It’s no surprise to anyone that Pittsburgh Pirates’ star center fielder Andrew McCutchen has been a colossal disappointment this year.
Andrew McCutchen‘s career line before this season was .298/.388/.496 and he averaged 22 home runs a year. With 20 games to go, McCutchen is currently slashing a .246/.328/.409 line with 20 home runs. If the season were to end today, McCutchen would have career lows in batting average, on-base %, slugging %, OPS, and OPS+. He has 131 strikeouts and will easily surpass his previous career high of 133 strikeouts set last year.
Andrew McCutchen has been a big part of the Pirates’ current free fall. In the past 14 games in which the Pirates have lost 12, McCutchen is slashing .192/.306/.327 with two home runs. Yes, his nine walks are nice and even equal his nine strikeouts, but .192 is .192, and that just won’t cut it in a pennant race.
Barring a miracle, the Pittsburgh Pirates will not be making a fourth straight playoff appearance. Instead this will be their third September collapse in six years. Alas, it is time to look towards the 2017 season. One of the huge questions going into 2017 will be the play of Andrew McCutchen. But first, why was he so bad this year?
One reason for McCutchen’s struggles has been an uptick strikeouts and downtick in walks. His strikeout rate is 22.3% (career high) while his walk rate is 10.2% (career low). The lack of walks aren’t a huge red flag as his career walk rate is 11.8%, not terribly higher than this year. His K rate is a red flag though as 22.3% is marginally higher than his career mark of 17.9%.
Even when he puts the ball in play, McCutchen has been fairly unlucky as his BABIP is .290, a career low. That may be attributed to his soft contact rate of 20.7%, a career high. His medium contact rate and hard contact rate are also down from career averages. In fact, his hard hit rate of 36.2% is the lowest for McCutchen since 2011.
All in all, Andrew McCutchen has struggled at the plate this year due to more strikeouts, less walks, and weaker contact. The problem is not plate discipline as much as it is the ability to hit the ball and do so with authority. So. Will Andrew McCutchen be the player he once was? Is this the new Andrew McCutchen? Here are some players comparable to Andrew McCutchen, looking at their worst seasons and how they responded afterwards.
Andre Dawson
Dawson was great through his first eight seasons slashing .287/.331/.489 averaging 21 home runs a year. His age 29 season, like McCutchen, was bad as he slashed .249/.301/.409 with 17 home runs. As we know, Dawson is a Hall of Famer and finished his career with 256 home runs following his subpar season. McCutchen has actually been better than Dawson at this point in his career. Dawson was actually better in his 30s than his 20s. McCutchen may not be better in his 30s, but he most definitely can be better than he was this year. In Dawson’s age 30 season, he was better but only slightly slashing .255/.295/.444 with 23 home runs. Andre Dawson’s career shows us that even for Hall of Fame players can have bad seasons.
Matt Kemp
Kemp was a star through his age 27 season slashing .295/.352/.501 averaging 22 home runs per year. His age 28 season was injury ridden as Kemp only appeared in 73 games. He hasn’t been quite the same since but he can still hit for power. In the three seasons following, Kemp has slashed .273/.318/.478. He has 30 home runs this season. Kemp has never had a season as bad as McCutchen has had this year but McCutchen is the overall better player. Some advantages for McCutchen have been his ability to walk more and stay healthy. If Matt Kemp can somewhat recover from his injury ridden season, Andrew McCutchen should be able to put up better numbers in the future than what he did this year.
Gary Sheffield
The first two hitters were much larger than Andrew McCutchen standing at 6’3 and 6’4 respectively. Like McCutchen, Gary Sheffield stands shorter than six feet tall. Sheffield was excellent through his age 27 season slashing .291/.380/.501 averaging 18 home runs a year. He struggled in his age 28 season slashing .250/.424/.446. with 21 home runs. Yes, Sheffield drew a ton of walks that season but he struggled to hit the ball. Sheffield went on to have a wonderful career slashing .295/.398/.509 averaging 27 home runs per season after the down year. Those power numbers are inflated due to PED suspicions but all in all, Sheffield recovered nicely from his down season.
Carlos Beltran
Beltran was pretty good in through his age 27 season slashing .284/.353/.490 averaging 21 home runs. He struggled in his age 28 season. Although he was an All-Star, Beltran slashed .266/.330/.414 with 16 home runs. The following year he hit 41 home runs. The year after he hit 33 home runs. Carlos Beltran is now 39 years old and he’s batting .298 with 28 home runs. Beltran is a borderline Hall of Famer. He was just fine after having a down season.
Conclusion
Andrew McCutchen was bad this year but his career is far from over. He turns 30 in October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. Even stars have seasons where they look like scrubs. Will Andrew McCutchen ever return to MVP or even All-Star form? Maybe. Maybe not.
Andrew McCutchen is at the point in his career where he is not as fast as he once was. It might be time to add a few pounds and make the transition to a corner outfield spot to help preserve his bat. Even after this season, Andrew McCutchen still has the potential to make the Hall of Fame. To write him off now as a bum would be foolish.
2017 will be a huge year for Andrew McCutchen. It will be interesting to see what he does next year to get back to where he once was. Some players are able to respond. Some are not. I will guarantee one thing though. 2016 will go down as Andrew McCutchen’s worst season.
Photo Credit – Flickr Creative Commons
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