Photo Credit: Jean-Gabriel Fernandez
Ryan Braun made headlines in an unusual way over the weekend, drawing attention with a majestic bat flip following a home run in Friday’s series-opening win over the Pirates. If Braun was a decade younger, the moment might have ended up featured as part of MLB’s “Let the Kids Play” campaign, but instead, it serves as a reminder that his offensive contributions have bounced back in a big way in 2019 after a couple of seasons where they seemed to be in decline.
Friday’s home run snapped a bit of a drought for Braun. He had not had a ball leave the yard in his previous 18 games, one of the longest such streaks in his career. Even after enduring a bit of a power outage, however, Braun is still on his best home run pace in years: He didn’t go deep for the tenth time in 2018 until July 1 and reached that mark on July 6, 2017.
While Braun’s home run numbers slowed a bit in the second half of May, his overall month was one of his best as a professional. He batted .363 with a .427 on-base percentage and .588 slugging in 25 games before the calendar turned to June, finishing a month with an OPS over 1.000 for the first time since 2012. His best offensive month in seven years was at least partially fueled by some good luck on balls in play (he batted .431 on balls in play in May, as compared to a .327 career mark), but the resurgence remains notable.
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Braun might have been due for some improved luck. A year ago, a clear narrative was developing around his offensive game: Braun was hitting the ball hard but not being rewarded for it. Last June, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com cited Statcast data to show that Braun’s numbers were much lower than expected given the quality of his contact. He posted a disappointing .782 OPS in 2918 despite finishing in the top 7% of qualified hitters in exit velocity. After 12 MLB seasons, Braun told reporters over the winter he was working on changing his swing to put more air under the ball, turning many of 2018’s hard hit grounders and lineouts into fly balls.
So far in 2019, the shape of Braun’s batted balls has not noticeably changed, although the results have. Per Baseball Savant, Braun’s average exit velocity and launch angle have shifted only marginally, down .2 miles per hour and up .7 degrees, respectively. The latter number is still well below the “ideal,” and Braun’s expected numbers suffer a bit for it: Baseball Savant credited him with a .370 expected wOBA in 2018 given the quality of his contact but has him at .334 in the same measure in 2019. Nonetheless, the ball is falling in for him much more often.
Contrary to what one would expect from a hitter that’s looking to loft the ball, Braun is actually hitting it on the ground at the highest rate of his career: FanGraphs has 53.9% of his balls in play as grounders, but it also notes that he’s given up the opposite field a bit to pull the ball more often, at a career-high 43.9% clip. He set a new career high by making hard contact on 43% of balls in play in 2018 and is ahead of that pace in his age 35 season at 43.9%.
Unlike past seasons, the Brewers no longer live and die day-to-day based on Braun’s performances. Following Sunday’s win, they were 27-21 in games when Braun starts this season and 11-7 in games when he doesn’t. His offensive contributions are largely overshadowed by Christian Yelich’s efforts to win his second consecutive National League MVP Award, Lorenzo Cain’s combination of contributions at the plate and in the field and Mike Moustakas’ big year, among others. Braun’s performance in his newfound supporting role has been better than many expected, however, and a late-career resurgence for him would be a big deal as the Brewers chase another shot at the postseason.
