White Sox Prospect Nick Madrigal Is Starting To Get National Recognition For His Elite Contact Tool

Nick Madrigal was the 4th overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft out of Oregon State University.  This was in spite of his size: he’s listed at 5’7″, 165 pounds.

Now… that’s a program height.  I’ve yet to meet him, but I’d guess he’s more on the 5’5″-5’6″ side and hardly touching a buck sixty on the scale.

But the beautiful thing is this: size doesn’t *really* matter in baseball.  I mean sure, scouts drool over the 6’4″, 210 athletes like Luis Robert and rightfully so.  There’s more room for error with them.  They possess god gifted traits that allow them to turn balls that would be a flyout for a player like Madrigal into home runs.  It’s just biology.  But if a player has an All Star brain and approach, he can overcome physical shortcomings.

And Nick Madrigal is starting to do that.  I’ve said over and over again that I was really worried with his selection at 4th overall.  At that slot, you want someone who can be a future super star.  Now that’s not to say that Madrigal can’t or won’t be, but there’s not as much room for error with him.  Take someone like Jared Kelenic of Kenosha, WI who was taking 2 picks after Madrigal at 6 overall last year.  So far in the 2019 season, his first full season in pro ball, he’s thrown up these stats:

Compared to these stats from Madrigal:

Now MiLB stats are far, FAR from the end all, be all of how a player projects in The Show.  But they can offer an interesting snapshot of a player’s future offensive output.  Madrigal is doing exactly what he thought he would; striking out never, hitting singles, stealing some bases, and playing great defense.  The kid taken two picks behind him?  Well he’s doing all of that too, except he’s hitting for a LOT of power with it.

But there is one number that intrigues me on Madrigal’s 2019 stat line so far: his .90 GO/AO ratio.  Now this is a statistic that measures how much a hitter hits the ball in the air.  If his number is at 1.00, he’s hitting the ball in the air 50% of all balls he puts in play.  Anything sub-1 means he’s hitting it in the air more frequently than he’s putting it on the ground.

Professional players don’t really make errors.  The only adage “hit the ball hard and on the ground” has died now that coaches have realized, after 150 years of baseball, that ground balls aren’t good.  It’s impossible to hit a home run on a ball beat into the ground on the infield.

Now I don’t have access to any barrel rates or exit velocity averages that Madrigal has had this year, but he’s hitting .300 so he’s finding the outfield grass with consistency.  What this tells me is that he’s done *something* to tweak his swing to get loft underneath the baseball when he makes contact.

Now Madrigal still has a baby face; I mean, the kid is only 22 years old.  It’s not uncommon to still be filling out physically at that age.

I’ve said time and time again that I’d sacrifice this K rate:

for something like…. this:

and 20 bombs would be incredible and probably WAY too farfetched.  But if he can hit 10-15 a year, swipe 30+ bags, play that gold glove caliber defense up the middle and be a top (or bottom) of the order presence, we’re happy.  Sure it’d be nice to have someone like Jared Kelenic’s 5 tool potential at the 2018 4th pick, but we no longer can worry about that.  What we have to follow is his development as a hitter moving forward.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t too happy with the pick, but what Madrigal is doing this year makes me really happy.  I hate comparing him to Altuve because I think that’s way too easy just because they’re both short, but with all the time in the world to hit the weights, a swing adjustment, and Chris Getz’ player development staff sinking their meaty paws into him, he’ll eventually start to hit gaps – and a lot of them.  Maybe even become an Adam Eaton type of player with more SB’s.

If that’s the case, watch the fuck out because this kid’s baseball brain is on another level.  His absurd K rates are proof of that, and you can’t have too many brainiacs in the dugout.