If you’re familiar with the Tungsten Arm O’Doyle tweet, and you should be, you might appreciate what Tyler Fitzgerald has been doing for the San Francisco Giants. For almost every game over the last month, there’s been a ridiculous on-screen graphic to explain what Fitzgerald has done since coming back to the majors. If a factlet is Giants-specific, it has to do with Barry Bonds. If it’s position-specific, it references Alex Rodríguez or Corey Seager. If it’s something to do with his speed and stolen bases, it’s referencing Giants players from a decade ago. It might be Bonds again.
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Fitzgerald has been a revelation. Coming into Tuesday’s game, he hadn’t hit a homer in seven games (gasp!), but he still hit .276/.344/.379 with five stolen bases in those seven games. Even when he’s not hitting for power, he’s been really good. (Naturally, he homered on Tuesday to end that drought. I have no explanation for the bunt though.)
Tyler Fitzgerald is on a GENERATIONAL hot streak right now 🌡️
That's 11 homers in the last 17 games. pic.twitter.com/G1nLxRdGLD
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) August 5, 2024
Will it last? No idea. Robert Orr of Baseball Prospectus (subscription required and recommended) did a deep dive on the question, and he came away with some reasons to be concerned and reasons to be optimistic. Pitchers and teams will adjust, and it will be on Fitzgerald to adjust back. He’s not a hitter with outrageous exit velocities and all-fields power, so he’ll need a strong approach.
This is not an exploration of whether Fitzgerald will be a 20/20 hitter this season, or if he’ll be a 40/40 hitter one day. It’s also not suggesting that someday he’ll be relegated to a Sporcle quiz that also includes Aristides Aquino or Bryan LaHair. He sure looks like an absurdly athletic and talented baseball player to these eyes, but these lyin’ eyes have lied before.
No, this is an appreciation of Fitzgeraldcontributing in the majors at all. This is an idea that I’ve been kicking around in my head since last season, when he had a .265 OBP but was still contributing in a variety of ways. A player with his minor-league track record typically gets a cup of coffee, at best. Usually he doesn’t get even that.
Start from the beginning. Fitzgerald was selected in the fourth round of the 2019 MLB Draft. He had fewer home runs in 178 games at Louisville (11) as he has in 59 games in the majors this year (12), but he had speed and the defensive potential to stick up the middle. After the draft, he rose from the Arizona Rookie League to short-season ball to Low A in quick succession, which isn’t completely abnormal for a college draftee.
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Then came 2020, and the minor-league season was canceled. It might feel like an excuse to blame everything on 2020, but it’s a supremely important consideration for a player in Fitzgerald’s situation. For a year, there were camps and simulated games and structure, but there weren’t actual games, where you faced another minor leaguer trying to defeat other minor leaguers and stack a pile of them high enough to reach the majors. Those games tend to be different.
When Fitzgerald came back in 2021, he was a 23-year-old and a relatively high draft pick with a tools pedigree. He did fine in High A, but he wasn’t promoted that season. That’s understandable, considering that these players were re-acclimating to pro ball.
When Fitzgerald was 24, he was promoted to Double A and struck out a lot. So much. Truly, it’s hard to believe how much he struck out.
The average batter in Double A in 2022 struck out roughly 25 percent of the time. Fitzgerald struck out in 33 percent of his at-bats. He wasn’t just worse at making contact than other Double-A batters — most of whom don’t make the majors — but he was significantly worse. That strikeout rate would have put him among the top 25 whiffiest seasons in major-league history.
Except Fitzgerald wasn’t in the majors. He was in Double A, where he was older than the average player. So just how rare is it for a player to have a strikeout rate that high and make the majors?
It’s rare. I looked at every season in the Eastern League from 2012-22, and I took the 10 players with the highest strikeout rate from each season. Then I adjusted for the average strikeout rate for all players that season. So if a player had a 30 percent strikeout rate, but the league average was 20 percent, that would give the player a 150 K+. That is, 50 percent worse than the league average. (The formula is the player’s strikeout rate divided by the league’s strikeout rate. I figured this out on my own. I’m very smart.)
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Of the 100 batters who had a bottom-10 strikeout rate from 2012-22, 35 of them have reached the majors so far. There are 30 players still active in professional baseball, although about one-third of them are playing in an independent league or a different country.
Here are the success stories, so to speak:
Rank | Player | EL K% ▼ | League K% | K+ | MLB AB | Still active? | Career WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
15 | Dermis Garcia | 37.9 | 25.7 | 147 | 116 | Y | 0.4 |
7 | Tyler Fitzgerald | 32.9 | 25 | 130 | 201 | Y | 2.8 |
28 | Josh Lester | 32.3 | 25.7 | 126 | 27 | Y | -0.3 |
23 | Kevin Smith | 32.3 | 23 | 140 | 306 | Y | -0.2 |
17 | Dillon Dingler | 31.9 | 25.3 | 126 | 24 | Y | 0.2 |
21 | Mitch Walding | 31.7 | 19.7 | 161 | 19 | N | -0.2 |
22 | Dylan Cozens | 31.7 | 19.7 | 161 | 39 | N | -0.2 |
10 | Bo Naylor | 31.5 | 25.7 | 123 | 466 | Y | 1.8 |
13 | Will Benson | 31.3 | 25.7 | 122 | 630 | Y | 0.6 |
9 | Sam Hilliard | 31.2 | 21 | 146 | 710 | Y | 2.1 |
31 | Ryan Kreidler | 30.7 | 25.7 | 119 | 135 | Y | -0.4 |
11 | Jarrett Parker | 30.7 | 20.1 | 153 | 354 | N | 1.1 |
26 | Willy Garcia | 30.6 | 19 | 161 | 105 | Y | -0.3 |
5 | Eric Haase | 30.4 | 20 | 154 | 1033 | Y | 2.9 |
1 | Ryan McMahon | 30.1 | 19.7 | 153 | 2887 | Y | 15.1 |
2 | Michael A. Taylor | 29.5 | 19 | 155 | 3141 | Y | 12.4 |
32 | Steven Moya | 29.3 | 19 | 154 | 124 | Y | -0.6 |
25 | Chris Gittens | 29.1 | 23 | 127 | 36 | Y | -0.2 |
6 | Brad Zimmer | 28.3 | 20 | 144 | 859 | Y | 2.9 |
30 | Derek Hill | 27.9 | 23 | 121 | 358 | Y | -0.4 |
33 | Travis Taijeron | 27.6 | 19 | 145 | 52 | N | -0.6 |
16 | Jake Rogers | 27.5 | 21.3 | 129 | 857 | Y | 0.2 |
18 | Gift Ngoepe | 27.1 | 19 | 143 | 72 | N | |
24 | Destin Hood | 27 | 20.1 | 134 | 25 | N | -0.2 |
14 | Yu Chang | 26.4 | 19.7 | 134 | 594 | Y | 0.5 |
3 | Cavan Biggio | 26.3 | 21 | 123 | 1553 | Y | 7 |
4 | Ryan Schimpf | 26.1 | 20 | 130 | 534 | N | 3.4 |
34 | Mike Olt | 26.1 | 19.7 | 135 | 352 | N | -1.7 |
29 | Brad Glenn | 26.1 | 18.9 | 138 | 15 | N | -0.4 |
19 | Bryce Brentz | 25.8 | 18.9 | 137 | 87 | N | |
27 | Adam Loewen | 25.5 | 20.1 | 127 | 42 | N | -0.3 |
20 | Daniel Fields | 25.2 | 20.1 | 125 | 3 | N | -0.1 |
8 | Jorge Alfaro | 24.1 | 20 | 122 | 1590 | N | 2.5 |
12 | Jeremy Hazelbaker | 23.4 | 18.9 | 124 | 252 | N | 1.1 |
35 | Pat Valaika | 23 | 18.3 | 126 | 802 | N | -2.8 |
Making the major leagues at all after a strikeout rate like that is a huge accomplishment on its own. Of these players, I’m seeing five sustained major-league careers, with two of them catchers (Eric Haase and Jorge Alfaro). Michael A. Taylor ranks as highly as he does because he’s a Gold Glove-caliber center fielder.
So if you’re looking for reasonable comps for Eastern League players who had a strikeout rate that high, but still had an established major-league career, you’re left with two: Ryan McMahon and Cavan Biggio.
McMahon has been a very consistent player for several years now, even if he’s never been an offensive juggernaut. He made his first All-Star team this year.
Biggio had a fast start to his career, finishing fifth in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2019, but he never became anything more than a utility player. He was just released by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had traded for him two months ago.
Except there’s a twist even with those two comps. McMahon was 21 years old when he was in the Eastern League, 3.4 years younger than the average player. Biggio was 23 and 1.4 years younger. Fitzgerald was 24 and a montholder than the average Eastern League player. You can make excuses when a player is among the youngest in the league. It’s why Heliot Ramos’ season is only a moderate surprise; he was always younger than his peers. Fitzgerald qualifies as a major surprise. And he’ll either be an All-Star like McMahon or a journeyman utility player like Biggio, unless he’s somewhere in between or worse.
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Again, though, that’s not the question at hand. Just take a second to appreciate that Fitzgerald is contributing at all. My sneaking suspicion is that the cancellation of the 2020 minor-league season affected players in all sorts of unexpected ways, which means that it’s not wise to read too much into player stats from 2021, when the minors started back up.
The most relevant stat of all? That would be what Fitzgerald has done this season with his strikeout rate in the majors. It’s a statistic that stabilizes quickly, and recent data is always preferable to older data. He’s striking out 28 percent of the time, which is comfortably above the league average, but he’s far from the worst offender. He ranks 309th out of 365 players with 150 plate appearances or more, so his ability to make contact is something to keep an eye on.
But Fitzgerald is keeping company with All-Stars and franchise cornerstones with a similar strikeout rate, so don’t worry too much. Just appreciate his long, strange and welcome journey to the majors, where he’s currently thriving. I would have bet a lot of money that he wasn’t going to make the majors at all, but he’s a major part of why the Giants are still playing meaningful baseball instead.
(Photo of Fitzgerald: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
Grant Brisbee is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the San Francisco Giants. Grant has written about the Giants since 2003 and covered Major League Baseball for SB Nation from 2011 to 2019. He is a two-time recipient of the SABR Analytics Research Award. Follow Grant on Twitter @GrantBrisbee
