May’s Five Worst Hitters
With wRC+ as our measuring stick, these five hitters have separated themselves from the pack in the worst way possible (we’ve included a few other statistics for good measure).
Talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous, right? Didi Gregorius blitzed the league and was the third-best hitter by the end of April. But in May, he was the worst. Baseball is a cruel game, man.
What’s interesting is that his soft-hit rate and hard-hit rate were virtually identical from one month to the next. It was the rest of his batted-ball profile that led to a rough few weeks. After posting a 25.0% line-drive rate and 26.2% ground-ball rate in April, those numbers worsened to 10.4% and 44.2%, respectively, in May.
Lewis Brinson is getting a chance to play every day for the Miami Marlins, and there are certainly some growing pains for the 24-year-old to go through. His BABIP went from .232 in April to just .159 in May, but don’t let that fool you — he’s at least making progress on the balls he’s putting in play.
The young outfielder’s line-drive rate (13.8% to 21.5%), ground-ball rate (58.6% to 47.7%), fly-ball rate (27.6% to 30.8%), soft-hit rate (25.4% to 21.2%), and hard-hit rate (27.1% to 33.3%) all improved.
Nick Ahmed is known more for his glove than his bat. While he’s already surpassed his homer total from 2017, his overall production has helped solidify this reputation.
His awful month of May is incredibly disappointing since it followed an April in which he posted an .864 OPS and 131 wRC+ through 94 plate appearances. A batted-ball event worth pointing out is his fly-ball rate — it went from 45.3% (with a 3.4% infield-fly rate) in April to 29.9% (with a 15.0% infield-fly rate) in May. Yikes.
Between 2013 and 2017, only Nelson Cruz (193 homers) hit more dingers than Chris Davis (190). Through 209 plate appearances in 2018, though, the Baltimore Orioles’ first baseman has just 4 homers. The left-handed slugger’s performance against four-seam fastballs has been on a steady downward trend since 2015. After posting a 220 wRC+ off the pitch that year, it’s decreased each season and is currently sitting at 78.
Martin Prado is a dude the Marlins would love to trade, but his increasing age and decreasing performance combined with his recent lack of health and big salary will make it very hard. His stats at home aren’t all that terrific, but they’re head-and-shoulders above what he’s done on the road.
He owns a .294 wOBA and 89 wRC+ in 52 plate appearances at Marlins Park, but in 47 plate appearances on the road, those number drop to .123 and -34, respectively.
About Matt Musico
Matt Musico currently manages Chin Music Baseball and contributes to The Sports Daily. His past work has been featured at numberFire, Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report. He’s also written a book about how to become a sports blogger. You can sign up for his email newsletter here.
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