Nash Changes Tune On Strike Outs

Telvin Nash hit two home runs last night for the Lancaster Jethawks. That is a good nights work for any player. However, what I got excited about wasn't his 3 for 6 night with 7 RBIs. It was this quote in the game write up:

"I'm [ticked off]," he said. "I'm very upset with myself. It's cool to hit home runs, but nobody wants to have three strikeouts. That kills my day. The Astros have expectations for me and I have a lot to prove to my organization. Having three strikeouts doesn't help my cause at all. That's not what my hitting coach and the Astros are teaching me to do. I'm not happy with that at all."

Just over a year ago, during a twitter takeover on the Jethawks twitter feed, Nash had this to say:

It's part of the game- TN RT @red_dmartin:What do you think you need to do to not strike out so much?
— Lancaster JetHawks (@JetHawks) April 27, 2012

This is a HUGE attitude shift and shows some growth many of us have been looking for in Nash.  In his first 20 games last year, Nash fanned 28 times and walked 11.  He was hitting .247 with nine HR.  This year through his first 18 games,  he has fanned 22 times and walked 12. He is hitting .328 with five HR.  This is early progress.

The real question is the sustainability.  Last year, Nash struck out 198 times in 449 PA (44% of his PA).  That was up from 31.6% in Lexington in 2011.  He walked 47 times or 10.5% of plate appearances in 2012; down from 12% in 2011.

To put this in perspective, Adam Dunn who is known as an all or nothing guy in the bigs never struck out more than 19% in one of his four minor league seasons.  He struck out 101 times (18.8%) in 2000 for Dayton (Low A) but also walked 100 times (18.7%) in 538 plate appearances. He then struck out 82 times (19%) in 422 PA between AA & AAA in 2001.

Nash has great raw power, but people have stopped getting excited about multi home games because they are out numbered by multi K games.  Last season, he had five games with four strikeouts, and 29 more with three strike outs.  That is 34 games out of 106 of his games (32%) with three or more strike outs.  Last night was his first three strike out performance of this season.  Again, an early sign of progress.

This quote along with very early results makes me hopeful that we will see growth out of Nash this season with his plate discipline.  If he doesn't, I am afraid time might be running out on him as a prospect.