Patience key for Things’ Sweeney
There is an old baseball adage, probably initially uttered decades ago by either Abner Doubleday or the coach of the first bad youth league team, that goes like this:
A walk is as good as a hit.
Wild Things first baseman Kane Sweeney says he doesn’t believe that piece of information, though his play speaks otherwise.
Sweeney, who is Washington’s cleanup hitter and first baseman, is second in the Frontier League in walks with 35 entering a game Saturday night against the Joliet Slammers, and is on pace to make a run, er, walk, at the team’s single-season record. Chris Sidick, a leadoff hitter, set the record by drawing 75 walks back in 2007.
For the season, according to Pointsreak.com information, Sweeney is averaging 4.4 pitches per plate appearance. That’s an unheard of number for a middle-of-the-order hitter at any level, but Sweeney’s patience, strike-zone judgment and plate discipline is unequaled by any Wild Things players who has batted in the middle of the lineup.
“I’ve always been a patient hitter,” said Sweeney, who has a team-best .328 batting average and is a strong candidate to be selected to the Frontier League All-Star Game that will be played later this month in Joliet, Ill.
“I’ve always been hitting in the middle of the order, which means I’ve batted in a lot of big spots in games. When that happens, you’re looking for a pitch you can drive, so you have to be selective.”
Sweeney, who is from Springfield, Ill., is in his first season with the Wild Things. He played his college baseball at Morehead State in the homer-happy Ohio Valley Conference. While at Morehead, Sweeney set the school record for walks and was drafted in the 29th round in 2015 by the New York Yankees. He spent two years in the Yankees’ system and drew 37 walks in 60 games at the Class A level.
Those kind of walk totals are not what you would expect from a first baseman but they do fit with the modern Moneyball theory of baseball where on-base percentage is stressed more than batting average. In other words, Sweeney is the kind of player Big Data and analytics-driven organizations covet.
“The Yankees, they appreciated that I was always on base,” Sweeney said. “The Yankees were a good fit for me originally, but they just have so many prospects.”
So Sweeney and his .290 career batting average were released this spring. He was signed by the Wild Things in late March and has provided the team with much more than it expected.
“I knew he didn’t have the power numbers that you typically look for in a first baseman but I was fine with that because I wanted to upgrade the team as a whole,” said Wild Things manager Gregg Langbehn.” I didn’t know what we were getting. I didn’t realize his patience is as good as it is. And his defense has been very good.”
Though Sweeney is selective at the plate, he has proven that he still knows what to do with a pitch when it’s left over the plate. In a home game last Saturday night against Evansville, the left-handed hitting Sweeney went the opposite way with a pitch and drove it for a home run off the scoreboard in left centerfield at Wild Things Park. Against Joliet Friday night, Sweeney homered off the frame of the video board in right field.
For the season, Sweeney has six home runs and 30 RBI.
“He is so patient and his bat path has gotten better,” Langbehn said. “Early in the season, it was a casting out swing where he was trying to pull everything. That’s when teams were trying to shift against him. He’s fine with that because he looks to go the other way. Kane has fine-turned his approach and it’s paying off.
“He’s not afraid to hit with two strikes. That is the thing that has stuck out about him. I have no problem with what he does.”