Most minor leaguers face a sink-or-swim moment, a time when adjustments are necessary. Hunter Dozier can attest.
Until 2014, Dozier had not struggled for an extended period of time. Not in high school, not in college at Stephen F. Austin State, and not in the Royals’ farm system the summer after the team selected him in the first round of the 2013 MLB Draft. Dozier quickly impressed at the plate in his first professional season, posting a .912 OPS in rookie ball then an .809 OPS at Low-A Lexington. He followed that with an .829 OPS at High-A Wilmington in 2014 to get a promotion to Double-A Northwest Arkansas, where he hit a roadblock, striking out almost as many times (70) in 64 games there than he did his senior college season and first professional season combined (72).
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“Guys were throwing harder,” Dozier, now 28, said recently, “and guys were starting to be able to command their off-speed pitches better. That’s when I knew I had to have a better approach.”
Dozier tweaked the way he hunted pitches, focusing more on the spin out of the pitcher’s hand. The adjustment propelled him upward in the Royals’ minor-league system and into the big leagues in 2016. But most big leaguers face sink-or-swim moments, too. Dozier can attest to this as well. He needed three years of trial and error to do what he did in 2019, which was post an .870 OPS with 26 homers and 84 RBIs.
Thinking back to last season, Dozier explained his strides through a breakdown of some of his at-bats. We chose three different pitchers in three different settings, all of which had the same result: a home run. We start with him facing American League Cy Young Award runner-up Gerrit Cole in Houston.
May 6, 2019 — Facing Cole at Minute Maid Park
“When you’re facing this guy,” Dozier said, “you have to keep things really simple. He’s one of the best pitchers in the game for a reason.”
Each night before the next day’s game, Dozier watches film on opposing pitchers. Typically he focuses solely on the starters, identifying the way they have pitched against him and others leading up to that game.
Dozier’s favorite angle is a center-field view on the pitcher’s arsenal because it provides a visual window into how the pitches move and from what angles. With Cole, Dozier knew those angles would not matter. He wouldn’t have the time to do much more than swing.
“I’m looking for a heater,” Dozier said as the at-bat begins. “I can’t look (for) anything else when a guy throws that hard.”
With Alex Gordon standing on first base, Cole worked out of the stretch and fired a slider, which sailed high for a ball.
Similar to Whit Merrifield’s breakdown from a week ago, seeing a certain pitch gave Dozier an indication of what might be coming next.
“It was a slider on the first pitch,” Dozier said, “so I had a pretty good feeling he was going to come fastball right here.”
Indeed, Cole came with a fastball, leaving it over the middle of the plate. Dozier, who set out to quickly turn on Cole’s pitches, crushed the ball over the left-field wall.
Dozier’s quick-twitch approach was consistent throughout the 2019 season. Against the New York Mets in August, Dozier faced Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom and Zack Wheeler in back-to-back-to-back games. Dozier looked for fastballs and collected five hits in that three-game series.
But not a dinger.
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“To hit one off Cole in Houston was a great feeling,” Dozier said.
May 22, 2019 — Facing the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright at Busch Stadium
Few big-league curveballs carry the weight of Wainwright’s bender, but that doesn’t mean Dozier’s approach changes.
“I’m still looking for a fastball,” Dozier said, “but I might move my direction over more toward right field or right-center. Against guys like Cole, I might be thinking more left-center and center because the ball is going to get in on me quicker. So for me, it’s moving the field against different pitchers.”
Moving the field is as much a mental cue as it is a physical one. At Stephen F. Austin State and even early in his professional career, Dozier did not calibrate how quick he might be able to get his barrel to the ball, and he didn’t need to make an adjustment in his stance to fit that calibration.
“In college, it was more just sit on fastballs and stay center the whole time,” Dozier said. “I was able to stay up the middle and handle the pitches they were throwing at me.”
The at-bat began, and Wainwright missed glove-side for ball one. His second pitch was a changeup inside that Dozier fouled off. Wainwright’s third pitch was a curveball that looped toward the plate. Dozier watched it inside for ball two.
“Against these guys,” Dozier said, “you just have to see the ball up.”
Stance adjustments are central to a hitter’s success, but approach plays another major role. Beyond a focus on direction, Dozier’s biggest cue is where the ball begins out of a pitcher’s hand. During the season before games, Dozier would stand in the box and take pitches, allowing him to get a feel for the angle of the pitch.
(This is also why he studies the pitchers from a center-field view. How high does the pitch begin once it’s released? Where does it usually land?)
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“I know (a pitcher such as Wainwright) is going to try to get me to chase something low,” Dozier said. “He’s going to start his fastball middle, and it’s going to sink down to a ball. The big curveball, if he starts that middle, it’s going to be a ball. I want to see something up, because I know if it starts middle, it’s going to be a ball.”
With the count 2-1, Wainwright fired a fastball off the edge of the plate, another pitch Dozier watched for a ball. Behind in the count, Wainwright flipped a curveball toward Dozier but hung the pitch in the middle of the plate.
Dozier recognized it early out of Wainwright’s hand and cranked the pitch out of the park.
July 20, 2019 — Facing the Indians’ Adam Plutko at Progressive Field
When the Royals selected Dozier with the No. 8 pick in the ’13 draft, scouting director Lonnie Goldberg said: “These are the guys that we go out and look for. They’re big, they’re athletic, they’re physical. They’ve got a chance to put the ball into the seats.”
Dozier did not hit a homer in eight big-league games in 2016. Injuries plagued his 2017 season, and then in 102 games in 2018, Dozier hit 11 home runs.
Still, he knew he had much more that in him. During spring training of 2019, Dozier spent time in the batting cages in Surprise, Ariz., picking the brains of hitting coach Terry Bradshaw and now-bench coach Pedro Grifol. Veteran hitters such as Gordon and Merrifield, guys who had faced sink-or-swim moments themselves, also provided tips on approaches and how to stay consistent.
The conversations were calming. Dozier’s mindset morphed into a process-based approach — in the past, he says, he had been too focused on results.
“I can’t control results,” Dozier said, “so if I was going through a stretch where I wasn’t seeing it well, I just continued trusting my work was going to translate.”
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Watching Plutko step up to the rubber, Dozier explained his approach. Plutko relied on a four-seam fastball, slider, changeup and curveball in 2019. His velocity, though, was more similar to Wainwright than Cole.
“He has really good command, but he’s not going to overpower you,” Dozier said. “I want to see him up because I know he’s going to try to get me to chase something.”
Plutko started Dozier with a fastball outside. As Dozier does, he stepped out of the box, held up his bat and took a deep breath, seemingly releasing every ounce of stress in his body. He then stepped back in, and Plutko fired a changeup that started high and did not sink enough to fall within the zone.
How’d he not swing at that pitch?
“I just … I knew,” Dozier said, laughing. “When you see a guy so much, you know how his ball moves.”
With the count 2-0, Dozier fouled off Plutko’s next pitch toward the third-base line. On the fourth pitch, Plutko again threw Dozier a fastball away, but it crept back over the plate, and Dozier poked it the other way, far enough to fly over the wall.
“For me personally, last year was big,” Dozier said. “I focused on the process, my work leading up to the game, studying pitchers, the things I can control. I don’t have much control out there. If I did, I’d hit a home run every time. But I can’t control results, so if I was going through a stretch where I wasn’t seeing it well, I just continued trusting my work was going to translate at some point.”
The sink-or-swim moments shaped the approach Dozier employed in 2019, an approach that raised expectations not only for himself but also for the Royals’ future.
(Photo: Daniel Shirey / Getty Images)
