Every short, hard-nosed middle infielder is Dustin Pedroia. Every power bat with a strikeout problem is Chris Carter. Every high-ceiling outfielder with the injury bug is Grady Sizemore. The comparisons inevitable because of how we choose to inform people about players they’ve never seen. That is where the inefficiency exists among the baseball community.

When you’re talking baseball with anybody on this site or in the Baseball Prospectus universe, you generally don’t need player comps. There is a good chance that that crowd will know who Kyle Higashioka is or which two players are platooning in left field for the San Francisco Giants. We don’t need every player to be qualified with “a better/worse version of _____”.

When speaking to the general baseball-watching public about a player they’ve never seen, but desire to know about, comparisons are the easiest way to draw an imaginary profile of said player in their minds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it’s simply a refined form of communication, which desires to be efficient. Turmoil ensues when the two worlds meet.

If an educated baseball fan hears a comparison between Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, their immediate reaction is to cite the 800-game gap in major league playing time or point out the reasons the comparison is wrong. This is a fair point, but what if the comparison is merely to draw a mental image?

Watch any footage of Judge’s swing at the minor league level (like this one) and it’s strikingly similar to Stanton’s at any level (right here). Even if you see discrepancies between the two, the reality is that Judge’s swing is more like Stanton’s than a multitude of other right-handed bats. If you put Stanton in a pool with a plethora of other players at the major league level, more likely than not you’re going to find Judge and Stanton syncing up more than you would expect from all the initial comparison push-back.

Miguel Cabrera’s swing (seen here) is pretty different than either Stanton’s or Judge’s. Cabrera is much more fluid in setting up his hands, syncing his load and lower body earlier as he awaits the pitch, similar, but even less exaggerated than a player like Josh Donaldson’s rhythm (seen here). This comes from a rotational style of hitting, where the hips and lower body are involved more than if a player were to employ a linear style of hitting. Some simple YouTube searching gets you to this exact difference, and explains rotation versus linear swings pretty darn well.

Mookie Betts, as shown in that YouTube-sourced video, hits with this linear approach (here). It’s direct, tends to produce line drives and utilizes much more of the upper body from the hands to the shoulders.

If you were to ask somebody which player pair is more alike — Judge and Betts or Judge and Donaldson — I have a feeling many may lean towards the Blue Jays’ slugger with similar perceived power. But the answer to this question can just as easily be Betts. Going back to our linear versus rotational style of hitting, Judge and Betts both take direct, linear paths to the ball from a similar plane. Their load is quick, simple, and they generate a good amount of their power from hard-hit line drives.

When you venture into performance territory, the comparisons become a whole different story. Take, for example, who Baseball Prospectus currently lists as comparable players for Judge.

I would guess not many people know who 80 percent of these players are. Sure, you might recognize the name Matt Joyce, but did you know that he’s a lefty who signed a two-year, $11 million contract with the Athletics in the offseason? Or that Scott Schebler is actually only 26 years old and produced a 162-game pace of about 2.2 WARP; which would’ve been higher than Albert Pujols and Andrew McCutchen in 2016?

While Judge is making projection models look a bit silly at the moment, the most important thing has nothing to do with the long ball. It’s all about the plate discipline. I’ll spare you the deep dive (which Andrew Gargano has already done), but Judge has gone from a 40-plus percent strikeout player to what seems like a 25 percent strikeout player in one offseason. His swinging strike rate has fallen by nearly ten percentage points, which is astounding for his age, drawing comparisons to one of the most impressive improvements from 2015 to 2016 that I saw —  Kris Bryant, who cut his strikeout rate by eight percentage points and watched his batting average and on-base/slugging percentages migrate north as a result. Judge’s change is in the same realm as Bryant’s, just not yet across a big enough sample size.

As we circle back to our Stanton performance comp, I think I may be coming around to the fact that they aren’t actually that similar. It took Stanton six seasons of 100+ games to post a strikeout rate below 26 percent. Judge is sitting on a 25.4 percent strikeout rate as he heads towards the 70-plate appearance mark this week.

Keep a close eye on this number moving forward. Soon Judge may be the one we’re saying is in a league of his own.

Lead photo: Charles LeClaire / USA Today Sports

The staunch difference between the two became a punching bag for analysts who disregard the majority of Spring Training stats, but there were two overlooked factors that were easy evidence as to why Bird’s spring burst wasn’t translating early on this season.

Bird fouled a ball off his ankle at the end of March that could have, in a variety of ways, contributed to this rough stretch to start the 2017 campaign. The resulting bruise was in a particularly weird spot and led to, as you may have noticed, a distinct black ankle guard, different from the classic shin guard many players wear.

Add to that a battle with the flu early last week and we have some convincing environmental evidence that Bird’s .038 average probably wouldn’t stick. Well, that and the fact that there isn’t an offensive statistic that stabilizes (becomes usable) prior to about 100 at bats. Should we abide by that threshold? Most likely, but as long as we do so with caution, some value can be found.

The nagging injury narrative came to a halt at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday night, when Bird took a 90-mph sinker 400+ feet to right field — easily the best swing he has put on a ball all year, and probably since 2015. The very simple approach to pitching Bird is similar to that of many other big left-handed bats: down and away. As you can see from our zone profiles below, among Bird’s approximate 200 plate appearances at the major league level from 2015 and 2017, this is exactly what he saw (the chart on the left denotes where Bird has seen pitches in his career).

Bird thrives on pitches in the zone and, unlike some other big power bats, can actually reach the outside corner with effectiveness (the chart on the right shows his resulting isolated power numbers on all regular season batted balls). The Wainwright sinker that was deposited into the right field seats caught too much of the plate middle-in, and Bird swung like we’ve seen him do in the past: compact, on a swing plane that produces fly balls and smooth as silk from contact to follow through.

Bird went on to double off Wainwright again in the fourth inning on another middle-of-the-zone sinker, following that up with a seven pitch walk versus Sam Bowman, who had at that point been a minor bright spot on the reeling St. Louis bullpen. His final at bat rounded out a 3-for-3 night, as he singled on an 0-2 pitch on the outer part of the plate, displaying his ability once again to barrel up pitches in the ‘.733′ isolated power quadrant in the zone profile above.

It’s all roses for Bird right now, but it may be valuable to take a look at what PECOTA was pegging Bird for preseason in order to scale our expectations for the rest of the season. Bird’s 50th-percentile projection entering the year showed a .244/.328/.457 slash line, 17 HR, 52 RBI and 47 runs (1.0 WARP). PECOTA’s optimistic 90th-percentile projection gave Bird a .284/.375/.532 slash line, 22 HR, 68 RBI, and 63 runs (3.1 WARP). It’s expected that Bird will be an above average player, indicated by the .270 True Average (TAv), about ten points above league average.

One reason Bird’s final line might edge closer toward the 90th-percentile is due in part to his place in the batting order. Joe Girardi batted Bird third for the first four games of the season, but his slow start has since cost him the spot. Keep in mind, as we discussed above, Bird’s ankle issues and the flu played into the early season struggles. With those issues seemingly in the past, and with no concrete lineup through the first three weeks of the season, I think he can easily push back up in the order if Sunday’s game truly is a sign of success to come. Combine that with Bird’s 50+ percent fly ball rate in the midst of a speculated fly ball revolution, and the 137 home runs hit by lefties in Yankee Stadium last season (highest of any major league ballpark in 2016), and projecting Bird for less than 20 home runs seems to overemphasize the health concerns he’s dealt with in the past.

I’m very excited for the next few weeks of Bird, brought on by a combination of factors including last night’s approach and success. Is this an overreaction to the minuscule sample of one game? Not exactly. We know that Bird doesn’t project as a sub-.200 hitter or possess a sub-.300 OBP approach. We also know what environmental factors may have initially hindered his first batch of plate appearances. This one game isn’t the reason that Bird will turn the corner, but it could be a sign of success to come especially as he continues to find his rhythm at the plate (for anybody who doesn’t believe in rhythm, check out this video of Josh Donaldson breaking down his approach). Before we know it, Bird may be sporting the near-.500 slugging percentage from the left side the Yankees’ lineup craves to take another step forward.

In case you were wondering, sections 205 and 206 encompass the second deck in Yankee Stadium’s right field. Here’s a link to tickets. Go get yourself a Greg Bird home run ball.

Lead photo: Andy Marlin  / USA Today Sports