What to make of Ceddanne Rafaela's hot spring start

[Cameron Tran]

For the second spring in two years, Ceddanne Rafaela is a major talking point of Spring Training. This year, the question was "how can Ceddanne make the leap his sophomore year?" Well, we may have our answer. Ceddanne has came out of the gate hot this spring, with 5 hits in his first 13 at bats, with a homerun, a double, and 5 RBI's. More importantly though, he has 2 walks to 0 strikeouts so far. 

    The last time Rafaela drew a walk in a major league game was August 9th, in which he drew 2 against Houston. In August and September, he drew 2 walks and struck out 46 times. His K%, BB%, and chase % were all amongst the bottom in the league, with his K% and chase % in the bottom 1st percentile. Rafaela, and the Red Sox, knew that plate discipline and his swing decisions. 

    To address that, Rafaela made some slight adjustments to his swing and mindset as he prepared for this upcoming season. His new swing features a leg kick and lowered hands. More importantly, Rafaela looks much more comfortable in the box this season. His swing looks much more controlled, and he overall looks less erratic and more focused at the plates.    

    Even his outs are loud outs. In today's game against the Mets, Rafaela fell into an 0-2 hole in his 2nd at-bat. While the at-bat ended with a lineout, Rafaela battled in a way we didn't see last season. He fouled off 3 tough pitches and didn't chase the spoiled stuff. He's been doing that all spring too. 

    Rafaela's potential as a 5-tool player is through the roof. We know what he can do in center. We know what he can do on the basepaths. If he can be even a league average hitter, he'll be an all-star for years to come. He's got true 20-20 potential, if he can reach that, the Red Sox will add a very dangerous right-handed bat to an already feared lineup. 

[Jasonbay44]

I’ve mainly been box score watching and haven’t really actually sat down and analyzed too much. Has Rafaela’s approach looked better this spring? 

[Cameron Tran]

2 hours ago, Jasonbay44 said:

I’ve mainly been box score watching and haven’t really actually sat down and analyzed too much. Has Rafaela’s approach looked better this spring? 

He looks a lot more relaxed this year. Kinda like what we saw last year when he got hot in June/July. His 2 strike approach definitely looks better. 

[Larry Cook]

He came up to bat with the bases loaded and he laid off some low pitches that last year he had to swing at!!! 
Showed some growth, but time will tell if he can do that in the regular season 

[mvp 78]

Small sample size. I need to see him lay off pitches OOZ for a few months in the season before I'm a believer. Two weeks of Spring Training is meaningless to me.