On Sunday, the Astros were forced to play a double-header at Yankee Stadium after a rain-out on Saturday afternoon. In the first game, they scored six runs by way of nine singles and five walks, recording no extra-base hits. In the second, they amounted 10 runs, on nine hits again, but with five extra-base hits, including four home runs. After ending the second game late, they traveled to Miami for their fifth road game in a row. And scored seven more runs, by way of home runs, base hits, and walks.

The Astros have the best record in the league at 27-12, and are being paced by a great offense along with good pitching. Most important to their offensive success, though, has been their incredible balance. Here is a table of how the Astros compare to the MLB average in some major offensive categories, along with their rank in parentheses:

They are hitting for average and power, all while striking out at a very low rate. And it’s not like they are struggling to draw walks, either, as they are still a middle-of-the-pack team in that regard.

The past two seasons, the Astros have blinded us with home runs and strikeouts. Guys like Chris Carter, Luis Valbuena, and Evan Gattis made the ‘Stros a hit-or-miss lineup, but the Astros have completely transformed their offensive profile.

In a league that is striking out more every season, the Astros have dropped their strikeout rate immensely from their 2015 – 16 rate to their 2017 rate. With a 4.8% decrease, they have lowered their strikeouts more than anyone else. The next-best is the Rays at 3.7%. Behind the Nationals, who have increased their 2017 average .029 from 2017, the Astros are second, with a .025 positive increase. They have done this while continuing to hit home runs, sitting at sixth in home-run rate in 2017.

The Astros added balance to their lineup with their offseason additions of Josh Reddick, Carlos Beltran, Nori Aoki, and Brian McCann. And now, the Astros are looking like a top-three offense in baseball, and perhaps like the league’s most complete.

Jacob deGrom has been one of the better and most consistent pitchers in the league across his short career, posting ERAs of 2.69, 2.54, and 3.04 in 2014-2016. He accumulated a 12.0 WAR in those seasons, 13th in the league and sandwiched between Dallas Keuchel and Stephen Strasburg. Good company.

He has been great, but he has not exactly been a strikeout maestro. He averaged 9.24 K/9 in 2014-2016, a good mark and solidly above the league average of 7.86 in that time, but also nothing to write home about. However, his K/9 has skyrocketed to 12.66 in 2017, ranking 3rd among qualified starting pitchers. What is behind the spike?

First, here is a table of deGrom’s pitch usage across his career:

In 2017, deGrom has thrown considerably fewer two-seam fastballs and made his curveball an afterthought, greatly increasing his slider usage. In 2016, deGrom’s most effective strikeout pitch was his slider, with a 27.5% K%. His two-seam fastball induced the fewest strikeouts by far, posting just a 13.1% K%. deGrom has also slightly increased his four-seam fastball percentage, which has been his second-most effective strikeout pitch.

The pattern here is obvious — deGrom is throwing more of his strikeout pitches and less of his others, explaining the strikeout spike. But the change is curious. As deGrom struggled through injury in 2016, his velocity fell. A change in approach to mitigate the velocity loss would make sense in that season, but that did not occur, and he struggled to some degree in 2016 because of it. deGrom’s velocity is back to old form this season, but now he has strayed from the approach that made him so effective in 2015.

deGrom’s infatuation with the slider began during 2016, but he did not throw it nearly as often as he has this season. It was by far his most effective pitch last season. It was sort of his savior that year — his slider allowed a minuscule .168 average while his other four pitches were hit to a .276 average. deGrom clearly decided that his slider was his best weapon, and chose to make it a more prevalent pitch in 2017.

However, whether by design or mistake, with the increase in sliders, deGrom has also altered the location of his slider this season. (Comparisons will be made with 2015 season because of deGrom’s 2016 health). Here is a heat map of deGrom’s 2015 slider location. Pounded low and away from the arm side, like a typical slider. But now, take a look at the heat map of deGrom’s 2017 slider. It’s all over the zone, but placed particularly often at his arm side.

In 2015, deGrom had three primary offerings. The four-seam, the two-seam, and the slider. This is a heat map of his four-seam/slider combo in 2015, and this is the heat map of the 2015 two-seam. He attacked almost entirely glove side with the four-seam and slider, up with the slider and down with the two-seam. To counter, he pounded the extreme inside of the zone with the two-seam for a balanced offering. But look at the heat map of his 2017 four-seam/slider combo, his two primary offerings this season. deGrom is attacking across the entire zone with his two main pitches, but does not have that same vertical variance that he did previously. Instead of using the slider as an edge/out-of-the-zone wipeout pitch, he is trying to establish it as an in-the-zone pitch, but it has not been nearly as effective.

deGrom is attempting to attack the arm side with the slider instead of the two-seam, while also trying to attack the glove side with the slider to create balance in his approach. While it’s reaping benefits in terms of missing bats, it is not keeping hitters on their toes. Look at this table of deGrom’s slider profile:

One can see the massive spike in strikeouts and whiffs, which looks great. But people are also offering on the slider less because of the lack of deGrom’s balance with the two-seam, and it is leading to a lot more walks than in 2015. We see the exact same thing with the four-seam fastball:

The strikeouts are nice and all, but they are coming at a hefty cost in other areas. deGrom is not commanding the strike zone like he did previously. He has not lost his pitch control, as his Zone% in 2015 and 2017 are nearly identical, but he has lost some of his authority over hitters and is not manipulating them.

But it is not just the walks that have been more of a problem. In 2015, deGrom’s Hard% of 26.3% ranked 19th among qualifying starters. In 2017, he is sitting at just 69th out of 94 qualifiers with a 35.6% Hard%. Also, deGrom has given up six home runs in his last five starts. He gave up 15 in 30 starts in 2015.

This could all be an overreaction, of course. We are only seven starts into 2017, and deGrom could just be getting acclimated to his new approach. And it is not like deGrom has been getting walloped — he is pitching all right. However, this could also be an overreaction on deGrom’s part. With decreased stuff and velocity due to injury in 2016, deGrom saw a dip in his strikeouts from 2015. He may have lost confidence in his previous approach after his minor struggles last year, and has overcompensated in 2017 by trying to miss bats all the time. The new approach has not been quite effective this season, as deGrom has sacrificed command and soft contact to create more whiffs.

Baseball has been on a steady path toward being a “three true outcome” (home runs, walks, strikeouts) league the last few years. Hitters are becoming more and more centered around drawing walks or getting hard contact, but are allowing more swing and misses to achieve that. As Dave Cameron noted in this article earlier this year, in the first week of 2017, the strikeout and walk rates were record highs for a given week. The home-run rates remained relatively similar to the crazy-high ones of 2016. This article is the first in what will be a two-part segment, one with players and one with teams. So, which players have embodied the three true outcomes the most in 2017?

Only players with at least 80 plate appearances qualified for this. I took players in the 80th percentile for BB% (above 12.4%), ISO (above .239), and home-run rate (above 6.03%). Then, I filtered for players in the 20th percentile for K% (above 25.5%) and contact% (below 73.2%). I found six compatible players:

As a top prospect, the path of Joey Gallo has been monitored closely. The 23-year-old has shown tremendous natural power in his short stints in the bigs, but has also demonstrated poor plate discipline. Jeff Sullivan recently discussed whether Gallo was approaching the acceptable threshold of his swing-and-miss tendencies, but his overall numbers and 2017 have still been underwhelming (aside from the home runs). Gallo has the lowest BB% and contact% of the group, yet has the greatest K% by a large margin. The power is clearly there, as his HR% and ISO are solid among the others, but Gallo still has a long way to go to become an above-average hitter in the Rangers lineup.

Khris Davis has epitomized the continual growth of the league toward the three true outcomes, consistently increasing his HR%, BB%, and K% through his career in the majors. Davis has begun to establish himself as one of the better-hitting outfielders in the league, growing on his home-run-filled 2016 while greatly increasing his walks.

Simply put, Aaron Judge is mashing the ball for the Yankees in 2017. After a disappointing run in his late-season call-up in 2016, Judge has shown much-improved plate discipline, dramatically increasing and decreasing his BB% and K%, respectively. The 25-year-old leads the MLB in home runs, and is head and shoulders above even this group in ISO. He is achieving this all while posting the second-lowest K% of the group and highest contact%. His early start is clearly unsustainable, but Judge looks like a future star right now.

Miguel Sano is yet another young, former highly-touted prospect in this group. After a promising rookie season in 2016, a possible breakout was expected from Sano — and he has not disappointed. He leads this group in BB% and is second in ISO. Sano still has the swing-and-miss problems, as his K% and contact% are still very poor, but he has displayed the power and walk-drawing ability to become a leader of the league’s three true outcome trend.

Matt Holliday is a bit different from the previous four guys because of his MLB experience. The 37-year-old veteran has appeared in 1797 games in his career — the other four have appeared in 851 games combined. Holiday has changed his profile a little bit this season, following the three true outcome trend and posting HR%, BB%, and K% higher than his career norms. Whether Holliday is adjusting to the changing MLB with age or this is just a one-month statistical blip remains to be seen, but he has certainly played like a three true outcome guy in 2017.

Justin Upton, like Holliday, has a lot more experience than the first four guys on this list. Upton has continued in 2017 what he’s always done as a pro: strike out and hit home runs. However, he has displayed an improvement in his ability to draw walks this season, posting what would be an easy career high 14.7% in 2017. Upton is not quite the extreme power hitter in comparison to the others — he has the lowest HR% and ISO of the group — but he also has the highest contact%. He is not a league-leader-in-home-runs type of player, but Upton makes just enough contact and draws enough walks to mitigate his strikeout tendencies.

It is clear that the three true outcome trend has been dominated by the younger guys, but it is also evident that veterans are adjusting to league changes. Guys like Sano, Gallo, and Judge have made their way to the MLB by embracing the three true outcomes, while players like Holliday are possibly changing with the times. In the coming years, you will likely see the number of names in that table increase even more.

A little over two weeks ago, Dave Cameron suggested here that the Astros might need a new first baseman. Last summer, they transitioned newly-signed Cuban prospect Yulieski Gurriel from third to first in hopes he would solve the Astros’ continual first-base issues. Gurriel did not live up to expectations, to say the least. In short, he displayed poor plate discipline as an extremely aggressive hitter, but did not hit the ball with enough authority to overcome his plate approach deficiencies (You can get the more detailed version in Cameron’s article).

However, since the exact day the article was released on April 11, Gurriel has been on a tear. He has accumulated 23 hits in 54 plate appearances, including five doubles and two long balls, to go along with eight runs scored and seven RBI. So, what has Gurriel changed recently?

In his 165 plate appearances in 2016 and up until April 11th, Gurriel posted an absurd 42% O-Swing%. The MLB average is just 29%. He paired that with a 76% Z-Swing%, nine percentage points above average. Gurriel was swinging at anything and everything thrown his way. Since then, he has lowered his O-Swing% to 34% and his Z-Swing% to 68%. Gurriel is showing much improved plate discipline, something he was vaunted for while playing in Cuba. It has not resulted in walks, as Gurriel has drawn only one walk since April 11th, but there is evidence as to why. Let’s look at this rolling average graph of Gurriel’s O-Swing% and Zone% across his career. As Gurriel has continually swung less at pitches out of the strike zone, the number of pitches he is seeing in the strike zone has grown. With more pitches in the zone, he has had less opportunity for walks.

Gurriel has taken advantage of the increase of strikes thrown his way. On his swings at pitches in the zone since April 11th, Gurriel has made contact 97% of the time. The MLB average for Hard% of batted balls from 2016-17 has been roughly 31%. Pre-April 11th, only 27% of Gurriel’s batted balls were hit hard. Post April 11, that number has skyrocketed to 44%. Gurriel is picking his spots now, and when he does decide to swing, he’s making contact. And hard contact.

Previously, pitchers were attacking outside of the zone, knowing Gurriel would swing and produce weak contact. With his decrease in aggression, pitchers have been forced to throw over the plate. Gurriel is sitting on good pitches to hit now, allowing him to make hard contact. The walks have not come yet, but if he continues to play like this, pitchers will learn not to throw in the zone to him. We are dealing with a relatively microscopic sample size here, but players don’t dramatically decrease their aggression just by chance. Gurriel’s current hitting is clearly unsustainable, as he is running a 253 wRC+ since April 11th, but if he continues to show the patience he is playing with right now, don’t expect him to revert back to pre-April 11th Yulieski Gurriel.

So, in summary, what has Gurriel changed?

Not a ton, it appears. He has simply just hit with more patience, which has trickled down into the rest of his game. Gurriel always had the ability to barrel up balls, but he was not showing it because he was not swinging at the right pitches. If Gurriel keeps doing what he’s doing, the Astros definitely won’t need a first baseman.