Malloy, 'The Aggressor'? Newly anointed leadoff hitter talks approach

This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The sight of Justyn-Henry Malloy batting atop the Tigers’ lineup over the last week and a half might have caught some fans by surprise. He’s not a prototypical leadoff hitter in terms of speed or baserunning. But he’s as strong of a judge of a strike zone as the Tigers have; he was nicknamed ABS (Automated Balls and Strikes) at Triple-A Toledo for a reason.

But Malloy brought a plot twist to the leadoff spot: He has been a more aggressive hitter than last season. And it’s not the coincidence of a small sample.

“I want to be the aggressor,” Malloy explained earlier this week. “That doesn't mean do too much, but I think if I get a pitch that I can hammer, I want to move to it. I don't want to just take it just because I'm in the leadoff spot and the leadoff guy's supposed to take a lot of pitches.

“One thing I've been saying is I want to end the at-bat when it needs to end. So if that's a pitch over the heart of the plate, whether it be the first pitch or the eighth pitch, it needs to end there. That's how I've been wanting to go about it.”

Malloy has batted leadoff in seven games since his recall from Triple-A Toledo. Five times, he has swung at the first pitch to lead off the opening inning. Three times, he has put the ball in play. It resulted in a pair of groundouts in the just-completed series against the Yankees, but last Saturday, his first-pitch double off the left-field fence sparked a two-run first inning against White Sox starter Davis Martin.

Malloy is still getting his walks, eight in as many games. And his chase rate remains exceptionally low, placing him in the 86th percentile among Major League hitters according to Statcast. But his first-pitch swing percentage has jumped from 23.5 percent last year to 42.9 this season; the Major League average is 29.9. His overall swing percentage is actually a tick down from last year, dropping from 43.9 to 39.2 percent, below the MLB average of 47.2.

“It really is about getting a good pitch to hit and working a good at-bat,” Malloy said. “I feel like working quality at-bats is not really about taking pitches, it's about swinging at the pitches you need to swing at.”

In some ways, Malloy’s reputation for plate discipline haunted him upon his arrival in Detroit last year. At times, he admittedly grew passive at the plate, looking to take pitches too often.

“When guys get up here, they try to be what you want them to be,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “So when he got called up as this zone-control, human ABS, he could fall into the trap of not being aggressive. He actually asked, ‘Can I swing early?’ Like, ‘You have the bat in your hands. You can do whatever you want, whatever the game plan is. Get a good pitch to hit.’”

That last part, getting a good pitch to hit, is the mission.

“I don't want to be passive. I want to be a hitter,” Malloy said. “If me being a hitter and the byproduct of that is walking, that's great. But I'm not a guy that's up there to take pitches. I'm up there to try to do damage. That was my adjustment for this year. It's not about taking pitches. It's not about always working long at-bats. Let's do damage, and then by doing damage, that's how you're going to work your walks. I have to earn that.”

Hinch likes the adjustment.

“That, I think, is just the confidence building in a player who can be crazy aggressive and swing early, but can also wait you out and make it difficult on the other pitcher,” Hinch said.