Old dog, new tricks: Michael Brantley has changed his approach

Let’s get the qualifiers out of the way. I was harsh¹ on the Indians front office in regards to Michael Brantley and his offseason option. Picking up an aging outfielder coming off of back to back seasons cut short and/or hampered by injuries, someone that doesn’t have any single defining characteristic that he could stand alone on (except maybe contact?) to keep his value up, someone that cost the team an extra $11 million² and was the highlight signing of an offseason that saw the bullpen get shredded with no attention paid to it and the departure of a would-have-been-should-have-been franchise cornerstone in Carlos Santana. All of this seemed to scream bad practices by a team of smart front office people that usually are super efficient and rarely make the mistake of holding on to a player for too long.³

The tough thing about the option and the preceding paragraph is this: I actually really like Brantley as a player and want him to do well, and so when his season and my opinions about him became so intertwined, it was difficult. It almost came to the point where I wanted him to do badly so I didn’t look like a moron, which is the wrong side of the spectrum you want to be on. Luckily for the team and my fandom, but not my takes, Brantley has proven to be a highly useful player and is currently leading the team in wRC+, wOBA, and OPS. However, his return to the top of the Tribe stat boards has come in a very different method than previous years.

Brantley has had a reputation of being an extremely good contact hitter, running Z-contact percentages higher than 94% every year he has been a regular in the major leagues, and this year has been no different and actually higher than any other year previous, with a 98.4%.⁴ The two biggest differences for Brantley in 2018 are his walk and strikeout rates: both have cratered to unforeseen lows. Brantley is currently carrying a 1.3% BB rate and a 6.3% K rate, both of which would be the worst and best numbers, respectively, league-wide if Brantley had enough plate appearances to qualify.

So what has changed? Why has Brantley gone so far from his good ratios, especially the walk rate, which was a career-high 8.3% a year ago? Aggressiveness and its many forms seem to be the “culprit” as if it’s a bad thing. Brantley has always been amongst the league leaders in pitches per plate appearance, routinely averaging almost four pitches per plate appearance. in 2018, Brantley is being aggressive with pitchers, averaging fewer than three.⁵ 

Seeing fewer pitches per plate appearance means Brantley is going to fewer three ball and/or two-strike counts, which is where the plummeting ratios see themselves manifest. Brantley is swinging at more first and second offerings rather than waiting for his pitch to come which was his usual modus operandi. Usually, a player goes after early pitches on a case-by-case basis, something that would chnage with every pitcher the batter sees. You will often see hitters attempt to be aggressive with pitchers that work in and around the zone, pitchers like Josh Tomlin as an example, and those can lead to disastrous results for those pitchers, also see Josh Tomlin as an example.

Brantley’s aggressiveness has helped his power as well, sporting an ISO of .211, which would easily be the highest of his career. Swinging at the first few pitches, usually something the pitcher just wants to get over to set up the at-bat and work from ahead, allows Brantley to sit “dead read” as it’s referred to often, which simply just means looking for a fastball to blast to smithereens. Brantley was always someone who had a wide spectrum of contact, with power to all fields, but 2018 has seen him turn on the ball more, cutting his opposite field percentage down and shooting to center/right field more often. The added slugging has helped bridge the gap lost from an on-base vantage point due to the decreased walk rate. As an example, here is Brantley’s triple from Friday’s Seattle game as a perfect microcosm of his changes: first pitch, low at the knees, something Erasmo Ramirez probably wishes was a bit more inside, hit to center field. The towering flyball caught centerfielder Dee Gordon (new to the position, so we gotta cut him some slack) by surprise which is what lead to the triple, but the ball easily could have been a double even if Gordon hadn’t misread the wind.

Same game, almost same situation. Ramirez leaves one out over the plate, at the bottom of the strike zone. Ramirez undoubtedly wanted this to dip a bit more late, so as to drop out of the zone when it crossed the plate but it hung a bit more than he inevitably wanted. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Brantley lasers a ball to dead center. Attacking with this kind of authority is not something Brantley was known to do in seasons prior,⁶ but is now doing repeatedly.

Is this sustainable? In parts, yes and in parts, no. Regression will come, and old habits will die hard. Brantley has always been too patient of a hitter to walk this little. The aggressiveness is something that can, and in my opinion, which is what this entire thing mostly is, my opinion, should stick around. Brantley is producing as well as, and in some regards better than he did when he finished third in the MVP race, which would be fighting against the aging curve players around Brantley’s age and injury history would be dealing with.

The change in his approach could also be explained as doing what is needed for the team. With Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis amongst others struggling in the early going, Brantley has been forced to be the focal point of the offense alongside the GOAT Jose Ramirez. It’s possible once Lindor and Kipnis settle in and produce as they have proven they can, Brantley will go back to being patient and working pitch counts. For now, the 2018 version of Brantley is showing that you can teach an old dog some new tricks, and this grand slam from last night would indicate that what Brantley is doing is working.

1. Rightfully so, if you ask me. [↩]
2. The option was for $12 million, but he had a $1 million buyout, thus creating the $11 million. Math: it IS useful after high school! [↩]
3. Which some will argue, would have happened with Santana if they re-signed him, but I chock his struggles this year in Philadelphia up to changing leagues, and the fact that it’s still early. [↩]
4. Z-contact percentage is exactly what it seems it would be: the percentage of times a pitch is in the zone and the hitter makes contact, whether it be a foul, hit, or out. [↩]
5. This graphic was admittedly taken from a few days ago, but his ratio is barely unchanged from 2.97 to 2.99 [↩]
6. That’s not to say Brantley didn’t show off power before, but he was content with an opposite-field double in past years where as this year he’s been swinging for the fences. [↩]