Travis Shaw, Milwaukee Brewers
After two consecutive seasons of 30-plus home runs, the Brewers trading Tyler Thornburg to the Boston Red Sox for Shaw looked like quite a lopsided deal. Unfortunately for the left-handed hitting infielder, his 2019 campaign hasn’t at all followed suit.
How bad has this year been? Well, it’s included multiple trips down to Triple-A, which is where he’s currently located. Those consecutive 30-homer performances also included a wRC+ of at least 119 and a fWAR of at least 3.5. He’s only slugged six long balls in 228 plate appearances this year, which has included a rough-looking .162/.276/.279 line, along with a 45 wRC+ and -1.0 fWAR.
When looking at where Shaw has struggled, it hasn’t been in how he’s making contact. His batted-ball distribution and quality-of-contact numbers don’t look much different than the last couple years. He’s just not making enough contact.
Shaw has produced a 32.5% strikeout rate and 13.0% swinging-strike rate, both of which are easily on track to be career-worst marks. His swing rates inside and outside the strike zone is similar to last year, but the corresponding contact rates have dropped dramatically. His contact rate outside the zone has dropped nearly 10 percentage points, while his contact rate inside the zone has gone down by just over 12 percentage points.
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