Austin Barnes, Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers likely didn’t feel the need to spend a lot of money to re-sign Yasmani Grandal because of Barnes’ presence behind the plate. Unfortunately, his production in the batter’s box has been on a downward trend for a couple years now, and it’s come to a head in 2019. Barnes is another player on this list currently in Triple-A, with prospect Will Smith making a huge impact in his first taste of big-league action.
The last three seasons have produced nearly identical sample sizes for Barnes with regard to plate appearances (262, 238, 236). Unfortunately, his 2017 production (142 wRC+ and 3.5 fWAR) hasn’t been nearly the same over the same span of time (77 and 1.1 in ’18, 64 and 0.5 so far in ’19).
The backstop’s quality of contact hasn’t changed much, but the frequency in which he hits line drives certainly has (25.7% to 20.0% to 16.2%). And, for the most part, that difference has gone to his fly-ball rate (29.1% to 26.2% to 42.2%).
This hasn’t come with a significant rise in power, mostly because his performance when looking specifically at fly balls has been getting worse since 2017. Here’s a look at how his soft-hit rate, hard-hit rate, and wRC+ have regressed in recent years.
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