Hey! Ian Happ Is Walkin’ Here!

The Chicago Cubs are white sizzling. Shortly after the All-Star break, the Cubbies have been as many as 8 1/2 video games out of first place within the NL Central and 6 video games beneath .500. About three weeks later, they’re slightly higher than an even-money wager to seize a playoff spot.

So let’s discuss Ian Happ, who has been a key offensive participant for the Cubs over that span, and the odd season he’s having. If you make a behavior of checking the key league stroll price leaderboards commonly, as I’m certain all of us do, you’ll little doubt have observed that Happ is within the high 5 with a 16.1% stroll price. (All stats present by way of Tuesday’s motion.)

Now, Happ has at all times been able to drawing a stroll; his profession stroll price heading into this season was 11.2%, which is fairly excessive. But you wouldn’t consider him as one of the vital discerning hitters in baseball — Juan Soto, Kyle Schwarber, Max Muncy, and so forth. Until this season.

If you drop the minimal plate look threshold to 300 PA, Ryan Noda pops up with the second-highest stroll price in baseball, which is of curiosity (although maybe solely to me) as a result of Happ and Noda performed faculty baseball collectively. It’s fairly widespread for faculty teammates to succeed collectively within the professionals, however Happ and Noda attended the University of Cincinnati, which is much from a baseball powerhouse. The Bearcats principally exist at hand one extraordinarily annoying loss per season to both Louisville or a Big Ten staff.

Only six Bearcat place gamers have appeared within the main leagues for the reason that introduction of the Wild Card: Happ, Noda, Kevin Youkilis, Josh Harrison, Tony Campana, and Joey Wiemer. Which means Weimer is finally going to have to decide on between turning into an on-base machine or a nightmare to tag out in a rundown.

And he can have time to decide on, as a result of Happ wasn’t born this fashion.

The query with Happ, as it’s with all change hitters, is whether or not to deal with him as a single unified hitter, or to take an strategy knowledgeable by the Kurlans from Star Trek: The Next Generation. In brief: Is he one hitter, or two?

Happ has walked this a lot from one aspect of the plate in earlier particular person seasons, however by no means each on the identical time. Taken on the entire, Happ is totally swinging much less, and strolling much more, than he did final yr. In reality, no hitter has improved his stroll price as a lot as Happ has from final yr to this one:

The change in Happ’s recreation is fairly straightforward to identify. Here’s Happ’s Swing% warmth map as a left-handed hitter towards righties in 2023:

That warmth map reveals, to me, an excellent sense of the place the zone is and the place it isn’t. Happ goes after pitches out over the plate, particularly up within the zone. No surprise he’s walked 16.9% of the time from the left aspect this yr. That’s up nearly six share factors from his left-side stroll price in 2022, however the form of the warmth map is analogous.

Now, distinction that to his right-on-left warmth map from 2022:

This is a large number. If the ball is middle-in and anyplace close to the zone vertically, Happ goes after it. Last yr, he walked simply 5.0% of the time in his right-handed plate appearances, his lowest mark from both aspect of the plate since his rookie yr. This yr, he’s cleaned that up lots:

He’ll nonetheless chase up and out of the zone, however he’s shedding pitches low and in. As a end result, his stroll price from the correct aspect is as much as 14.0%.

You can see Happ’s newfound selectivity right here, together with his swing price and wOBA by assault zone. The shadow and chase zones are the place hitters get themselves into bother, and Happ has develop into way more selective in these fringe areas:

I’m satisfied that Happ has taken an enormous step ahead since final yr by way of strike zone judgment. He’s making fewer unhealthy selections across the edges of the zone, and drawing tons extra walks consequently. Like, it’s exhausting to overstate the impact of a seven-point soar in stroll price for a participant who was already a great hitter to start with.

So why is his wRC+ mainly the identical because it was final yr?

Already on this chart you possibly can see one of many two potential explanations: Happ is getting screwed on batted ball luck. Or a minimum of, he was getting absurdly fortunate final yr and has regressed to the imply. I’d purchase that rationalization, notably as a result of he’s hitting barely extra line drives and fly balls this yr than he did in 2022. But I already spent a bunch of time poring over Happ’s strategy and manufacturing by batting aspect and assault zone, so why not look slightly deeper?

Let’s take a look at a 3rd assault zone: the center of the plate. This is the zone the place you’d anticipate hitters to have the very best swing price, as a result of something they take is all however sure to be known as a strike. It’s additionally the place you’d anticipate hitters to have one of the best offensive numbers once they do swing, as a result of if a pitch is within the coronary heart of the zone, you wish to hit the bejeezus out of it:

That’s slightly regarding. Happ’s swinging much less right here, too, within the area the place you wish to swing as a lot as potential. But possibly he’s not being passive, simply merely extra selective, and he’s getting extra bang per swing on fewer swings over the center of the plate:

Thank you for bearing with me by way of all this Statcast jargon, by the way in which. I’m nicely conscious that Heart Contact Quality appears like a particular Dashboard Confessional LP the place Chris Carrabba re-records all of the band’s totally electrified singles like “Stolen” and “Belle of the Boulevard” within the stripped-down solo acoustic guitar fashion circa The Swiss Army Romance.

Anyway. Happ’s (relative) lack of energy on pitches within the coronary heart of the zone would jive with the 30-point drop in SLG that’s accompanied his 30-point rise in OBP from 2022 to 2023. His hard-hit price is down this yr as nicely. The discrepancy between Happ’s wOBA and xwOBA appears to level to an impending energy resurgence, however I’ll throw one final desk at you that implies that Happ has truly misplaced a smidgen of energy since final season:

If Happ has determined to commerce energy for OBP, I feel it’s a wise commerce. Happ is twentieth out of 144 certified hitters in OBP this yr. Last yr, he was fifty fifth out of 130 in SLG. Simply put, his means to get on base now’s rarer than his energy was in 2022. Alternatively, he’s shored up an enormous weak spot in his plate self-discipline, and is a pair cans of spinach from making higher contact on pipe pictures and turning into the second coming of Chipper Jones. Either manner, strolling extra is nice for you. We’d all lead more healthy lives if we did the identical.