Nick Allen Hitting His Stride at the Dish

A change in approach at the dish has led Nick Allen to success in recent games

Nick Allen made his MLB debut last season, but after batting .207 with a .256 OBP in 100 games, and a 1-for-16 start to this year, he's still looking to cement himself as the A's shortstop of the future. 

Over the weekend Mark Kotsay mentioned that he had a conversation with Allen last Wednesday in New York about his approach at the plate. What exactly the A's manager saw he didn't want to say, but he called it "a different thought process" at the plate. 

"As a hitter you have things that you feel lead to success, and when there's not success, it's my job, or the hitting coach's job to find out what they're doing. Find out what they're thinking. What he thinks is his success, it's not leading to success, so let's make an adjustment."

Since that talk with his skipper, Allen is 6-for-17 with six singles, two strikeouts, and he's raised his batting average from .098 to .182 in the past five games. 

Monday night he went 2-for-3 and reached base in all three of his plate appearances thanks to an E5 with two down in the bottom of the third that landed him at second. Esteury Ruiz drove him in with a broken bat single. 

After Monday's game, Kotsay said that he's seeing more of what he wanted to see from Allen after their conversation in New York. "I think he's getting the baseball where he needs to get it to be successful for him, and identifying pitches. Taking good swings. We're hopeful that this is the start for Nick to realize the hitter he is and the strengths that he has."

In a small sample size from the month of May so far, Nick Allen is hitting fastballs the hardest he has in any of the previous months he's been in the big leagues with an average exit velocity of 88.2. He's also hitting them at a 13 degree launch angle. Those two stats combined lead to an expected batting average of .923. 

According to Baseball Savant, Allen had been just 2-for-29 against off-speed pitches heading into this month. In May, he's 3-for-7. 

Obviously we're dealing with small sample sizes here, but given that he's made an adjustment and we're seeing more production in the box score and in the underlying metrics, we could be witnessing a new version of Nick Allen moving forward.