Brett Baty’s Bat Is Cooling Off
Brett Baty was a pleasant surprise for the first two weeks of the season, but an injury and a mini-slump has seen his batting average dip 58 points in the last 10 days. It’s early, and for most players this isn’t something that would be notable, but after a disappointing rookie year for the top prospect any signs of struggle are a cause for concern.
Baty, 24, was slashing .327/.365/.408 after going 2-for-4 with a double against the Kansas City Royals on April 12. He had a seven-game hitting streak. However, his BABIP over his first 52 plate appearances was .395 and his average exit velocity was 85.4 mph—both worrying trends as the BABIP isn’t sustainable, and the exit velocity is in the lower fifth of the league.
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Since then, the 2019 first round draft pick has gone 2-for-18 with three strikeouts, also missing time with a tight hamstring. He left the game on April 16 against the Pirates with the injury, missed two games and returned on Saturday. He has been hitless in eight at-bats since his return. His BABIP during the slump is .133 and his exit velocity is 84.5 mph. That BABIP is working more toward and average. And overall, his average exit velocity, which was fairly steady during his hitting streak and slump, currently ranks in the 10th percentile, according to Baseball Savant. Baty is also rated poor on the Baseball Savant scale for barrel percentage (24th percentile), hard hit percentage (15th), sweet spot percentage (24th) and chase percentage (16th).
All of this is coming as Baty is actually making more contact. His walk rates and strikeout rates are both down. But the contact is weak, and he’s not lifting the ball—something he really needs to start doing—as his ground ball rate is well over 50%.
For the season, Baty is slashing .269/.329/.328 with a 90 OPS+, an improvement over his 2023 numbers (.212/.275/.323 with a 66 OPS+) when he hit just 9 homers in 389 plate appearances. One encouraging early sign is he is 5-for-18 with a home run against lefties this year for a .278 average after hitting .176 with a home run in 91 at-bats vs. lefties in 2023. But time will tell if Baty’s numbers move back toward where they were 11 days ago or continue to sink to his 2023 levels. It’s going to take a real change in his approach to reach the former, or else he’s headed to the latter.
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