Arenado’s discipline helping him evolve into superstar

The Major League leader in home runs plays his home games a mile high, in Coors Field. Actually, the two leaders in home runs both play for the Rockies, and that’s a story that often writes itself — offensive stats at altitude tend not to be trusted, and offensive stars there tend to get overlooked.

Maybe that’s true for rookie sensation Trevor Story, since we haven’t seen enough of him to say what he’ll really be, and since nine of his 10 home runs have come in either Arizona or Colorado. But for Nolan Arenado, who leads the Major Leagues with 11 homers in 2016 and is second only to Chris Davis with 47 over the past calendar year, it’s not quite as simple as that — and for all the focus on how the unquestionably great Manny Machado has ascended into the Mike Trout / Bryce Harper echelon of young talent, let’s not forget about what Arenado is doing in Colorado, and the big steps forward he’s taken in 2016.

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Here’s Arenado’s slugging percentage over the four years of his big league career: 2013 — .405 2014 — .500 2015 — .575 2016 — .651

Now here’s his outside-the-zone swing percentage over those same four years: 2013 — 41.6 2014 — 38 2015 — 38.5 2016 — 31.3

These two things are inextricably related. As we used Statcast™ to show earlier this year, the absolute worst thing a hitter who isn’t Vladimir Guerrero can do is to make contact outside the strike zone. Last year, the exit velocity difference between contact in and out of the zone was 8.2 mph; the slugging difference was 239 points. For Arenado last year, he hit .342 on pitches in the …

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