Daily Dive: Is Harrison Bader Breaking Out?

Mike Kurland dives into the batting profile of St. Louis Cardinals OF Harrison Bader to project his fantasy baseball value going forward in the 2021 MLB season.

The idea of this article is to discuss, in depth, a specific player’s current profile and production. We will dive into why he is succeeding or struggling and discuss if there are reasons for concern or brighter days ahead.

The intention here is to figure out what is going on and if there is a way to fix it or if we should ring the alarm bells in fantasy leagues. We are taking a quick look under the hood.  

Next up is St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Harrison Bader.

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Harrison Bader, OF, St. Louis Cardinals

Harrison Bader got a late start to the 2021 season, but anyone who picked him off the waiver wire has been rewarded so far. He’s giving power and speed without drowning your batting average. With three home runs and two stolen bases in just 10 games this season and hitting .250 with a .887 OPS there is not anything more you could ask of a waiver wire add. But is this sustainable? 

That’s the million dollar question. Unfortunately, 10 games is far too small of a sample to suggest it’ll sustain but I will discuss what is going on behind the scenes and hopefully we will see if there’s a glimmer of hope in this production sustaining or if it’s just smoke and mirrors. 

Right away, you notice the 13.5% strikeout rate. That is elite but prior to 2021, his lowest K% was 26.1% in 2017. Hitting .250 is actually a realistic outcome and that’s while he’s posting the worst BABIP of his career so far of just .200. So although his strikeout rate is likely to increase, the BABIP should as well and it’ll (at least in part) balance each other out hopefully. 

Bader has hit less ground balls so far this year by a small margin and has hit more line drives, also by a similarly small margin. It’s a change you like to see but the most notable change is the increase in pull rate. It is up to a career-high 57.1%. This comes with a fly ball rate of 42.9%. The heavy fly ball and pull heavy approach would explain the low BABIP and could stop it from rebounding as much as you’d think it could. But this approach also helps identify where the early power production is coming from.

The underlying metrics also suggest the batting average should be better. The xBA is .285, which is 35 points higher than the actual batting average? However, the approach he’s utilizing (more fly balls and pull heavy) can also lead to underperforming even the expected batting average.

The good news is the xSLG and xwOBA are in like with the actual wOBA and slugging%. This suggests some of the production appears legitimate early on and the

Taking a look at his plate discipline and he’s being more selective at the plate. Bader has cut down on chasing the ball and the swing-and-miss overall with the O-Swing% (26.9%) and SwStr% (8.0) both being the best marks of his career to date. This is in part due to swinging less out of the zone but when he does swing out of the zone he’s making far more contact. The O-Contact rate is at 71.4%. This is the first time it’s ever been above 61% in his career. You love seeing players swing less at pitches out of the zone but making more contact on those pitches they do decide to swing at.

What could be helping him chase less is increasing his 1st pitch swing rate. It’s up the 27% and this is the highest it has been since 2018. With a zone rate of 50.7%, pitchers attack the zone against Bader and he is taking advantage it seems. I’d bet on pitchers adjusting sooner than later to this. 

This comes with a career-worst barrel rate (7.1%) and the second worst Sweet Spot rate (28.6%) of his career. So although the quality of contact isn’t as good as it typically is, he makes up for it with that pull-heavy approach and the power has still followed. 

Something I find interesting is that Harrison Bader is currently hitting .400 with a .324 xBA against breaking balls. This comes with a .601 xSLG and .382 xwOBA against said breaking balls. He’s also seeing more breaking balls than ever before. What makes this interesting is he has never hit above .205 against breaking balls in any season prior and the expected stats have been awful in years prior as well. So seeing more breaking balls and crushing them is an interesting development but it makes me wary when buying into future success against them given the long track record. 

Meanwhile, he is seriously underperforming against fastballs so far and also has a track record of hitting them well, so it’s another situation where both sets of numbers could regress to the mean but if he sustains any of this early growth he’s shown against breaking balls, then he could continue to thrive. 

Again, it’s JUST 10 games so any career-high or low marks are tough to buy into but the reason it’s worth pointing out is because these changes are occurring and identifying them early even before they are a big enough sample to take serious id huge and gives you a leg up. The idea it to identify what is going on and now we monitor from here because we have the baseline of production and the numbers behind the production. It’s too early to say Harrison Bader’s breakout is happening but the changes in the profile have caught my attention and you should ride it out. 

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