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.
With teams having played nearly 70 games, we’re almost halfway through the season. Because the PLV DV metrics stabilize at around 400 pitches, we have plenty of data to examine most MLB regulars. In this week’s PLV DV Weekly, I’ll be looking at the swing decisions of some of the more disappointing players through the first 2+ months of the season. To set some limits on the exercise, I used the Fangraphs auction calculator with NFBC Main Event settings to calculate a year-to-date dollar value for players. I’m restricting attention to players who have earned less than -$10 by this measure and have had at least 100 plate appearances. I’m also only considering players who were drafted in the top 300 by NFBC Main Event ADP from March 15th on.
We see a nearly across-the-board decline in the quality of swing decisions for these eight hitters. The largest are a trio of outfielders, Matt Wallner, Roman Anthony, and TJ Friedl. The only positive change is Lawrence Butler with a three-point improvement, while Brendan Donovan has held serve after moving from St. Louis to Seattle. Of the group, Donovan is a clear outlier in his performance. He’s been excellent while on the field, posting a career-best .839 OPS. He’s being penalized by the auction calculator because he hasn’t been on the field much. When he was healthy at the start of the season, the Mariners’ offense ranked 22nd in scoring, leading to his minimal counting stats (3 HR, 8 RBI, 9 R). Suarez and Lowe have had minimal changes to their swing decisions. The issue for Suarez is missing power, while Lowe’s struggles are due to his typical elevated chase rate.
Lawrence Butler is slashing just .165/.251/.256 in 183 plate appearances despite improving his swing decisions. Indeed, he’s walking more than ever before at a 10.4% clip. He’s also cut his strikeout rate from 28.4% in 2025 to 26.2% this season. The changes are being driven by a career-low chase rate of 25.1% and a career-high zone swing rate of 69.4%. Butler has even cut his swinging strike rate by 2 percentage points. So far, everything seems great. Instead, Butler’s issues appear to be batted-ball driven. His average launch angle has declined every season he’s been in the majors, from 16.3 degrees in 2023 to 11.3, 9.2, and now finally 5.4 degrees thus far in 2026. He’s seen a corresponding increase in pulled grounders, from a low of 15.6% of his batted balls in his breakout 2024 season up to 26.7% this season. Some amount of this is just poor luck – a putrid .205 BABIP, underperforming his xBA by nearly 80 points and his xSLG by 107 points. Even accounting for that, though, the line would be underwhelming.
Like Donovan, Matt Wallner has not played every game with the major league club this season. Unlike Donovan, the missing games are performance-related rather than injury-related. Wallner started the season with career-high chase and zone swing rates. Unfortunately, paired with a career-low contact rate, Wallner had a wholly unsustainable 21.5% swinging strike rate, leading to his demotion to Triple-A in mid-May. Since crossing the Mississippi into St. Paul, Wallner has rebounded to a .270/.347/.539 line thanks to an 11 percentage point increase in his contact rate. Unsurprisingly, Wallner’s oDV declined from 98 in 2025 to 94 this year. More surprisingly, Wallner had a 106 zDV in 2025, which declined to a 101 zDV in 2026. Usually, zDV rewards hitters for increased aggression in the zone. Swinging more in the zone and lowering his zDV means he’s been swinging at pitches that are particularly hard to hit well. His zone swing rate has increased most against changeups, cutters, and splitters, while he’s dramatically reduced his zone swing rate against sliders. While he crushed cutters for a 1.315 OPS in 2025, Wallner had a .540 OPS on changeups and a .500 OPS against splitters. The cut in swings against sliders is a bad idea for Wallner, too. He posted a 1.219 OPS against sliders last year; cutters and sliders are the pitches against which Wallner has his highest career OPSes as well.
Roman Anthony is the player on this list who has cost managers the most relative to his draft position. Anthony was taken in the 5th round of Main Events and, like Wallner, has been poor when he’s been on the field. The surface-level stats don’t suggest any decline in swing decisions. He’s walking 15.4% of the time, up from 13.2% last year. Anthony has also cut his strikeout rate from 27.7% to 25.4%. Despite the better results, though, Anthony has increased his chase rate marginally and cut his zone swing rate. If he had enough plate appearances to qualify, Anthony would be swinging the 4th least in the majors. Anthony has targeted better pitches, however, with a slight increase in zDV from 87 in 2025 to 88 this year. Anthony has particularly struggled against curves, with zero hits off 56 curves this season. The two times he’s made contact with a curve, Anthony has grounded out and hit an infield fly. Last season, Anthony swung at 53.7% of curves in the zone. This season, he’s avoiding them altogether, swinging at only a third of curve strikes.
TJ Friedl has struggled to a .179/.259/.256 line through his first 178 plate appearances. While his .230 BABIP is contributing, this is really a swing decision story. Friedl is chasing 27.5% of pitches outside the zone, up from 17.5% in 2025. His out-of-zone contact rate has declined nearly 10 percentage points for the second straight season. The combination of increased chase and decreased chase contact has led Friedl to a 10.9% swinging strike rate, nearly 3 percentage points higher than his previous career high. Indeed, Friedl’s decline in DV is entirely driven by a drop in his oDV; his zDV was 96 in 2025 and is 96 thus far in 2026.
Royce Lewis has had a tough start to 2026. Despite staying healthy for the majority of the season, Lewis has a .187/.279/.317 line. While superior plate discipline has never been part of his game, this year has been a notable step back for the struggling Twin. Lewis has always offset higher-than-average chase rates by being aggressive within the zone. Lewis’s overall swing rate of 51% ranked 54th among 215 hitters with at least 400 plate appearances last year. Lewis has cut his swing rate to 48.3% this year. The reduction is coming from two changes. First, Lewis is swinging a bit less in the zone at 67.3%, 2 percentage points below his career rate. Second, pitchers have cut the share of strikes they throw him by 5 percentage points, but Lewis isn’t chasing any less. The combination leaves him with a swing rate that would rank 73rd among the 178 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances. The lack of aggression in the zone has cost him a single point of zDV, but maintaining his elevated chase rate on a greater diet of pitches outside the zone has dropped his oDV 4 points. Lewis had a torrid two-week stint in the minors recently and has only struck out three times in five games since returning to the majors.
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