Inside JJ Bleday's Recent Slump

Bleday had a terrific first week with the Oakland A's, but has been slowed down in the last handful of games due to a new approach by opposing pitchers

When the A's called up JJ Bleday earlier this month, he hit the ground running. He went 0-for-4 in his first game with Oakland, then collected at least one hit in seven straight, going 11-for-25 (.440) in that span. 

Since then, Bleday is mired in a 1-for-21 slump that started during the Texas series. When things were going well, I mentioned on the Locked on A's podcast that he'd been absolutely crushing fastballs, and that keeping an eye on how he's pitched in the coming days and weeks should be interesting.

Well, that time came pretty quickly as word and scouting reports traveled around the league. In the series against the Rangers, Bleday started seeing a steady diet of off-speed pitches, and that trend continued in the Arizona and Houston series as well. In the last five games he has played, off-speed pitches have accounted for the most common pitch he's seen, and in the two games he played against the Astros, fastballs were actually the least-seen pitch. 

This season Bleday has hit .346 with an expected batting average of .283 against fastballs, so obviously throwing fewer of them to him makes sense. Especially when you incorporate how he's fared against off-speed and breaking pitches. 

Versus breaking balls, Bleday has hit .273 with a .186 xBA, but against off-speed pitches he has yet to collect a hit, going 0-for-13. His expected batting average also shows that he's not making good contact on those pitches either, sitting at .084. 

Last season he was getting a steady diet of heaters. They accounted for 58.4% of the pitches he saw, and he hit just .180 against them with a .195 xBA. This season he has fared much better, and that's a good sign for his development at the big league level. Now the question will be whether or not he can make another adjustment to off-speed pitches. 

In this slump, he is seeing just 35.3% fastballs, while seeing 21.5% breaking pitches, and 43.2% off-speed. On the season he has still seen 44.4% heaters and 29% off-speed, so that gives you a sense of how he was been attacked prior to this new strategy being implemented by opposing pitchers. 

While it's good news that Seth Brown is likely to return on Monday in Seattle, his return couldn't come at a worse time for Bleday, who is the only left-handed bat (like Brown) in the outfield mix, and could very well be the player being sent down to make room for the veteran. 

Bleday showed that he can handle Triple-A pitching in the season's first month, batting .316 with a .429 OBP, more walks (20) than strikeouts (15), and seven homers in 25 games. He needs to be in Oakland getting his reps in the majors in order to work through some of these growing pains. 

Bleday is a part of the group of players that pencils out to be a part of the next contending core, and he'll likely spend a decent amount of time with the A's the rest of the way. For right now though, he appears to be the odd man out in the current outfield mix.