Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs
May Stats: 1.162 OPS, .385 ISO, 10 home runs, 22 RBI, good for a 197 wRC+ in 115 plate appearances
The Cubs didn’t have the budget to make a big splash for an offense that struggled in 2018. They were just hoping Kris Bryant would return to being his normal self. After a pedestrian March/April (109 wRC+ with three homers), he’s come back with plenty of thunder.
How much thunder? Well, he’s on that 2016 National League MVP pace (actually, a little better):
Kris Bryant through 231 PAs:
2016 (MVP): .279/.364/.520, 13 HR, 40 RBI, .378 wOBA, 136 wRC+
2019: .283/.403/.576, 13 HR, 35 RBI, .408 wOBA, 155 wRC+
— Cubs Insider (@realcubsinsider) May 31, 2019
A big thing for Bryant was to get his quality of contact back on track. In 2015 and 2016, his hard-hit rate didn’t crest below 37.5%, but from 2017-18, it didn’t get above 33.0%. So far in 2019, his overall hard-hit rate is 38.5%.
What’s interesting about this power surge is that the third baseman’s batted-ball profile in May didn’t necessarily look as good as it did in March/April. His fly-ball rate stayed above 40.0%, but it also included a huge uptick in infield-fly rate (3.1% to 20.0%) and soft-hit rate (11.4% to 20.8%) while his hard contact numbers remained about the same.
Despite those numbers, his homers-per-fly-ball rate went from 9.4% in March/April to 28.6% in May. That’s baseball for ya.
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