Breaking Down Steven Souza

When the Rays traded Wil Myers away, while getting Steven Souza back as the only replacement outfielder in the deal, the newcomer’s name instantly received a lot of public attention. While Myers had a down year for the standards set by his pedigree and reputation, being placed in the same conversation has made Souza’s expectations a bit higher for his new organization.

Souza now comes into Tampa Bay with a recent string of strong performances in the minor leagues, and is already being projected as a potential 20 homer-20 steal player in his first full season. But how much should we trust his skills, having spent parts of eight years in the minor leagues and not debuting until his age-25 season?

Souza’s minor league journey is pretty interesting in its own rite, as he spent the first five years in the Nationals’ system putting up underwhelming numbers through High-A ball. He was drafted in the third round of the 2007 amateur draft, in the same round that Jonathan Lucroy and Danny Duffy signed.

Between 2007 and 2011, Souza hit to the tune of a .226/.309/358 line with a solid walk rate of 11.5%, but an alarming strikeout rate of 25.5%. He has stolen bases at an above average rate throughout his young career. In 2010 he was suspended for 50 games after testing positive for performance-enhancing substances. Then he had a come-to-Jesus moment before 2012 (literally), and came back with a new mindset toward both his personal and professional lives.

Since the start of 2012, he has done nothing but hit, being at or near the top of the league in the major offensive categories each step of the way. Most interestingly, his improvement with the bat did not come at the expense of making contact, as evidenced by his 20% strikeout rate in the last three years. That includes an 18.4% mark in 407 plate appearances in Triple-A this past season, compared to the International League average of 19.4%. Though he has the reputation for having strikeout issues in the past, it may be a bit old news as he’s improved the last few years.

In his limited big league time this year, Souza managed to collect only three hits, two of them being homers, in 26 plate appearances. However, it’s his .350/.432/.590 stat line from Triple-A last year with 18 homers and 26 steals that has everyone excited about his future prospects.

Though there is limited statistical data for minor league players, let alone a guy who looked like he may be out of baseball by this time in his career, let’s see what information we can glean from his at bats to give us a better sense of what to expect from him in 2015.

Here are two swings of his from last spring training, followed by a clip of Troy Tulowitzki from 2013:

 

Tulowitzki is not a perfect comparison for Souza, as he is a more explosive hitter and has a little more athleticism in how he moves the barrel. However, the number of similarities are noticeable. Souza has a little less barrel movement as his back elbow starts to drop in under his hands, but he shows an excellent path to the ball on both the high and low pitch here, creating lift by getting on plane early in the swing. In his lower half, Souza is very efficient with his hip turn and has exceptional balance all the way through contact. He stays through the ball into decent extension, though you can see he is a bit more across the ball on the swing at the high pitch, finishing more around his left shoulder rather than over it.

It’s important to note that, while these swings show a very advanced approach for a young hitter, he also had some trouble facing Major League pitchers in 2014. Here are a couple samples of his swing in The Show, clips of two balls that left the yard off big league pitching:

On August 6^th, a ball that hooked just foul to left field:

And September 26^th, a clean homer out to left center:

In these shots, you can see how much more the hands start to rush out in front of the body, not really getting on plane until past his front hip. This makes the possible area of contact much narrower, necessitating perfect timing to square the ball up regularly. As he comes through the ball and finishes his swing, there is a lot more of a tendency for the hands to move toward the third base dugout and around his body rather than out through the field, a direct result of the first move with his hands.

If this were a permanent change to his swing, Souza would most likely project as a very low batting average, boom-or-bust kind of power hitter, with a lot of foul ball home runs, which count for a lot less than the fair ball variety. Since he only had 26 plate appearances, I was able to watch all but a handful on MLB.TV. As a recurring theme, Souza looked like he was offering at every pitch that was remotely close to something he could drive, leading to a lot of check swings like this:

But if we look back at the front view of a couple homers from Triple-A this year, you can see there isn’t quite the same anxious urgency to rush out to get the ball, resulting in a lot smoother movements. The higher finishes you see in the following swings is the result of a more relaxed approach to get to the ball, and thus more consistent lift to all fields:

It’s a subtle but important distinction, that could perhaps be better illustrated from a side view, but getting those shots from minor league broadcasts is much more hit-or-miss. Here are some stills of the important frames for the two Triple-A swings and the two MLB swings from above:

So, despite the issues he displayed at the Major League level, we can confidently chalk it up to nerves and inconsistent at bats in a higher pressure environment. As he settles into a likely regular role this year, we should see a return of his minor league approach to the ball that resulted in such fantastic numbers.

It’s not a certainty that he comes right out of the gate putting up big numbers, as he has shown that his swing can be compromised if he gets too eager to throw his hands at the ball. The fact that he does have a bit of a penchant for yanking his hands across the ball probably means we won’t see .300 averages in his near future, if ever. But he does show enough positives in his swing to expect serviceable rates of squaring the ball up to justify a mid- to high-.200s batting average.

With Souza’s size and athleticism, he doesn’t need to be crazy explosive with his moves to generate force. His swings here show the ability to match the plane of the pitch and ensure quality contact as often as possible. Even when he does get a bit too much going knob to the ball, his balance and efficiency in his legs will keep him from getting his timing overly disrupted. The swing path leveling out as a result leads to more lower line drives/ground balls if you can get him out in front, but not as many swings and misses as most guys with his stature and power.

Based on his swings and minor league platform, I would feel confident counting on Souza to be a solid performer at the plate in 2015. The Fans projection of a .268/.353/.449 line with 18 homers is well within his reach, but I think he’ll be more in the .275-.280 range in the average department once he fully settles into the big league grind. In total his production should be in line with that estimate, though only because the inevitable adjustment period during the first half of the year will keep his rate stats below the level he’s at later in the season. Souza shouldn’t come at an exorbitant cost in drafts, so he’s a definite buy. Watch how his hands look in spring training and the first few games of the season before installing him permanently in your lineup, but there is a lot to like and no reason to think he won’t be fantasy asset by the end of the year.