Shea Langeliers is hotter than the surface of the sun

In the last 30 days, the Major League leader in position Player War and WRC+ has also been bound for the League lead in Home Runs and Runs. You may not have noticed it because the team he plays for, the athletics, takes some free time to find himself before he settles. The player in question is not Nick Kurtz! Haha, I pulled the ol ‘switcheroo there, right?

No, it’s Shea Langeliers.

That’s right, the most dangerous batter in baseball in the past month is a catcher. Not only that, a catcher who came in this season with a career WRC+ of only 98, who got a non-inspiring .226/.285/.424 at the All-Star Break. Since then, Langeliers .398/.419/.857, with so many home runs (12) in 105 second half of record appearances as he hit in 267 Pa in the first half.

A month ago, about three years, 378 competitions and 1,444 record appearances in the career of Langeliers, I thought we knew who he was. He was a 2.0 war player in 137 games in 2024 and had beaten at least 20 home runs in both previous full major League seasons. Bump Buster Posey This is not; Langeliers is a negative framer for his career, and of the 64 catchers with at least 1,000 defensive innings since the beginning of 2022, he is 53rd in FrV.

And no matter how beautiful that 20-Homer doll is, Langeliers (at least until this most recent Bastille day) ran too little and fell too much, which resulted in a .217 career average and a .278 OBP.

To be clear, the attacking standards for catchers are nowadays so kandpunt that Langeliers was still a good player. Anyone who can hit 20 homers a year and can catch well enough that he does not have to chase the ball to the backstop five times per game, will start in the Majors. In the land of men who hit as if they are blind, the one -eyed man is king, or something.

So why does Langeliers suddenly touch like Jimmie Foxx?

Well, he’s no different throw, that’s to starters. Langeliers has seen the same pitch mix, within a percentage or two for each pitch type, on either side of the break. Before the break was 50.8% of the pitches he saw in the zone compared to 51.2% afterwards. (All statistics are accurate until Tuesday’s matches.) Langeliers has seen 344 throws in his last 24 games, which will be around one and a third extra strikes in the past month. “Neglurable” hardly does that number.

Here is something that is different, which reflects an advantage Andrew Vaughn had had during his Renaissance. (Or, if you pamper me, the Renai-Vaughnce.) In the first half, 85.6% of the pitches that Langeliers saw against the righties came. In the second half that falls to 71.2%.

I mentioned a similar finding in my piece about Vaughn, and in retrospect I regret that I did not investigate the instrument that could cause them to come across those more favorable matchups. My theory was that the Brewers had largely stacked Vaughn between the left -handed ones Christian Yelich and the Schakelhitting Isaac CollinsMaking it impractical to hunt for Vaughn with a right -handed reliever. If there is something, a manager would like the Peloton advantage against Yelich, the former NL MVP, who gives Vaughn an extra view of a left-handed Bullpen-arm.

Anyway, such an effect does not exist for Langeliers. In the first half, on either side of an oblique injury that kept him outside most of June, the right -handed Langeliers brought through the majority of his season between Tyler Soderstrom And JJ BledayBoth left -handed batters. Sometimes it was a sandwich with an open face, with only one of Soderstrom or Beday (or the similar left -handed Kurtz, CJ Alexanderor Lawrence Butler) flanking Langeliers. But only twice in 63 first half, Langeliers started between two judges in the order.

In the first half, 73% of the line-up places went to left-handed batters next to Langeliers. In the second half, Langeliers usually touched one after the other Brent Rokeor led with Max Schuemann In the nine-hole. So only 52% of the adjacent line -up spots went to the left.

Here is a more likely cause: in 98 first half matches the As were against 18 left -handed starters. This includes a point of three straight openers with one inning in an April series against the White Sox. In addition, six of those 18 Lefty Starts entered the 23-game process in which Langeliers were injured. The As of the A, on the other hand, faced seven left -handed starters in their first 24 games of the second half.

This season, Langeliers has a platoon split of more than 50 points from WRC+, which is a huge number. But a binge on left is not the reason that he was the best position player in baseball in the past month.

During his career, the Peloton splits of Langeliers are just as close, even if you will find. And after placing a .287 Woba against righties in the first half, Langeliers left last month, on the melody of a .536 Woba.

So if it is not the Peloton Matchup, what is it?

Well, if you see a few stray drops of blood on your computer screen, then know that I just cut myself on Occam’s razor. Why does a batter all over his head in a period of around 100 record performances? Because everything can happen in a small sample size!

The first half of Langeliers was .236; In the second half it is .375. Langeliers placed a .304 Woba and .316 XWOBA in the first half; In the second half it is respectively .525 and .376. Now Babip does not include home runs, and although the second half of the second HR/FB% of Langeliers of 28.6% is absolutely high, it is not entirely unheard of. If it were a full season, it would not crack the top five of qualified batters.

According to Baseball Savant, seven of the 12 first half of Langeliers’ first half of all 30 Major League Parks would have been. That applies to only three of his 12 second half of dingers. Those three would have escaped less than a third of the major League parks, including one that would only have left the stadium in which it was hit. But the same applies to that first half of monster: three that would have gone out in fewer than 10 parks, with one single.

In the first half, Langeliers became 24 beaten balls (12.4% of his total balls in the game) with an estimated distance of 340 feet or more. They turned into 12 home runs, four doubles and eight out. In the second half, Langeliers beat 15 beaten balls (17.9% of his total balls in the game) with the same estimated distance. The result: 12 home runs, two doubles and one out. The average first half Langeliers Home Run is said to have gone from 24 parks (23,583, to be precise); The average second half at home would have gone out of 21.

So yes, Langeliers gets more true to him, well, scared. But I feel like I’m nitpicking here. I also talked about home runs for so long that I feel a scourge not to show you one yet. Here you go:

This ball was a wall screen and landed in the first five rows of the seats. It would only have escaped 18 out of 30 margin. And yet he crushed that ball 402 feet at 104.8 mph from the bat, to the opposite field and over the 12-foot high wall in the right center in National Park. It wasn’t a cheap one.

Because, yes, it’s a small monster, and yes, much of it (like, two -thirds if I had to park it) looks blushy. But Langeliers now certainly crushes the ball in a way that he was not in the first half, and certainly not before he returned from his injury.

Those of you who know that the Baseball College will remember that Langeliers played his university ball in Baylor and went to high school in Texas. I will tell a relevant (even if it is hardly any) story from the battleship that is named after the home of Langeliers. The USS Texas Was part of the Armada that supported the D-Day invasion, and a week after the landings had come in far enough interior that they came from the reach of their offshore weapon support.

To touch a target that was outside the aforementioned range of the most important batteries of the ship, the captain had flooded various compartments on the starboard side, which mentioned the ship on that side, which elevated its weapons to a corner from which they could hit the designated target.

The moral of the story: sometimes you have to lean back and let it tear.

Langeliers has always had a large bat speed and a ruthless aggressive approach, and he only swings harder and freer since the break. He has raised his average Swing expenditure from 72.7 km / h in the first half to 74.7 mph in the second half, raised his attack angle and his ideal attack angle percentage increased from 59.1% to 65.4%.

The result is an increase of six degrees in its average launch angle, a decrease in his GB/FB ratio of 1.04 to 0.64 and a 4.5-point increase in his pull speed. Langeliers hardly makes any more contact, but he winds much more often, an increase of 48.6% to 56.4%. The first half of Langeliers would be 65th of 158 qualified batters; His second half Swing Rate would place him seventh.

The aggressiveness of Langeliers is at the expense of a higher pursuit speed and fewer walks, but it winds (and crushes) everything in the zone. Hot Damn, I just found out who the second half swing rates of Langeliers reminded me of:

In short, swinging to everything is a legitimate strategy, if you can hit the ball incredibly hard. So many Langeliers has done the past month. We will see how much of it lingers.