St. Louis Cardinals: Dexter Fowler getting coached up

The St. Louis Cardinals have not exactly gotten what they hoped from Dexter Fowler this year. It looks like he is taking the right steps to get back to being productive.

Dexter Fowler is seeking out help to improve the timing of his swing. If he can get better, that would just be fantastic. It would be exceedingly difficult for the St. Louis Cardinals to trade him, so improvement is the only acceptable option.

The thing is that Fowler found his help from an interesting source. According to Derrick Goold, the Cardinal outfielder enlisted the help pitching coach Mike Maddux. There is a way to spin this against John Mabry, but I am not going to do that…yet.

Putting In Work

This is not what it seems at face value. It is not like Maddux is giving Fowler pointers on his swing. All that is happening is that Fowler wants to stand in on bullpen sessions from starters. He wants to watch the pitches coming in as a way to get his swing timing down again. I applaud this move. Fowler wants to get better, and that is a good thing.

John Mabry

This is the part where I briefly complain about the St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach. Look, I abstain from the Matheny hate, I don’t think he is doing as poorly as others do. Mabry on the other hand, not great. There is just one question to ask involving Mabry and Fowler: Why is a hitter having to take this into his own hands?

What Happens If His Timing Improves?

This is not an issue of missing pitches. His strikeout rate is not abnormal. Somehow, his wRC+ is way down to 54. So, if he is making contact at normal rates, then the timing is a huge issue. His percentage of soft contact is way up from last year. In just a year Fowler went from 12.7 percent soft contact to 18.7 percent.

That is what will happen. He will start making harder contact, and in theory, his hits will stop dropping. If he can start getting hits, that is called productivity. We are not used to that from Fowler.

Will It Help?

It will. The thing is that even when Fowler’s soft contact drops, his numbers rise. That is just plain intuitive. But the numbers do not lie. Last season, his wRC+ was 121, and his offensive rating on Fangraphs shoots up to 15.4.

At the end of the day, this is good on Fowler. It goes against the thoughts that he does not like playing for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Next: Talking Trade Deadline

This needs to work, because the Cardinals offense could use the player they are paying for. Even if he has to take it into his own hands, the improvement is what matters in the end. Let’s hope this works.