Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: A.J. Pollock’s Offensive Struggles and Action Plan Detailed

The Los Angeles Dodgers can be one of the most dynamic offensive teams in all of baseball – but it comes with a caveat. Indeed, there is an ‘if’ involved as with most teams around the league.

Without question, one of those ‘if’ factors is free-agent outfielder A.J. Pollock rounding into form. Entering the year, Pollock was a career .280 hitter. Now, with Los Angeles; he is hitting in the .230’s during the 2019 season.



Recently, Pollock spoke with Pedro Moura of The Athletic about his early season struggles and his plan going forward to regain traction. Of course, this would be a huge shot in the arm for the Dodgers’ offense with Pollock often hitting in the middle of the order to break up lefties.

Pollock has the ability to change a game with one swing at any time. For instance, he did this when Sonny Gray of the Reds was locked-in on during an afternoon game at Chavez earlier this month.

Pollock tells Moura he is not overly concerned, rather just part of the life of being a baseball player.

“I’m just going through the natural grind,” Pollock said. “It was frustrating. It’s a tricky thing because you want that balance between when your swing’s dialed in and you’re swinging at the right pitches.”

Moreover, it sounds like Pollock wants to remain in attack mode and use the momentum of getting ‘hot’ to turn this thing around.

“I want to be aggressive in the zone, and that’s really, really hard to do,” Pollock said. “I think the average fan probably doesn’t realize how hard that is when the goal of every pitcher is to make something look like a strike and have it be out of the zone. That’s the goal for them, and they’re very, very good at making something look like it’s in the zone most of the way and then it’s out. If you’re scuffling and facing elite pitchers at the same time, it’s tough,” he said. “You can say, ‘Stay loose,’ but it’s hard. It’s just really hard to be 100 percent completely sold out and trusting. It’s easier when you’re hot.”

Honestly, what Pollock says within that quote above makes perfect sense. Take a moment to read it again – that is the mindset of a decent big league hitter who is going through struggles.

Analysis and Final Thoughts

It’s really a neat thing to be able to get a look into the mental approach of a player when things aren’t going great. Major props to our friend Pedro Moura for grabbing this right now. As a counterpoint, someone like Alex Verdugo or Cody Bellinger’s mental thoughts game-to-game with things going well are probably as simple as ‘see ball, hit ball’. And it works!

If the Dodgers are going to get their lineup to perform to it’s full capability, Pollock getting back on track to career norms is mandatory.

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18 Comments

  1. Pollock’s career slash line away from Chase Field: .264/.322/.428/.749 and in 2017 and 2018 he slashed pretty much what he is doing as a Dodgers. Hopefully he and Dodgers hitting coaches get better performance, but signing him based on past performance was a head scratcher.

  2. In his career away from hitter friendly Chase Field, Pollock slashed .264/.322.428/.749; and in 2017 and 2018 his road splits were even worse, very similar to his current stats. Why Dodgers signed him is a head-scratcher`. Hopefully the coaches and Pollock working together will yield better results, but the odds are not favorable

    1. We either need him to get hot SoCal, or someone to maybe hit him 7-hole with some lefties back to back in the middle of the order

  3. Pollock is struggling big-time, but what can you do? Give him an off-day ok, his replacement would be Verdugo(I’m for), Taylor(NOT) and then your OF could be from LF-CF-RF(Pederson,Verdugo,Bellinger), have Muncy at 1st-base. Hope the opposing team doesn’t start a LHP. Heck Taylor&Barned/Gale(automatic-outs) starts, three auto-outs including the pitcher. Hernandez is struggling, I guess he was better-off being a part-time player, but they(Dodgers brain-trust) decided not to bring back Dozier, or go after DJ Lemahieu, Paging Gavin Lux??

      1. Clint, the Dodgers as Robin points out are very weak from the RH hitter side and that is why for the most part we struggle against LHP In fact Dodgers totally LACK any RH power right now and none coming in the system either . DJ Peters is a joke as all one has to do is look at how he is striking out still a great deal in the minors. Another Billy Ashley is what I see. Andy and puppet boy Roberts better realize their chances of even reaching a 3rd WS are extremely slim if they do not correct this RH hitter deficiency and believe me, the opposing teams know this because for one thing, the Cubs totally exposed this weakness of the Dodgers.

          1. What became of the Turner that was hitting .400 or so in spring-training? Perhaps that Turner was abducted and the turner the Dodgers have is an imposter, lol.

  4. Freidman should have signed Goldschmidt instead of Polluck, put Bellinger in center and Goldy at first base. But the dumb bastard could not see this, so the Cardinals, as usual, made the right move and Dodger fans pay for his stupidity.

    1. It wasn’t a signing it was a trade. The Dbacks would’ve asked for far more than what they asked for from the Cardinals. STL got off easy only having to trade one good prospect and a bust pitcher. The Dodgers would’ve had to trade at least 4 top prospects for Goldschmidt

      1. And with the way FO and Roberts runs this teams’s lineups doing what they do, he probably would not have signed any extension. I wouldn’t if I were him because of the excessive platooning, sitting the hot bats, players in and out of lineups daily and so on….

    2. Hi Jim! I saw an interesting stat last night in regards to Goldschmidt. It’s crazy but Christian Walker has replaced his production thus far. Where would you have played Muncy, Freese, Bellinger with Goldy in the mix? Thanks for your thoughts

  5. Verdugo is 4 for 10 vs LHP with a home run. There is absolutely no reason not to play him every day. He is indeed a future star. I would be patient with Pollock, not much choice at this point.

  6. Was my comment was omitted because I called Freidman a dumb bastard for signing Polluck instead of Goldschmidt?

  7. Sorry about the last entry. I didn’t see my previous one posted above.

    Bellinger can play any outfield position, Freese is only good as a pinch hitter late in the game (a big deal, obviously), and Muncy has yet to prove he is more than a one year sensation, which Chris Taylor has not.

    1. Your post is still there on my screen. It has 3 replies one of which from Clint. Can you see it ?

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