Michael Harris II Is On Hearth

On the All-Star break, Michael Harris II was heading for his worst season as an expert. His strong defensive abilities couldn’t make up for his woeful 47 wRC+, a .210/.234/.317 batting line that had neither on-base abilities nor energy. Between a league-low stroll fee and solely six homers, Harris had “gathered” -0.8 WAR, a surprisingly low quantity for the Braves standout. Solely two Rockies, Brenton Doyle and Michael Toglia, had worse numbers.

Because the All-Star break, Michael Harris II has been the most effective hitters in baseball. In a mere 30 video games, he’s racked up 2.2 WAR thanks virtually completely to his offensive prowess. He’s hitting a bruising .398/.413/.732, good for a 217 wRC+. That energy outage? Forgotten. Harris has extra residence runs because the break (9) than earlier than it. Solely two gamers in baseball – Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers – have a greater wRC+ over that point span, or extra WAR.

It may be laborious to carry two opposing concepts in your head, significantly when these two concepts are “Michael Harris can’t hit” and “Michael Harris is without doubt one of the finest hitters in baseball.” One purposefully foolish approach of claiming it: Harris has gathered 158% of his 2025 WAR within the second half of the season. One other wild factor about this ridiculous tear: Between after I filed this piece on Monday afternoon and when it was printed on Tuesday, Harris went 4-for-4 with a house run and gained 16 factors of wRC+ and 0.3 WAR. For the remainder of this text, the numbers I take advantage of are up to date by means of the top of play on Sunday.

It’s unquestionably true that nearly something can occur for 100 plate appearances, however that is stretching the bounds of “virtually something.” You don’t run a 200 wRC+ for a month on accident. You don’t run a 47 wRC+ for half a season on accident both. I needed to examine.

The best weak spot in Harris’ recreation occurs to be one which I’ve spent a bunch of time enthusiastic about, in a broad sense, this yr: He chases a ton of pitches. When he broke onto the scene in 2022 by profitable Rookie of the Yr, he walked solely 4.8% of the time and posted a 137 wRC+ anyway. When he backed that season with 3.9 WAR in 2023, he walked solely 4.6% of the time and nonetheless managed a 116 wRC+. In every of these years, he chased practically as a lot as anybody in baseball as a part of a swing-happy strategy. It may need saved his walks down, however you may perceive why Harris needed to swing a lot; when he made contact, good issues have been occurring.

By 2024, the trade-off didn’t appear to be working as a lot. He nonetheless walked solely 4.9% of the time and nonetheless chased round 40% of pitches exterior the strike zone, however the wonderful outcomes on contact fell off a bit; much less energy, decrease BABIP, and a below-average offensive line for the primary time in his profession. That brings us to this yr: extra chase, fewer walks, and an influence collapse resulting in unplayable offense on the break:

It’s a simple story to inform in your head. Harris’ swing-first tendencies result in worse swings and declining injury on contact, however he leans into the stoop by swinging much more to attempt to pull out of it. Extra swings means worse swings, worse swings means worse contact, and the 2 results maintain feeding on one another in a vicious downward spiral. So Harris dialed again his aggression to profession norms and began to succeed once more, proper? Improper:

Oh, so he’s simply getting fortunate with some batted balls falling, flattering his wOBACON, proper? Improper once more:

Sure, he’s beating his anticipated stats by a smidgen, however that’s not the large story right here. He’s hitting the ball a lot more durable and getting it within the air extra typically, resulting in meaningfully extra worthwhile batted balls. Positive, that is small pattern theater, however the film enjoying in that theater is a summer time blockbuster, full of giant explosions and crowd-pleasing motion.

What has Harris modified? It’s really pretty easy – he’s attacking in good attacking conditions extra typically. We consider all swings for a given participant as roughly equal, however that isn’t the case. The place the ball crosses residence plate is extremely vital. When a batter swings at a pitch that’s three inches exterior, the percentages of success even on contact are low. Once they swing at one proper down the center, the prospect of contact goes up, however the enhance in anticipated manufacturing on contact is way extra vital.

Separate the hitting zone up into 4 concentric quadrants: coronary heart of the plate, shadow of the plate, chase zone, and waste pitch zone. Swings that make contact within the coronary heart zone produce a .403 wOBA and .611 SLG. That’s a lifeless ringer for what Manny Machado and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. have performed on contact this yr. Swing at a meatball, and good issues occur.

It will get progressively worse as you swing at pitches farther from the middle of the plate. Within the shadow zone, the sides of the strike zone and the world simply exterior that, contact produces a .327 wOBA. Within the chase zone, we’re all the way down to a .255 wOBA. By the point you get to the waste zone, pitches that not often draw swings, contact produces a mere .250 wOBA and .301 SLG. That’s the sort of batting line that always will get you DFA’d. Coronary heart of the plate contact? You’re a star. Manner off the plate contact? Good luck on the waiver wire. It’s not fairly so simple as that, however the place you swing issues extra for a way a lot injury you do than it might first seem.

Harris has turned issues round due to an easy plan: Assault the perfect pitches to hit extra continuously. Right here’s a smattering of instances and areas the place it’s good to swing, together with Harris’ swing selections break up up by halves:

That final merchandise, extra strikes than balls and pitches over the center of the plate, isn’t significantly significant. Everybody swings rather a lot in that state of affairs; swing charges go up as a result of hitters need to defend the plate once they’re behind, and a pitch proper down the center in a troublesome depend is begging for a wholesome hack. Harris has seen 27 such pitches because the break and swung at 26 of them. The league swing fee in that state of affairs is very large, too. The important thing modifications are that when he sees heart-zone pitches early within the depend and when he’s forward, Harris is swinging much more continuously.

That change has labored completely. Within the first half of the season, round 45% of his batted balls got here off of pitches thrown over the center of the plate. He’s up close to 60% within the second half. He’s making extra in-zone contact general, too. If you would like your batted ball numbers to look good and also you’re going to swing rather a lot, you completely can’t cross up the chance to take a hack at a meatball. Harris is doing a lot higher at that. Is it actually so simple as swinging at extra good pitches?

Sadly, it’s not. Sure, he’s discovering extra pitches to hit. He’s additionally clobbering these pitches to a level that’s certainly unsustainable. Because the break, he’s working a .600 wOBA (and .600 xwOBA) when he makes contact with a pitch down the center. Superior! Most likely not going to proceed even on these drivable pitches, although. He has approached that degree earlier than when he’s scorching, and this appears very very like one other scorching streak. Right here’s his rolling wOBACON on pitches over the center of the plate for his total main league profession:

In different phrases, he’s performed this earlier than, however by no means for all that lengthy. It’s in all probability wager that he’ll find yourself again in the course of the vary earlier than too lengthy. Positive, discovering extra hittable pitches will enhance your contact high quality, however that’s not sufficient to show somebody from a true-talent 47 wRC+ hitter right into a true-talent 201 wRC+ hitter. Nothing is sufficient to make that transformation, in actual fact. For one factor, with the doable exception of Aaron Decide, nobody is a true-talent 201 wRC+ hitter. It’s extra correct to say that as a result of a lot of Harris’ offensive output consists of balls in play – he barely walks, and he’s so aggressive early within the depend that he doesn’t strike out a lot both – fluctuations in batted ball high quality have an outsize impact on his general batting line.

Take Bizarro MH2, for instance: Pete Crow-Armstrong. Like Harris, he’s an aggressive swinger trying to do injury early. Like Harris, he doesn’t stroll a lot and doesn’t have an enormous strikeout downside. Within the first half of the season, he had a near-.500 wOBA and xwOBA on center-cut contact, en path to a 132 wRC+. For the primary half of August, he out of the blue couldn’t hit: -52 wRC+, .115 BABIP, .024, ISO, no walks in any respect. He broke out of that with a scorching scorching sequence over the weekend wherein he batted .625 with an .833 BABIP, however he’s nonetheless performing meaningfully worse within the second half than the primary regardless of an identical strategy.

This made me marvel: Do hitters who chase extra typically expertise extra unstable general outcomes? MH2 and PCA will surely make you assume that. Or what about Ceddanne Rafaela (115 first-half wRC+, 36 second-half wRC+)? Julio Rodríguez (109 first-half wRC+, 153 second-half wRC+)? This could possibly be random variation, in fact, however the place there’s smoke, there may be typically fireplace, so I devised a easy take a look at to seek out out.

I took the 2024 season and sliced it in half on the 81-game mark. For each hitter with 200 plate appearances in every half, I famous the distinction between their first- and second-half efficiency in addition to their chase fee. From there, I attempted to correlate chase fee and wRC+ variation. The one downside is that I couldn’t discover any.

Oh, you need extra specifics? There was a .001 r-squared between chase fee and absolutely the worth of wRC+ change. There was a .002 r-squared between whole swing fee and absolutely the worth of wRC+ change. The 25% of batters who chased most frequently had a mean change of 27.3 factors of wRC+ from one half of the season to the following. The 25% of batters who chased least? They’d a mean change of 27.1 factors of wRC+ between halves. In different phrases, there’s no proof {that a} swing-happy strategy makes your output meaningfully extra unstable.

Why is that this? My principle is that there are two countervailing results. Batted ball outcomes are inherently extraordinarily random; this we all know. Naturally, then, if extra of your output is made up of these, every particular person occasion goes to be extra random and variable, significantly in small samples. However that “in small samples” is sort of the important thing. Gamers who not often strike out or stroll have extra batted balls. The legislation of huge numbers comes into play right here; it’s simpler to have an outlier BABIP or wOBACON should you put 25 balls in play than should you put 100 in play. The contact-happy hitters may need extra balls in play, extra probabilities for the BABIP gods to decree lucky or unlucky outcomes – however pray to these gods sufficient, and their blessings will converge on the imply.

What does this imply for Harris particularly? It signifies that you shouldn’t learn an excessive amount of into half a season of even terrible efficiency. The precise outputs, the outcomes on contact? They’re wildly noisy, however the constituent components of Harris’ 2025 season are going to finish up wanting rather a lot like his earlier years. Related swing selections, related chase charges, related stroll and strikeout numbers. Truthfully, his batting line might be going to finish up wanting rather a lot like his earlier years, simply with a really unusual path to getting there; he has a profession 109 wRC+, and we’re projecting him to hit at about that degree for the rest of the yr, ending with a 92 wRC+ and round 20 homers. Normal stats, wild path.

Determining what is going to occur subsequent is difficult! You may assume {that a} hitter who is without doubt one of the worst on a regular basis regulars in baseball for months will maintain doing that. You may assume that the sweet-hitting Rookie of the Yr from 2022 will maintain hitting. You may assume that somebody with a 200 wRC+ for an entire freaking month should be an amazing hitter. All of this stuff are principally true. And but none of them are utterly true, as a result of baseball is all the time complicated and by no means predictable.

Will Harris’ newfound in-zone aggression maintain working? Positive, when he’s going effectively, it’ll typically be as a result of he’s leaping on nice pitches to hit early. However typically he’ll go poorly, and the other will occur. You possibly can’t be as aggressive as Harris is on pitches within the zone with out loads of flailing swings, and getting behind within the depend is especially probably without cost swingers like him. Alternatively, that free swinging unlocks some superior outcomes; the perfect time to hit is usually early within the depend — earlier than pitchers can escape their lab-honed secondaries in strikeout conditions — and Harris does that fairly continuously.

The one actual fixed is change. I regarded into Michael Harris II anticipating to seek out some common fact of aggressive hitters. As an alternative, I discovered chaos and impermanence, related approaches feeding totally different outcomes. I feel that’s simply how baseball is; should you attempt to match it to a strict blueprint, you’ll be disenchanted. Generally you simply have to take a look at a man going from utterly misplaced to totally unstoppable and say, “OK, fantastic, that’s simply the breaks of the sport.”