4 days ago
Why I'm not worried about Michael Harris II
There is plenty of blame to go around on this 26-29 Atlanta Braves squad.
For starters, sequencing and timing. Before Matt Olson's 6th inning single in game one of Thursday's doubleheader, the team managed an 0-31 streak with runners on base. As Battery Power's own Shawn Coleman pointed out, entering play on Thursday, the 2–5 hitters in the lineup have combined for a 77 wRC+ with runners in scoring position. This figure feels even more impossible when you consider that the 6 players who have at least 10 plate appearances in the 2-5 spots in the order (Riley, Olson, Ozuna, Albies, Murphy, Baldwin) had a combined 120 wRC+ on the season entering Thursday.
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Clutch, timely hitting has been mostly proven to be a non-sticky skill (meaning that just because a team or player is particularly good or bad at timely hitting in one season/month does not indicate anything about how they will perform in those situations in future seasons/months), so some of their woes with runners on base may simply be random variation and luck. The theoretical expectation should be that their overall offensive stats will more closely resemble their situational offensive stats going forward.
There are other examples of bad luck in the Braves season. They've played a league-high 23 games that were decided by one run, and their 9-14 record in those games represents a bottom five winning percentage in the league in one run games. They are three games under .500 despite having a positive run differential. They also have dealt with some unfortunate injury luck, personified most clearly in Thursday's doubleheader vs. Philly where they sustained injuries to each of AJ Smith-Shawver, Stuart Fairchild, and Nick Allen.
So yeah, luck and timing have been issues. If the Braves had normalized regression in one run games, their run differential, and their performance with runners on, they might be a game or two above .500. I'd also argue that poor strategic management has been an issue for this club, and perhaps you could add another win or two if Snitker had made better choices. Being 3 or 4 games above .500 would be a big improvement, but that's also still below what was expected of this team. Which brings us to the bigger issue – the underperformance of their established big league position players.
Where that's concerned, there's one player that has underperformed far beyond the rest. You can probably use context clues to guess whom. Olson's 122 wRC+ and Riley's 118 wRC+ are both a bit shy of what we've come to expect from them, but both players are still on pace for ~4 WAR seasons. Ozzie Albies' 14-game hitting streak has pulled him up to an uninspiring but more palatable 87 wRC+. The most disappointing performance of all, though, belongs to none other than Michael Harris II.
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To fully appreciate the magnitude of Harris's underperformance, let's recall some preseason context. Harris was projected by FanGraphs Depth Charts to lead the Braves with 5.0 WAR. Despite a down year in 2024, FanGraphs foresaw a 23 HR, 18 SB season from Money Mike with a .292/.336/.484 line and 125 wRC+. As we approach the end of May, Harris has instead produced a putrid .229/.259/.338 slash line with just 3 HR, a 60 wRC+, and 0.3 fWAR.
The at-bats have often been ugly from Michael, but that's not a new thing. His 41.9% O-Swing exactly matches his career O-Swing%. His miniscule 4.4 BB% is nothing new compared to his career 4.7% BB. His SwStr% is down to 10.9%, which is lower than he's posted in any season and explains why his 18.6% K is below his career mark. He's managed to raise his Contact% in the best way, by specifically making more contact on pitches in the zone. His career-high 91.9% Z-Contact is more than 5 points higher than he's shown in any other season and is a top 25 mark in the sport.
So, his pitch selection hasn't really changed from when he posted a combined 117 wRC+ over his first three seasons in the big leagues, and he's making more contact than ever when he swings at strikes. That seems like a recipe for more success a la the first three seasons of his career, which saw him produce a 117 wRC+ and 4.4 fWAR per 600 PA. So, what gives? Why the massive downturn?
From what I can tell, it's a combination of two issues.
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First, he's just not hitting the ball in the air with authority as often as he usually does. Michael has always run a pretty high GB% (career ___%), but one thing that's made him special is that when he does lift the ball, he smokes it. From 2022-2024, Harris was above the 80th percentile in both hard-hit% and barrel% on line drives and fly balls out of 298 players with at least 250 such batted ball events. This season (entering Thursday), out of 306 batters with at least 30 fly balls or line drives, he's in the 38th percentile in barrel% and 34th percentile in hard-hit rate.
Ivan noted in his excellent piece earlier this week that Harris (along with most of the Braves) has lost (sacrificed?) some bat speed this year, but it looks like his bat speed is still in line with what we saw in a very good 2023 campaign that saw him post a 115 wRC+. His bat speed is in the 71st percentile, which should be enough to allow him to drive the ball.
To use a Snit-ism, this may just be 'one of them thangs.' Like several other Braves, Harris is a streaky hitter. Austin Riley had a scalding hot stretch in the second half of April. We're getting the Ozzie Albies heater now after about 6 weeks of ineptitude. We're still waiting on Harris to catch fire, but given his history, I'm betting it will come. And when he gets going, the barrels can stack up in a hurry.
The second issue is – and you might be sick of hearing this – bad luck. I've detailed above how Harris has not been himself, and even with better luck that would still hold true. But, if his offensive output actually matched his offensive inputs, he'd be close to a league-average bat instead of a bottom 10 bat in the league.
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(If you are on a mobile device, this table is best viewed in landscape mode.)
If we were in the last week of May and Harris had an OPS around .700-.710 (as his expected metrics suggest he should), you might think that it's been a cool start to the year but he's still been valuable enough as a baserunner and defender to be a solid contributor. Instead, because he's been one of the 20 unluckiest hitters in the sport, Harris has a sub-.600 OPS.
Unfortunately, if you're looking for a more optimistic sentiment than 'well he should be a slightly below average hitter instead of terrible' or 'he's shown in the past that he can be better,' there isn't too much in his recent play to suggest that he might be putting things together. Both his GB% and O-Swing% have actually spiked in the last couple of weeks. He did look good on Thursday, however, smoking a 107 mph line drive single the other way off a tough lefty in Cristopher Sánchez and pulling a clutch game-tying line drive double down the line vs. another tough lefty in Matt Strahm. In game two, Harris crushed a ball 405 feet that was caught at the wall. That isn't an isolated incident for him — in the last 2.5 weeks, all three of Harris's barreled balls have been caught. When a player is struggling like Harris is, it's tough sledding to get such poor results when he actually does something right.
So, all in all, here's where I'm at on Harris. If he doesn't improve his approach / batted ball data as the season wears on, we can likely expect him to be close to a league average hitter going forward, which would probably make him a 3-4 WAR type of player the rest of the way considering his superb defense in CF. But he likely has a hot streak or two left in him this year that will elevate both his expected and actual numbers. The Braves need more from Money Mike, and he's absolutely capable of giving it to them.
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