Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining What Went Wrong For Bryan Reynolds In 2020

Outfielder Bryan Reynolds had a fantastic rookie campaign for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019, but struggled mightily in 2020. Why did he struggle so much in his next season?

In 2019, outfielder Bryan Reynolds burst onto the scene for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was one of baseball’s top rookies. He finished the year batting .314/.377/.503 with 16 home runs and a Pirate rookei record 37 doubles in 546 plate appearances. Reynolds put up a 131 wRC+, .880 OPS and .371 wOBA. Among all rookies with at least 300 plate appearances during 2019, Reynolds ranked fifth in all three stats.

However, this past season, Reynolds struggled through the shortened season. Through 203 plate appearances, Reynolds hit just .189/.275/.357 with a .278 wOBA and 72 wRC+. What happened between 2019 and 2020 that saw his offensive production take a nosedive?

One of the things many analysts pointed out about Reynolds’ rookie season was his very high batting average on balls in play. Reynolds’ BAbip of .387 ranked third in all of baseball behind White Sox infielders Yoan Moncada (.407) and Tim Anderson (.399).

While this is a very high mark, it’s not unfamiliar territory for Reynolds. His lowest BAbip in a single minor league season was .362 in 2018 with the Double-A Altoona Curve. Even though it was over 20 points lower than his 2019 rookie season BAbip with the Pittsburgh Pirates he was quite effective. Reynolds put up a 128 wRC+ and .368 wOBA in 383 plate appearances with Altoona. Overall, his minor league BAbip was .378.

Though keeping up such a high BAbip would be hard, Reynolds was able to do so in over 1200 plate appearances. According to FanGraphs, you want to set your expectations based on the player’s tendencies, not the league average when it comes to this stat. Though a .380 mark is hard to maintain, he still should have been expected to put up a mark in the .350-.370 range. So, how did Reynolds fare in 2020?

In year two with the Pittsburgh Pirates his BAbip in 203 plate appearances was just .231. This was the eighth lowest mark in all of baseball among players with at least 200 plate appearances. While BAbip needs a larger portion of time to give an accurate reading, it’s clear that Reynolds’ batted ball results led to this decrease in BAbip.

Part of this was from a decrease in exit velocity. Last year, the ball came off the switch hitter’s bat at just 87.5 MPH compared to 89.5 MPH a year ago. His hard hit rate also took a step down going from 41.6% to just 38.3%.

One thing that helped Reynolds collect so many hits in 2019 was his ability to hit to all fields. Reynolds pulled the ball the most often at 38.6%, but went up the middle almost as often at 35.1% of the time. He still went oppo more than a quarter of the time at 26.3%. Throughout the minors he also had a pretty even spread of where he put the ball in play. However, this past season, he pulled the ball way more often at 46.1% while going the opposite way 21.1% of the time and up the middle 32.8% of the time. Not only was he hitting the ball softer, but also became predictable.

In another FanGraphs article written by Ben Clemens in early August 2019, Clemens observed this about Reynolds:

“Players can run high or low BABIPs (though not Reynolds-level high, of course) through skill, and they can do it over time. Reynolds has every one of the qualities needed to do so, which makes his major league line more sustainable than you might think.”

This was when Reynolds was carrying a .414 batting average on balls in play. While that level is unsustainable for any player, it’s clear that his BAbip in the .380’s isn’t a fluke. Reynolds puts the ball in play a lot. He had 373 batted ball results in 2019. The only two rookies to have less plate appearances than Reynolds and more batted ball outcomes were Kevin Newman and Vlad Guerrero Jr. The three other players with more batted ball results than Reynolds had 600 or more plate appearances yet he had much better batted ball numbers than both.

So what does this mean for Reynolds in 2021? With his huge step forward defensively, Reynolds could have been training to improve his defense to the point where his offense took a bit of a downturn. A .231 BAbip is very low for any hitter and even more so for Reynolds.

Reynolds does something that’s kind of a lost art in today’s game – he puts the ball in play. Reynolds, unlike many other players like him that have a put the ball in play approach, makes hard contact quite often. His 2020 numbers might not be great, especially comparing his batted ball data compared to 2019, but remember this was in less than 300 plate appearances. As long as he gets his hard hit rate and exit velocity back up, which seems likely given more normal circumstances, Reynolds should have a bounce back for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2021.