CHICAGO — It came as no surprise that Isaac Paredes’ first home run with the Cubs came to the pull side. What probably opened more eyes were the conditions that the home run came in — the wind blowing sharply in, a 19 mph force at first pitch.
Paredes admitted he’d been putting pressure on himself to produce with a new team. And seeing the flags when coming into Wrigley on Tuesday afternoon didn’t build his confidence as he has struggled to put up big offensive numbers. So hitting one out on Tuesday was big for him.
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“The first few days the wind wasn’t blowing in and honestly (Tuesday) that it was blowing in, my mentality dropped a bit in terms of hitting a home run,” Paredes said through interpreter Fredy Quevedo.”But now I know that I have the power to hit home runs here with the wind blowing in or out.”
Paredes’ reliance on hitting homers to the pull side was labeled as a negative by some. How would that play in places other than Tropicana Field? Would he be able to handle slugging through the windy conditions of Wrigley Field? The Cubs, who acquired Paredes at the deadline for Christopher Morel and pitching prospects Hunter Bigge and Ty Johnson, obviously weren’t too concerned by this supposed issue.
“That’s the approach he adopted in Tampa,” team president Jed Hoyer said soon after acquiring Paredes. “It served him really well with their ballpark. All the studies said it would translate well to Wrigley.”
Hitting to the pull side as a lefty at Wrigley would probably be harder to translate considering the wind often comes off the lake and blows in from right. But that exact wind can create a cross breeze at Wrigley and help balls that are pulled by right-handed hitters. Wrigley Field also has one of the shortest left-center power alleys in baseball and add in that the big video board in left field tends to dampen any wind blowing in from left, there’s a good alley for righties to thrive when they pull the ball.
“We looked carefully to see how that would play,” Hoyer said. “We felt good about it. I do think he’s a little bit more adjustable hitter. That’s the profile he’s adopted, but he can adjust. He sees the ball really well. You look at his walk-to-strikeout numbers, they’re really impressive in a league you don’t see many guys with those walk and strikeout numbers.”
The combination of his production with those walk and strikeout numbers puts Paredes in rare company. Since 2022, there are just 12 players with at least 1,000 plate appearances who have a wRC+ above 120, a walk rate above 10 percent and a strikeout rate below 20 percent. The most productive on the list are the elite offensive talents in the game — Yordan Alvarez, Mookie Betts and Juan Soto. But Paredes fits in with a pretty select group in that dozen right next to Alex Bregman, Will Smith and Ketel Marte.
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“It’s not like a free-swinging, I’m just trying to hook things down the foul pole (approach),” hitting coach Dustin Kelly said. “With him, it’s just contact point. When guys think about where they make contact in front of their front foot or the plate, the way he stands on the plate, he’s able to use that outer third as almost a middle third that he’s able to pull. On the inner half, he can be really stubborn and take those balls that are in-in or still get to them when he feels like he needs to.”
The launch angle revolution made trying to put the ball in the air seem like a negative to some. Some byproducts led to issues, primarily much more swing-and-miss. But if done right — finding the right contact point out in front in the right opportunities — it’s just good hitting. Paredes may be the happy medium that so many have been searching for in modern baseball. Instead of constantly trying to launch the ball, he picks his spots. He also doesn’t strike out much and takes his walks. So he avoids the biggest negative — high whiff rates — that many who were focused on launch angle pointed to.
“Sometimes the way we look at it is the highest balls you hit should go to the pull side,” Kelly said. “The lowest balls you hit go to the opposite field. So it’s almost like a scale — high to pull side and as you start working more to the opposite field, those lower line drives play. Because most guys don’t have the juice to hit balls out to dead right field as a right-hander.”
Manager Craig Counsell doesn’t like to overthink it when it comes to analyzing Paredes and his impact on the lineup.
“Isaac is who is who he is,” Counsell said. “I think he’s a good player and that’s what makes your lineup better. Period.”
But his attributes do help the team situationally. The Cubs have struggled mightily for much of the season with runners in scoring position. Oftentimes, those are the types of statistics that fluctuate wildly throughout a season. But Paredes’ profile should help provide some stability there.
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“You don’t want to punch out and you don’t want to be on the ground,” Kelly said about situations with runners on. “The strikeouts and on the ground are rally killers. So when you have that guy that comes up in those situations, it’s not a given, but you feel good about the ball moving forward, a walk or he’s going to hit it in the air and you have a chance for a sac fly or moving guys forward.”
Paredes’ 30.2 percent ground-ball rate is the third-lowest in baseball this season. He strikes out at a 15.9 percent rate — about the same as Soto. When there’s a runner on third base with less than two outs, Paredes is the type of player the Cubs want coming to the plate.
In Wednesday’s 8-2 win over the Minnesota Twins, Paredes lofted a fly ball to right field with one down and the bases loaded. The game was tied at the time and all the Cubs needed was contact, preferably in the air, and Paredes delivered.
His slugging is what makes him most attractive. But it’s those types of simple moments that can make him so dynamic as the Cubs try to change things up with a lineup that has to improve both for the rest of 2024 and beyond.
(Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
Sahadev Sharma is a staff writer for The Athletic and covers the Chicago Cubs. Previously, Sahadev was a national baseball writer for Baseball Prospectus and ESPN Chicago. Follow Sahadev on Twitter @sahadevsharma
