Seriously, though, it's been over two months since Eaton went down and MAT has performed admirably. When can we believe that as Mitlen says, he's turned the corner. Another month? 81 games? An entire season? I want to like him.
It depends what you want out of a player really. If he can hit .280 with ~20-25 homers for the season it's difficult to complain about that production as a replacement CF (as that is what he is). If there's a genuine thought that he'll be regarded as a starting outfielder next year, with Werth gone then I think he HAS to start being a little more disciplined at the plate:
BA down slightly, SLG down slightly, K% down significantly, OBP up significantly.
Currently, to my untrained eye, pitchers seem to have been happy to throw strikes to MAT, usually fastballs and quite often catching a lot of the plate. Presumably they work on the fact that he whiffs a lot. These are hittable pitches and I tend to think is what has allowed him to put a lot of balls in play and show off some pop this season, contributing to his .386 BABIP (Fangraphs).
The other side is that I am not sure he has actually got much better at making contact with a suitable number of pitches actually in the strike-zone. It's not much of a problem when he has strikes to play with but with the power MAT has (It's pretty good but not "elite") it's not ideal for him to swing for the fences and K on pitches he should be capable of getting some bat on and fouling off (at the least). Extend the AB, drive up the pitcher's pitch count, maybe get the chance to hit a real mistake & walk a bit more. OK, most of the time he bats 8 and that means he's unlikely to get much support directly from behind him in the lineup, but the ability to turn the line over is pretty useful asset too.
Bearing in mind his jump in average and HRs he is still going along at a pretty standard clip for Ks, which suggests either what he's doing now is sustainable (he's bringing more power to the table and will continue to do so) or that he's had a bit of luck, or that pitchers will adjust to him and we will see stats regress somewhat.
However:
K%
MLB Career 34.3 (MLB),
2017 33.9 (MLB),
Last 30 days 31.4 (Fangraphs),
Last 7 days 28.0 (Fangraphs)
Interestingly, MAT's BB% is 20.0 (career average of 6.4) during the last 7 days too, suggesting that perhaps pitchers are becoming more wary about him. Clearly 7 days is a small sample size combined with the fact in that time he's been at the top of the order as well so perhaps difficult to compare, but if that trend continues, it would be nice. Very nice. Let's hope he learns what Espinosa couldn't.
TL;DR: I want him to strike out less and walk more, whilst maintaining >.260 average and ~20 homers per season.
A dig at Danny Espinosa.
