00:00I want to push to Stephen Kwan here at the Cleveland Guardians because Kwan has been mighty underwhelming so far
00:06this year.
00:07The Cleveland outfielder has a stretch of four consecutive gold gloves, back-to-back All-Star games.
00:14He was coming into this season one of the best left fielders in Major League Baseball.
00:20Career batting average of .281, career OPS of .741.
00:23This guy's per .162 or per season averages.
00:27He was swiping 18 bags.
00:30He was hitting nine homers.
00:31He was getting on base at a .350 clip.
00:33All of that's just gone away this year.
00:36It was a five-and-a-half win season his rookie year, three win seasons in .23 and .25, a
00:41four-win season in .24,
00:43and this year he's been a negative player through the eyes of war, hitting .204 through 40 games with a
00:48homer, nine driven in, and a .570 OPS.
00:52What's up with Kwan, man?
00:54I mean, the quality of context, and it's not like this is a guy that's ever was like a major
00:58slugger here, but an average exit velocity of 82.5 miles per hour?
01:03He's a max exit velocity of 100.8 miles per hour.
01:08Like, 100.8?
01:10That's barely keeping you out of school in elementary school.
01:13If you have a fever, like, that's barely a fever.
01:16You're in trouble.
01:17Like, you're not – I would try to get out of school with 100.8, and I'm not getting out
01:21of there.
01:22It is bizarre.
01:24And again, I know, like, he's never been a huge max guy, but, like, 104 to 105 is a lot
01:29different than 100.8 max EV.
01:32So, for whatever reason, the quality of contact being way down, and, you know, you might say, well, but slug
01:37isn't a big part of his game.
01:38Of course not.
01:39But for line drives to sneak through into the outfield or ground balls to sneak through into the outfield or
01:45fly balls to split the gaps, it's really hard when the average is that low, which is, like, among the
01:52lowest of qualified hitters compared to 86.
01:55You know, like, being in the bottom 1% or the bottom, like, 0.1% compared to being in
02:02the bottom 7% to 10% is a big difference when you are making a ton, a ton of
02:06contact.
02:07And that's the craziest part, though, with Kwan is, like, he's making as much contact as ever.
02:11It's just the quality is so low that this shows you, like, there is a tipping point, even if you
02:15are one of the most elite bats of ball guys, that if you are not at least at a certain
02:20threshold of quality of contact, it doesn't matter.
02:23The hits are just not going to fall.
02:26I have no idea what's going on with him.
02:28And, honestly, this timing stinks for Stephen Kwan because he enters his final year of arbitration next year and then
02:35hits free agency.
02:37This guy's sample that he was putting together over the course of his first four full seasons had the makings
02:43of, like, that throwback but get $90 to $100 million type of player.
02:48He was going to cash in big time, and he was one of the more sought-after names at the
02:53trade deadline.
02:53He was going to cash in big time, and he was going to cash in big time, and he was
02:53going to cash in big time.
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