Ryan Romano: Machado and selling out for power

Through the first two-odd weeks of the 2016 season, no team has hit better than the Baltimore Orioles. Manny Machado has spearheaded the onslaught, slugging a .383/.431/.723 slash line over 51 plate appearances. If Machado maintains this production, it'll mark the second straight year of improvement with the bat. This time, however, he's done things quite differently, and it's worth wondering if he should take another path.

We'll first look at Machado's 2015 breakout, which happened primarily because he started hitting for more power. After sitting at .155 in the prior seasons, his isolated power (ISO) spiked to .216 last year. He accomplished that by putting the ball in the air more often -- his groundball rate dropped from 47.4 to 43.7 percent. Simultaneously, his pull rate decreased from 41.0 to 38.1 percent, as he began to distribute the ball more evenly. While the uptick in fly balls deflated Machado's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) from .316 to .297, the switch clearly paid off. Along with the clout came a more disciplined approach: Machado lowered his strikeout rate from 17.3 to 15.6 percent and increased his walk rate from 4.6 to 9.8 percent. Offering at fewer pitches (43.1 percent swing rate, compared to 48.6 percent before) and missing less often (84.3 percent contact rate, compared to 79.9 percent before) helped Machado to achieve those feats and post all-around splendid results.

In 2016, Machado's obviously been better than splendid, but he's gotten here in a more uneven manner. The aggression of old has made a comeback -- Machado has swung 46.9 percent of the time and made contact on 79.3 percent of those swings. Because of that, his strikeout rate has regressed to 17.6 percent, while his free pass rate has fallen to 5.9 percent. Machado has also put the ball on the ground 28.9 percent of the time, and 47.2 percent of his balls in play have gone to the pull side. Machado will run a drastically lower BABIP with this profile, his current .412 BABIP notwithstanding. The reason he's made these sacrifices? A .340 ISO, one of the best marks in baseball. Machado has sold out for power, hurting his walk rate, strikeout rate, and (soon) his BABIP in the process.

Machado hasn't necessarily made the wrong decision here. If he can continue to club extra-base hits, his amount of free passes and strikeouts won't make a difference. Plus, it's very difficult for anyone to sustain average or better production in every offensive category. Nevertheless, he could probably do better than this, and the Toronto Blue Jays' Edwin Encarnacion provides a model. Since he exploded in 2012, Encarnacion has put up an impressive .272 ISO; he's hit 35 percent grounders and has pulled the ball 52.1 percent of the time, giving him a subpar .272 BABIP. All of this is around what we might expect from Machado. But Encarnacion has also run superb walk and strikeout rates, of 12.4 and 14.1 percent, respectively. Even though success of that degree is probably out of Machado's reach, it's not hard to see how he could come closer to that.

Encarnacion's secret lies in his selective swings. According to BrooksBaseball.net, he's offered at 43.9 percent of pitches on the inner two-fifths of the plate, along with 41.5 percent of pitches on the outer three-fifths. By swinging at pitches close to him, Encarnacion has pulled the ball consistently; by swinging only 42.3 percent of the time overall -- and maintaining a solid 81.4 percent contact rate -- he's kept his strikeouts and walks reasonable. Machado has the former disparity but lacks the latter patience. He's swung at 50 percent of inside pitches and 44.7 percent of outside ones, which has escalated his power at the cost of his plate discipline. He already proved his pitch recognition skills in 2015; if he could just pair them with his 2016 yanking approach, he might improve even more.

Players can skin the offensive cat in a plethora of ways. Machado's swing-for-the-fences strategy, while costly, could end up working out. Still, with someone as talented as him, the sky is the limit. If a late bloomer like Encarnacion can become an elite power hitter with plate discipline, what prevents Machado from doing the same?

Ryan Romano blogs about the Orioles for Camden Depot. Follow the blog on Twitter: @CamdenDepot. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.