Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Andy Pages is off to a fantastic start to his Major League career. His slash goes .308/.329/.526/.855. He’s hit four home runs. His wRC+ through 85 plate appearances sits at 140.
And yet, it somehow seems like we’re all waiting for the regression. For a very specific reason: plate discipline.
We haven’t seen anything outlandish from Pages thus far, at least in terms of the skill set. He’s shown power, quality contact, and really strong defense in right field. Any scouting report will tell you that power & defense represent his loudest tools. So his early production tracks.
The plate discipline, though, stands out as a reason to approach his hot start with at least the slightest bit of apprehension. Because the early trends there are…startling.
Pages has taken one walk through those 85 PAs. As in singular. It took him 17 games before he even recorded that first one. That leaves him with a 1.2 BB% to date. And it’s not as if Pages isn’t a guy who won’t take a walk. He graciously accepted free passes at a 22.5 percent clip in Double-A last year (142 PAs) & a 24.5 percent rate (571 PAs) the year before.
But instead of bringing that same approach to the top level in 2024, Pages has instead been hilariously aggressive. There are 264 MLB players who have at least 80 plate appearances to their name this year. Pages’ 56.1 percent swing rate stands as the 15th-highest to this point. His 38.1 percent rate on pitches outside of the strike zone sits 20th, while he’s actually been a bit more conservative on those inside of it (71.4).
At the same time, Pages Contact% (80.0) is perfectly respectable. Even more so when you notice he’s making hard contact at a 30 percent clip. His 11.2 percent whiff rate also stands as something completely reasonable. So while you have a player who is just going up and hacking wildly, the reality is that nothing he’s doing right now is proving a detriment in the way that we frequently see such rates.
One does have to wonder, however, how sustainable such trends are on a couple of different fronts.
The first is just within the trend itself. Pages has a history of actual, real plate discipline. So a regression to the mean is absolutely coming in terms of his ability to work his way on base via the walk. That’s positive regression, as he’s already hitting his way on base. Driving up the BB% could make him a fixture on the basepaths.
Perhaps more importantly in the interim, though, is the idea that pitchers are going to make an adjustment. Right now, pitchers are throwing Pages fastballs over 60 percent of the time. It’s his highest source of hard contact and his lowest area of chase. Early trends have him struggling with some chase & whiff on the offspeed, in particular. The easy assumption is that pitchers are going to adjust. Pages will see fewer fastballs and more offspeed or breaking stuff. Once that adjustment occurs, the onus will be on Pages to reestablish the discipline he showcased in the minor leagues.
Andy Pages has certainly worked himself into an extended run at this level, even when the Dodgers’ outfield is completely healthy. The glove plays. The power wrought by his uppercut swing does too. We’ll see what the adjustment period looks like on both sides of the discipline equation, but given his professional history, we shouldn’t expect that process to be too cumbersome for him to navigate.
That process, though, is going to come directly. It almost has to in order to avoid defying reality even longer.