The Blue Jays' postseason roster is a veritable who's who of former Twins, many of whom were cast off by Minnesota. I count five ex-Twins on the roster: R.A. Dickey, LaTroy Hawkins, Liam Hendriks, Ben Revere and Chris Colabello. (Danny Valencia was with the Jays earlier this season before winding up in Oakland).
There are plenty of interesting names on that list of ex-Twins who are now trying to get Toronto to the World Series, but Colabello to me is the most interesting. The Twins took a flier on him a few years back after he was tearing up the independent Can-Am League. He crushed minor league pitching, struggled with the Twins in 2013, got off to a torrid start in 2014 but fizzled out to the point that the Twins let him go. The prevailing sentiment was that he couldn't consistently handle major league pitching. He had power, sure. But his approach would never translate into regular success.
His 2015 season with Toronto, then, has completely contradicted that conventional wisdom. Colabello's slash line in 360 plate appearances with the Blue Jays was a robust .321/.367/.520, and he has kept right on producing in 35 postseason at bats with an .867 OPS.
So what happened to turn Colabello from a Twins castoff into a Blue Jays mainstay? I took a look inside his 2014 vs. 2015 numbers, along with some added context, to try to figure that out. Here is what I came up with:
1) Colabello was more aggressive this year in his approach. Per FanGraphs, he swung at 51.2 percent of all pitches thrown to him, as opposed to 46.6 percent a year ago. The numbers get even more interesting, though, when we look at his first pitch approach.
In 2014 with the Twins, Colabello finished with 205 at bats. In only 22 of those at bats did he put the ball in play on the first pitch (10.7 percent of the time), and he got just five hits in those 22 at bats.
This year with the Blue Jays, he was a whopping 29 for 54 with an OPS over 1.300 when putting the first pitch in play out of 333 at bats (16.7 percent of the time). So last year when he was putting the first pitch in play 1 of every 9 or 10 times, and not doing it all that well, this year he was doing it 1 of every 6 times and doing it with great success.
2) That first-pitch success, which was a huge reason for his overall success, can be traced to both a shift in approach as well as — probably — to the Blue Jays' overall offensive success. Toronto scored 891 runs this season — 127 more than ANY OTHER TEAM IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. Wherever Colabello batted in the order (often 5th or 6th), he was well-protected by other dangerous hitters and was often batting with runners on base. Perhaps as a result of that, pitchers threw Colabello strikes on the first pitch this year 68.1 percent of the time; last year with the Twins, that rate was 58.2 percent. When you're seeing more strikes on the first pitch, it makes it easier to get aggressive.
3) Colabello hit line drives almost twice as often this year as he did last year. Again, per FanGraphs: Colabello hit line drives 25.2 percent of the time this season; a year ago it was 13.7 percent (the same as it was in 2013 as well). More line drives mean fewer ground balls and fly balls, which are more frequently converted into outs. As a result, his batting average on balls in play was a rather absurd .411 this season.
That suggests some pretty good fortune — .411 was the highest BABIP in the majors this season for players with at least 350 plate appearances — but his line drive rate was 21st in MLB, suggesting that he also made some of his own luck as well.
It's reasonable to think Colabello won't hit for such a high average next season as the BABIP gods even things out. But if he keeps hitting in a deep lineup and keeps raking fat first pitches, there's no reason he can't keep being a very productive player.
