Rhys Hoskins reached base yesterday in four of his six plate appearances. He enters play Monday with a stellar .429 on-base percentage despite only a .172 batting average. Hoskins, as he did during the second half of last season, has stayed afloat in the early going by working deep counts and drawing walks.

In fact, Hoskins is tied for the third-most walks in the National League despite the Phillies missing an entire week’s worth of games.

It is true that reaching base is the primary objective of a hitter, and those who reach base consistently are valuable commodities to an offense. And yet, Hoskins’ offensive production has become a point of concern just 10 games into this season.

It’s not that Hoskins, who Phillies manager Joe Girardi has routinely slotted into the two-hole thus far, isn’t reaching base, it’s that he’s not swinging the bat to do it.

An optimist will tell you that Hoskins’ on-base skills alone make for a productive baseball player, while a pessimist will tell you that a .670 OPS and a lack of power production from a first baseman simply won’t play longterm at the major league level.

In this regard, consider Girardi, who I asked about Hoskins prior to Monday’s game against Atlanta, an optimist.

“I think it’s a product of not playing a lot, that’s what I think. I mean, you have a guy, I believe his on-base is .430,” Girardi said. “If I told you one number about any player, and I said every one of our players is going to have a .430 on-base percentage, would you take it? Yes, I would because that means you’re going to score runs.”

Girardi is right, but from this perspective, some of the shine comes off of that on-base percentage given Hoskins is supposed to be a cornerstone player who hits for power and drives in runs. Think less setting of the table, more clearing of it.

That being said, there are several ways to examine Hoskins’ overall performance to this point. It’s more than fair to highlight his .429 on-base percentage, but I believe it’s also fair to highlight a .241 slugging-percentage and .670 OPS through 10 games, particularly because these numbers come on the heels of his rough second a season ago.

Things look and feel similar in that his ball-in-play production remain below average.

However, Girardi isn’t ready to draw a correlation between this year and last, as he believes Hoskins’ lack of batted-ball production is closely associated with the disruptions to his team’s early-season schedule.

“This is a game that you have to do every day. Hitters need to be there every day, now pitchers don’t, but hitters do, and I think guys have had a hard time finding their rhythm,” he said. “And, you know, we have a number of guys that are struggling with that, but Rhys has done the best job of keeping the line moving.”

If you’ve watched Hoskins closely this season, you may feel that he is, at times, reluctant to “pull the trigger” on hittable pitches. The data suggests this is the case:

From this perspective, the byproduct of his low swing rate is that while, yes, he is seeing more pitches and working deep counts, many of these walks are preceded by missed opportunities to do damage at the plate.

I talked about this on the latest episode of Crossed Up: A Phillies Podcast.

It’s also worth noting that when Hoskins swings this season, he’s making less contact. Again, small sample size alert, but he has a 31.1% whiff percentage through 10 games, up from the 23.2% of a year ago.

Hoskins wasn’t developed as a leadoff hitter. He was developed as a hitter with excellent power potential, one who could put up big-time numbers. That we haven’t seen such power or production with any consistency for a span of nearly 350 plate appearances dating back to last season’s All-Star break is troubling.

For this recent trend to turnaround, he will need to increase his productivity, which has dwindled, against the fastball.

  • 2017-2018: 424 AB, .295 BA, .646 SLG%, 39 HR
  • 2019-2020: 353 AB, .253 BA, .482 SLG%, 21 HR

Certainly, the 2017-2018 data set is skewed by the incredible stretch he enjoyed upon making his debut in 2017. Hoskins homered 11 times in his first 96 career plate appearances (he has hasn’t homered in his last 96 plate appearances). That type of pace was never going to be sustained. The problem is, that’s not the standard to which Hoskins is even being held. At this point, league average power production would be suitable.

Dating back to July 12 of last season (the first game after the break), Hoskins has homered just once every 25 plate appearances. He has produced a .180 batting average and .680 OPS during this time.

However, perhaps yesterday revealed some mild reason for optimism. He did put together his first multi-hit game of the season and hit the baseball hard in doing so. Three of the four balls Hoskins put in play on Sunday had an exit velocity of at least 100 mph, per Statcast. Two of those balls resulted in hits, while the other, which came off the bat at 101.5 mph, resulted in a lineout.

Girardi believes such swings, along with consistent games reps, could soon flip Hoskins’ power switch back on.

“I think he has run into some hard luck, at times, he’s squared some balls up that he hasn’t gotten hits. He got two hits yesterday, maybe that’s the thing that really gets him going. We know he has the ability to hit the ball out of the ballpark, and I don’t think that’s far away from happening, but again, until we play seven, eight days in a row, our guys have not had consistent work, they just haven’t.”