system.

Where the Guardians feel they’ve made progress on the hitting side is in unearthing players who possess those innate, more unteachable qualities. Kwan, for instance, has off-the-charts hand-eye coordination. He credits his genes for that, while his parents suggest playing pinball as a toddler helped him develop that skill. That’s an example of a foundational attribute that’s difficult to add to a hitter’s repertoire. Meanwhile, Kwan’s power could blossom down the line (as was the case with José Ramírez and Francisco Lindor, for example), and his coaches insist that’ll happen once he learns the league’s pitchers and feels more comfortable accessing an aggressive approach when he’s ahead in the count.

It’s difficult — not impossible, but far from a simple fix — to revamp the profile of a hulking slugger with a seismic swing. Bobby Bradley isn’t going to magically start spraying off-speed pitches across the outfield. There are exceptions, of course. When Franmil Reyes was mired in his brutal slump in recent weeks, he attempted to shorten his swing and pinpoint pitches he could convert into opposite-field singles instead of aiming for one of his patented, moon-scraping home runs. Valaika has stressed using the entire field — “You have to use the whole field to earn the whole field,” he said — and Cleveland leads the majors in opposite-field percentage by a vast margin.

Reyes went 11-for-19 during the team’s homestand last week, with nine singles deposited to various areas of the outfield. His walk-to-strikeout rate remains unsightly, though he did claim a clubhouse prize for drawing Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman’s first free pass of the season.

“You have to know who your guys are and what they can do,” Valaika said.

It’s both an evolution in organizational philosophy and a playbook scripted by the hitters’ strengths. And many hitters in this Cleveland lineup excel at making contact.

“We don’t really need to ride or die on home runs,” Josh Naylor said. “We need to put the ball in play.”

The Guardians own the best contact rate in the majors (81 percent) by light years. The difference between Cleveland and second-ranked Colorado is the same as the difference between Colorado and the 13th-ranked team.

They own the best swinging-strike percentage in the majors (8.4 percent) by a mile. The difference between Cleveland and the second-ranked Dodgers is the same as the difference between the Dodgers and the eighth-ranked team.

They own the best O-contact percentage (contact on pitches outside the strike zone) by … a few kilometers (we’re running out of sensible, metaphorical units of measurement), at 71.3 percent. The difference between Cleveland and second-ranked Colorado is the same as the difference between Colorado and the 12th-ranked team.

They rank second in the majors in Z-contact percentage (contact on pitches inside the strike zone), as they trail San Diego by one-tenth of 1 percent.

They rank second in the majors in strikeout rate (19.7 percent), behind only Kansas City.

“We’re not the Yankees,” Myles Straw said. “We don’t go out there and hit the three-run bombs all the time. We have to hit our doubles, our singles. We’ll steal bases. We’ll go first to third. It’s our brand of baseball.”

Kwan, Naylor, Straw, Ramírez and Owen Miller have excelled in that domain. It’s no surprise they’ve occupied the top five spots in Francona’s order. That quintet doesn’t swing and miss often, and that helps them drive up pitch counts, which can wear out a hurler and expose his full selection of offerings and his tendencies.

“It rattles them, for sure,” Straw said.

“That’s a pride of joy for me,” Kwan added, “just break them down.”

Straw: 97th percentile whiff rate, 75th percentile strikeout rate
Kwan: 100th percentile whiff rate, 97th percentile strikeout rate
Ramírez: 98th percentile whiff rate, 100th percentile strikeout rate
Miller: 85th percentile whiff rate, 56th percentile strikeout rate
Naylor: 91st percentile whiff rate, 94th percentile strikeout rate

Kwan and Ramírez have walked more often than they have struck out. The only other players to do that (while carrying a walk rate of at least 10 percent): Juan Soto, Jesse Winker, Max Muncy, Alex Bregman, Josh Bell, Yandy Díaz and Alejandro Kirk.

The Guardians rank fourth in the majors in pitches per plate appearance. They swing at the first pitch less frequently than any other team. Ramírez, Kwan, Straw and Reyes all rank in the top 50 in the league in pitches per plate appearance. Andrés Giménez has drawn only two walks, but he, Miller and Richie Palacios would each rank highly if they had enough trips to the plate to qualify. After a dismal rookie campaign in 2021, Miller is enjoying a breakout season — only Taylor Ward, Manny Machado and Mike Trout have a better OPS — which he credits to his relationship with Valaika. The two started working together before the lockout.

“You can see a lot of guys in the offense who are really buying in to what we’re trying to do,” Miller said.

The club’s offensive strategy seems even more prudent now that MLB has sapped the juice out of the baseballs, and with restrictions on defensive shifting appearing imminent.

“That’s going to open up more hits as well,” Valaika said.

How sustainable it is remains to be seen, but the Guardians have assembled a cast of contact hitters who rely on patience and strike zone judgment, who never swing and miss and who constantly put the ball in play. They’re leaning on profiles that aren’t wholly dependent on maximizing exit velocity and targeting the bleacher seats. And that isn’t to say that some of that muscle isn’t coveted; a white-hot Reyes often approaching the plate with runners on base adds another dimension to the lineup. Some extra power from Naylor or Miller — or, eventually, Nolan Jones, Gabriel Arias, George Valera or a trade acquisition — would help, too.

This remodeling remains in the early stages, but the initial returns have been promising. The top four hitters in Cleveland’s order — Straw, Kwan, Ramírez and Miller — tote a combined .399 on-base percentage.

Reyes was detailing his perspective of his home run on Saturday when the conversation shifted to those ahead of him in the lineup and how frequently they have reached base. As Reyes spoke, Straw, a few lockers down, stuck out his head from behind a pillar in the clubhouse so Reyes could see he was standing there, listening, ready to soak up his praise.

“It’s fun, just seeing the way they get on base,” Reyes said. “The way they score really quick, (starting with) the first inning. That’s a very good challenge for the other team. There are a lot of teams out there that panic right away when we do that. I’m very happy for that. They’re doing a very good job.”

Reyes leaned forward to make eye contact with Straw, who seemed content with the compliment.

“OK?” Reyes said, smiling at his teammate.

(Photo of Steven Kwan: Frank Jansky / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)