The SEC’s all-time hit king made his main league debut this week, to virtually no fanfare. In some respects, the Tampa Bay Rays are a step down for Jake Mangum. The Rays at present play at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Subject, capability simply over 11,000, whereas they await disposition after Hurricane Milton took the roof off the Trop final offseason.
Mangum performed his school ball at Mississippi State, whose ballpark, Dudy Noble Subject, holds 15,000, with a document attendance of 16,423 cowbell-whacking, barbecue-devouring maniacs. It’s some of the electrifying (in good occasions) and demanding (in unhealthy) environments in all of school sports activities. To somebody who’s performed at The Dude, as Mangum has, even essentially the most raucous main league crowd in all probability appears like a Presbyterian church.
Mangum hit .408 as a freshman at Mississippi State and .357 total, and picked up a document 383 hits over 4 seasons on campus. However regardless of wrecking home in the perfect beginner baseball league on the planet, it took him six full seasons within the minors to get added to a 40-man roster.
As befits a four-year school participant, Mangum moved via the minors shortly. He reached Double-A after simply 62 skilled video games, and Triple-A after 111 extra video games. And he’s been good — actually good, in actual fact — on the highest degree of the minor leagues, hitting .310/.353/.438 in 256 video games, with 93 extra-base hits and 43 stolen bases, whereas largely taking part in middle area.
Regardless of this, curiosity in Mangum’s providers as a possible main leaguer has been tepid at greatest. And that’s saying one thing, as a result of — and I say this intending no undue disrespect — plenty of the fellows floating round on main league benches are simply not that good.
In 2019, the Mets drafted Mangum within the fourth spherical, however that draft place belies his precise standing. Mangum, then a senior, signed for simply $20,000, the primary of seven consecutive minimum-bonus offers that financed the signings of highschool pitchers Josh Wolf and Matt Allan.
We’re within the weeds now, so I’m simply going to go hog wild with the trivia right here: Mangum was not the one record-setting contact-hitting outfielder the Mets drafted as a senior out of an SEC faculty that yr. They took LSU all-time hits chief Antoine Duplantis within the twelfth spherical and signed him for greater than 4 occasions what they gave Mangum within the fourth. If you already know the title, you’re both a school baseball diehard, or you already know that Duplantis’ youthful brother is Mondo Duplantis, the two-time defending Olympic pole vault champion. They positive can run, these Duplantis brothers.
Again to Mangum: He was traded twice in his minor league profession, however didn’t make it on to the 40-man roster till this previous November. As such, he was uncovered to the Rule 5 draft in 2023, however didn’t get a sniff. He was solely an honorable point out on the Mets’ team-specific prospect lists in 2021 and 2022; by the point he acquired a numbered rating this previous February, he had the weird distinction of getting his age listed as 29.0; the one older participant to make a prospect record this yr was Yankees catcher J.C. Escarra. There are a pair children on the Rays record who’re 11 1/2 years youthful than Mangum. In different phrases, Mangum is a month older than Magneuris Sierra, a veteran of six large league seasons who hasn’t performed within the majors or the affiliated minors since 2023.
By way of 9 video games within the majors, Mangum is doing nicely. He chucked up a goose-egg on Thursday afternoon because the Angels routed the Rays 11-1, however Mangum remains to be 11-for-33 for his large league profession, with solely three strikeouts and 5 stolen bases in 5 makes an attempt. Small pattern measurement although it could be, that’s a great first impression.
I’m fascinated about Mangum for 2 causes. First is that his arrival within the majors is an effective story. That is school baseball royalty, for starters, and I like any excuse to recollect some school guys and speak about Antoine Duplantis and Rowdey Jordan and SEC West heroes of days passed by. Not solely that, Mangum scratched and clawed via six years within the wilderness, ready patiently for a call-up, and now he’s acquired it. If you happen to don’t discover that story compelling, do us all a favor and look inside your self to heal your coronary heart of stone.
The second cause to be fascinated about Mangum is that he’s a take a look at case. If you happen to’ve watched playoff baseball prior to now 15 years, and checked in on what the person on the road says when his staff loses — whether or not on social media, or discuss radio, or a pair stools down on the bar to nobody specifically — you’ve in all probability observed just a few frequent threads. Hitters are too passive; they’re up there to take a stroll as a substitute of put the ball in play. Hitters swing and miss an excessive amount of. Offense is simply too reliant on the house run, and when that boom-or-bust fashion goes bust, there’s no Plan B. No one’s good at situational hitting anymore; onerous contact is all nicely and good, however what occurred to the times when hitters positioned the ball the place they needed to and no one may shift in opposition to them?
Having spent fairly a little bit of time on social media, and on the radio, and at bars — you already know, something that passes for the agora in post-industrial America — I’ve trotted out any variety of rejoinders to those arguments. It doesn’t work. You need to use numbers, or counterfactuals, or level out that the criticisms that get lobbed at Aaron Choose and Gunnar Henderson at present had been as soon as leveled in opposition to Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. The proverbial slings and arrows haven’t modified since humankind used literal slings and arrows.
The place does Mangum enter into all this? He Performs the Sport the Proper Means. Not solely within the sense that he’s what typically will get euphemistically known as “a grinder,” however he’s additionally a freakishly gifted contact hitter who hits the ball on the bottom and to all fields. He’s like a time traveler from 1941.
Mangum’s profession minor league stroll price, throughout all ranges, is simply 5.8%. He doesn’t sit there ready for the sport to return to him. Throughout school, the Cape Cod League, the minors, and the professionals, Mangum has hit simply 29 dwelling runs in 3,342 plate appearances. Throughout elements of three seasons in Triple-A, he’s hit roughly two groundballs for each fly ball.
The nearer you take a look at Mangum’s recreation, the extra the SEC profession hits document appears like a backhanded praise. A school counting stat document is determined by a participant getting 4 seasons at school; if Dylan Crews had stayed at school for his senior season, he would virtually actually have damaged Duplantis’ faculty hits document and doubtless crushed Mangum’s convention hits document. He didn’t, after all, as a result of he had higher issues to do because the no. 2 total choose in 2023.
Right here’s one cause Mangum, despite his elite contact abilities, scared off skilled evaluators. In 2023, he was within the 99th percentile of Triple-A hitters for chase price. In 2024, he was within the 98th percentile.
By swinging at so many pitches exterior the strike zone, Mangum not solely reduces his stroll price, he’s placing balls in play off suboptimal pitches. On pitches exterior the strike zone, he hit .243/.368/.323 in Triple-A over the previous two seasons, which put him within the thirty first percentile of hitters at that degree for wOBA.
When the bases are empty, the result’s actually the one factor that issues. Strikeout or groundout, stroll or single or catcher’s interference is type of immaterial. However with runners on, the scenario will get difficult.
Thus far this season, Mangum has seen 59 pitches with runners on base and put 16 of them in play, which is without doubt one of the 10 highest percentages within the league amongst hitters who’ve seen at the least 50 pitches with males on. He’s hitting .313 with males on base, however the 11 occasions he’s failed to succeed in base have illustrated that there are worse issues than swinging via a pitch with a runner in scoring place.
Fly balls are fascinating as a result of they produce dwelling runs and extra-base hits with runners in scoring place, however additionally they virtually by no means flip into double performs or power outs.
In 17 profession plate appearances with runners on base, Mangum has 5 hits, 4 RBI, and one stroll, and has but to strike out. That’s nice! However Mangum has come to the plate with at the least one runner on base and fewer than two outs 11 occasions, and hit into three double performs. Even accepting the acute, excessive smallness of that pattern, that’s unhealthy. Actually unhealthy. Virtually thrice as many double performs per alternative as every other hitter within the pitch-tracking period.
Then there’s this play, which is what acquired me fascinated by Mangum within the context of situational hitting within the first place. The scenario: Runner on third, one out, one-run recreation within the backside of the seventh, infield in.
That is situational hitting heaven. A medium-depth fly ball scores a run. So does a reliable bunt. With the infield in, any well-hit grounder might be going to discover a gap and never solely rating a run however put Mangum on base as nicely. That is the place the Nellie Fox-type hitter shortens up and punches the ball via the opening. What did Mangum do?
Floor the ball proper to the primary baseman, who threw Kameron Misner out at dwelling. Not solely did Mangum make an out and fail to attain the run, his groundball left the Rays two bases worse off than they’d’ve been if he’d struck out.
We’ll see if this evens out over the course of the season, if Mangum comes out forward in the long run. However that is the hazard of situational hitting — except it’s executed with inhuman precision, it carries much less upside than swinging from the heels and praying, and carries further dangers.
