Here at Pitcher List, we have a suite of PLV metrics to analyze every pitch in a baseball game. Decision Value (DV) is our hitter swing decision metric. It takes inputs like pitch velocity, location, and movement, and tells us whether the hitter made a good decision to swing or take a particular pitch. This isn’t quite as simple as plate discipline; swinging at a Logan Webb sinker and pounding it into the ground is a bad outcome even if the pitch was a strike.
Instead, Decision Value rewards hitters for swinging at pitches they should be able to hit hard, and for taking pitches they’re unlikely to do much with. The flipside is that Decision Value punishes hitters if they don’t swing at pitches they should be doing damage on or do swing at pitches that are unlikely to generate quality contact. You can find a much more thorough introduction to PLV metrics and Decision Value here.
In today’s edition of PLV DV Weekly, we’ll be looking at some of the finalists in the MLB All-Star voting. While it’s always fun to think about players who are having excellent seasons, swing decisions can be a mixed bag, even for the most successful hitters in the game. Some hitters succeed in part because of their swing decisions – think Juan Soto or Alex Bregman. Other hitters take advantage of their excellent bats by going after whatever a pitcher gives them around the zone, the Hunter Goodman or Julio Rodríguez approach.
The main thing I’ve learned from assembling this table is to respect the Toronto vote. Every Blue Jay with 200 plate appearances is either a finalist or already locked into starting (Ernie Clement). Otherwise, we have players with a wide variety of approaches at the plate, consistent with the fact that there are multiple pathways to success for elite bats. On the list is Michael Harris II, who has the lowest DV of any full-time player, as well as George Springer, whose approach at the plate is perhaps the only thing going right for him this season. Let’s dive a little deeper into a few of the players, prioritizing those who haven’t been covered in previous editions of PLV DV Weekly.
Shea Langeliers – .265/.330/.497, 90 DV
Langeliers’ overall line is solid, good for a 125 wRC+ while providing roughly league-average defense behind the plate. Underneath that line, however, there are significant splits on multiple dimensions. Langeliers is an average bat vs same-handed pitching, but absolutely torches lefties. He’s hitting .330/.390/.635 against southpaws, good for a 179 wRC+. Like we have come to expect from A’s hitters, he’s also much better at home than on the road. At home, Langeliers has an .883 OPS, which drops to .772 away from the launching pad known as Sutter Health Park.
Overall, Langeliers makes pretty decent swing decisions at the plate. Much of his improvement over the past three years has been driven by getting his strikeout rate in check. After debuting with strikeout rates around 30%, 2024 saw a decrease to 27.2%. He’s made substantial progress over the past two years, however, cutting his K rate to 19.7% in 2025 and holding steady at 20.2% this year. Interestingly, the massive splits in overall production don’t show up in his strikeout and walk rates. Langeliers walks about a percentage point more frequently and strikes out about 1.5 percentage points less frequently vs lefties, but these are small differences in his overall rates. Langeliers’ improvement over the past two years has come from being more aggressive on the right pitches in the zone. Langeliers has added about 3 percentage points of zSwing, which isn’t massive, but his zDV has ticked up from 86 in 2024 to 98 in 2025 and 96 this season.
CJ Abrams – .273/.355/.511, 91 DV
Abrams has been a productive fantasy shortstop since entering the majors, but he’s taken it to a new level this year. Abrams is setting career highs in each of his triple-slash stats. His performance has been particularly impressive since he’s not seeing an attendant jump in his BABIP or other luck-based stats. Abrams is swinging the bat a bit faster than in the past, which could contribute to some of the additional power output, but mostly he’s just elevating the ball more.
Abrams’ swing decisions appear on their face to have gone backward a bit this year. He’s chasing nearly 37% of the time, the most he has since his rookie season in 2022. He’s become less aggressive in the zone at the same time, with his zSwing dropping every season he’s been in the majors. Despite the overall changes, he’s picking his spots better. Abrams’ zDV has ticked up from 94 in 2025 to 99 this season. Abrams is swinging at more four-seamers and curves in the zone, pitches he’s handling well this year. A big part of his surge is him rediscovering his stroke against curveballs; he’s posting an .857 OPS against them this year after a .377 last year. He hit the curve well earlier in his career, so this change could be lasting. Abrams has also cut his zone swing rate against sinkers, cutters, and changeups. His OPS is .716 against changeups and .723 against sinkers, both of which are worse than his typical production. Abrams absolutely kills the cutters he does swing at, though, posting a 1.589 OPS against the pitch this year, and 1.041 for his career.
Mike Trout – .234/.394/.472, 124 DV
The Millville Meteor is a swing decision all-star, which one might infer from the 160-point split between his average and OBP. Trout has hardly chased for his career, and he isn’t starting now, swinging outside the zone at only 19.3% of pitches. Trout’s discipline has earned him an 115 oDV, a full standard deviation better than average. Trout has maintained the same 93 zDV from 2025 despite swinging at 5 percentage points more pitches inside the zone. That indicates that Trout is likely not picking his spots quite as well, going after some of the harder-to-hit strikes he sees. The difference could be underlying a bit of his low BABIP despite his swing and contact quality metrics ticking up this year as he’s been healthy. On the other hand, he might just be getting a bit unlucky. Statcast thinks Trout deserves a .260 average, up from his current .234. If he gets some positive regression in his batted ball outcomes, we could be getting another great season from Trout. Of course, the ever-present question is how many games we’ll get to see him play.
Kazuma Okamoto – .240/.323/.464, 120 DV
Okamoto has taken the league by storm, adding a full 2 wins above replacement by midseason. He’s got practically identical PLV DV scores to his compatriot, Munetaka Murakami, with Okamoto sitting at a 99 zDV and 110 oDV to Murakami’s 98 and 110. One difference between the Japanese sluggers’ approaches at the plate is that Okamoto swings more frequently, both in and outside the zone. Okamoto chases an additional 4 percentage points of the time, mostly driven by a 31.4% chase rate against four-seamers vs Murakami’s 16.7%. Conversely, Okamoto swings at 22.2% of sliders outside the zone, while Murakami swings at 31.9% of them. The result is that when Okamoto chases, he’s going after pitches that he’s more likely to have success on.
Overall, Okamoto’s chase rate has held down his walk rate to a still-good 9.5%. He’s striking out a Murakami-esque 31.6% of the time, but has the same batting average as Murakami with a lower share of his batted balls leaving the park. Ultimately, line drives are what are supporting his better BABIP. Okamoto has an 18.5% line drive rate, which isn’t anything to write home about (109th of 154 qualified hitters). Murakami’s line drive rate sits at 11.6%, though the lowest rate of any hitter with as many plate appearances.
Ozzie Albies – .276/.325/.444, 87 DV
This season has seen a return to above-average offensive production for Albies after two years with a wRC+ under 100. His average has popped up to .273 this year despite a .269 BABIP and a not-outrageous 14 homers. The driving force is a big reduction in Albies’ already-low K rate. This season, Albies has cut his strikeout rate to just 11.7% after posting K rates of about 16% for most of his career.
Albies hasn’t shown much in terms of improved plate discipline to explain the drop in K rate. He’s chasing 3 percentage points more often this year, sitting at a high 36.3% chase rate. Albies is aggressive in the zone, but always has been. This season, he’s swinging at 78.8% of pitches in the zone, but that’s actually lower than what’s typical for him. The combination leads Albies to an above-average 109 zDV, the same as last year, and a below-average 89 oDV, down from 92 last year. Albies hasn’t shown much in terms of improved contact, either, with his contact rate up about half a percentage point from last year. Instead, Albies appears to be benefiting from the smaller ABS strike zone. Pitchers are throwing him strikes about 44% of the time, down from about 47% each of the past two seasons. I’m not sure that the drop in Zone% is enough to explain the corresponding drop in strikeouts. I’d expect a bit of regression in Albies’ strikeouts, but for him to continue posting his typical very strong K rate for the season.
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