St. Louis Cardinals: Dexter Fowler is Being Attacked at the Plate

The St. Louis Cardinals added Dexter Fowler to strengthen and stabilize the offense. However, it seems teams have found ways to exploit him at the plate.

The St. Louis Cardinals and new lead-off man Dexter Fowler have been off to a slow start this season. The Cardinals have lost five of their first seven games including two to the Cincinnati Reds. They started the season off with a victory over the Chicago Cubs but since then, have been unable to adequately prevent runs and maintain a consistent offense.

The offense all starts with the lead-off hitter who is meant to set the pace. The St. Louis Cardinals this offseason went out and got one of the best lead-off batters in the game in Dexter Fowler. However, he has had little success since the season began. So far, Fowler is batting .148/.258/.148 in 27 at-bats with five runs scored, four hits, four walks, and nine strikeouts.

During his first series as a Cardinal against his former team it seemed very obvious that Fowler was being attacked at the plate. The Cubs have an incredible pitching staff, but Fowler often looked overmatched and unprepared, especially for a top level lead off hitter. There also seemed to be a very deliberate plan by the Cubs pitching staff on how to attack Fowler at the plate.

I teamed up with the great CardinalsGifs to create a gif of three of Fowler’s first six strikeouts (one including against the Reds). In the following three strikeouts there tends to be an obvious trend.

Here’s a sneak peak of my upcoming piece on Fowler. I collaborated with the great @cardinalsgifs on this one. pic.twitter.com/dOZSAp6R6E
— Brendan (@B_Dooby) April 11, 2017

Here, we see three down-and-in off speed pitches to Fowler for three swinging strikeouts. In all three strikeouts, we see the pitcher throw an offspeed pitch that starts in not only the strike zone, but in Fowler’s hot zone and break down and in to one of his coldest zones and outside of the strike zone.

What isn’t shown here, is the previous pitches of the at-bats and that is equally as important. Fowler has been seeing a ton of pitches down and away to start his at-bats. In each of those at-bats Fowler was given multiple pitches on the outer part of the plate and down in the zone. He often swung and missed or fouled off those pitches. But once he had two strikes, Fowler then was given an offspeed pitch down-and-in. This trend occurred in almost all of Fowler’s 27 at-bats.

If we look at Fowler’s hot and cold zones, courtesy of BrooksBaseball, we can see why he struggles with those pitches. (Remember to picture this image flipped for the viewpoint from a pitcher’s perspective and to match the zones in the gif above).

Fowler’s career hot and cold zones based on batting average. pic.twitter.com/hnSZ20wUzG
— Brendan (@B_Dooby) April 11, 2017

His whiff rate in the same zones also show that Fowler struggles heavily on pitches down-and-in. Some of his highest/worst whiff rates (23.41%, 21.68%, 17.82%) occur at that location. So not only is he chasing pitches out of the zone, he’s also missing them.

Clearly, Fowler has had issues down-and-in throughout his career. He has also had issues down and away. As a heavy OBP kind of batter, Fowler will need to make some adjustments going forward since it is very clear that teams are attacking him in those areas.