Agree, jes. What gets me particularly is the slugging. No slug = no succeed.
Hopefully we'll see a rebound this year. As JR has said, going from anti-HR FSL to pro-HR Tennessee could boost his numbers quite a bit. I'd also imagine/hope/expect that either Vogelbach or somebody in the Cub coaching are aware that he's not going to have either Cub-value or trade-value if he doesn't slug a lot more. Probably it's just beyond his talents to do so, and that's it. But when some of these other scouts still seem to think he's got this 60-slugging rating, maybe there still is some latent slugging potential, and perhaps some adjustment or change in confidence will help find it? We're fans, why not hope so.
The one adjustment I'd think might work would be to simply be more aggressive. In other words, hack more and hack earlier. He's been a better than 2BB/3K guy at every step, which is pretty unusual. His best (only?) standout skill thus far, really, has been his high-walk rate, and that's been true again in AFL. It's pretty impressive, really. Given that BB/K rate, I wonder if he might not be able to make some of five adjustments:
1. Swing more aggressively early in counts. Don't take so many pitch-ones, which is often the most hittable pitch and often where you see more fastballs. That will surely come at the expense of reduced walks, no question. But, the K's will also drop some to offset that, and if you get more HR hits the OBP may dwindle little and the slugging may rise substantially? And who knows, perhaps with more slugging you'll get more respect walks anyway...
2. Just swing for the fences more. A little more leg kick, a little longer swing, a little earlier commitment to the weight shift needed for long balls. Given his very controlled K-rate, he's got space to make some compromises without going K-crazy dead. If he compromises some on his K's, but gets enough more HR's, it's worth it.
3. Guess more? Baez usually guesses wrong and often misses even when he guesses right, but he's guessed right enough to slug his way to the majors. Perhaps Vogelbach should guess more often and take bigger long-ball swings on his guesses. Obviously you'll K more that way, but again he can afford to K-more.
4. Adjust swing plane slightly in the uppercut direction? Bryant and Schwarber had GO/AO ratios between 0.6-0.7, and when Soler was killing AA he was below 0.7 too. (He grounded out a lot once he got to Iowa and Chicago, though...) Not sure how you adjust a swing path slightly, but if there is some possible adjustment that could give Vogelbach a little more lift and get fly balls, that might help him. With his lack of speed, I'm sure infielders can play super deep on him, and that he may cost a lot of stats-invisible outs via hitting into DP's. So ground balls can't be his friend.
5. Intentionally try to pull more? Opposite-field power is great, and he's got at least some. But a lot of long balls come via pulling. Not sure how that would work. He just decides to try? Commit his swing a hair earlier, at risk of more bad swings? Shifts his stance by a couple degrees so his feet are slightly more likely to step-in-the-bucket? Move an inch or two closer to the plate? I don't know.
My understanding is that he has kind of tried some of these things, without success. I think a story was that early last spring, he WAS trying to pull and swing for the fences, with no success. Maybe that means he's got no chance; but maybe he overdid it, or just didn't stick with it long enough, or maybe that was a myth.
Certainly most hitters are constantly looking for adjustments that give them more success. Who has more invested and gives more thought than the hitter himself? So in most cases, I think hitters really have pretty much self-optimized their game and stance and approach and swing plane and all that stuff. Probably Vogelbach has done so, too, and has found that any of my stupid simplistic notions make him worse.
But somehow, someway, the slugging needs to trend back up or his career isn't going big-league.