Michael Harris II Is on the High of the World and the Backside of the Lineup

With the season the Atlanta Braves are having, there isn’t that a lot highlight to go round. Ronald Acuña Jr. is rewriting the document guide, Matt Olson has an outdoor shot at 60 house runs, and past that Atlanta actually has an above-average starter at each place on the sector:

And as a result of these guys by no means appear to get harm or take a day without work, there hasn’t been a narrative about an unsung hero selecting up the slack when a star goes down. So Michael Harris II, a 22-year-old heart fielder with a plus-plus glove and a 115 wRC+, goes beneath the radar slightly.

Harris arrived within the majors final May, with the Braves 8 1/2 video games out of first place and three video games beneath .500. Atlanta completed the season on a 79-36 run, culminating in a division title.

“I guess it brought out the competitor in me,” Harris says. “When we were down in the division and making a push back, we weren’t really worried about it. We got on a roll and brought the deficit down a little bit, then at the end of the year we had a big series against the Mets to secure the [division]. It was pretty fun.”

The Braves are presently 96-60, having clinched one other division title final evening. In Harris’ massive league profession, his staff has performed at a 111-win tempo when he’s within the lineup. He is aware of nothing aside from life as a cog in an unbreakable machine.

If there’s a weak point in Harris’ recreation, it’s his stroll fee (5.3% this yr, 5.0% for his profession). A .335 OBP could be adequate to guide off in quite a lot of locations, however not in Atlanta, so Harris has made about two-thirds of his begins this season from the ninth spot within the order. And he’s been the perfect nine-hole hitter within the league:

It will get higher. See, Harris has been so good this yr — and was so good final yr, when he additionally spent an enormous chunk of time within the ninth spot within the order — that he’s top-of-the-line nine-hole hitters of the previous 30 years. Sorting the perfect nine-hole seasons of the Wild Card period by wRC+, Harris exhibits up twice within the first 13 spots on the checklist.

All of Harris’ manufacturing comes courtesy of the identical barely unorthodox swing that gained him him the Rookie of the Year award in 2022. At 6-foot, 195 kilos, Harris is an explosive athlete however not essentially an imposing one. Some batters have a straightforward, easy swing that just about leaves onlookers mystified as to the place the ability comes from. Not Harris.

Harris begins along with his fingers nearly at his belt, which is a bit uncommon.

“Yeah, I used to have my hands up above my head, which caused me to wrap my bat around and be late, roll over,” he says. When he bought to the majors, Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, “got me in a good position to do what I’m doing now: putting the ball in the air, and hitting the ball hard and being on time for every pitch.”

His swing begins with a leg kick that may fluctuate in dimension primarily based on the incoming pitch.

“In high school and growing up, I used to be a toe tap guy,” Harris says. “Two or three years ago, I started doing a leg kick. It’s a timing thing, trying to be on time with it, and I guess I have a little more power with it.”

Most hitters who make a change like that bear in mind an inciting incident, a bit of recommendation from a coach or a teammate, or a second every part clicked — similar to Harris altering his hand place. So I used to be to listen to what impressed Harris to ditch the toe faucet and go along with a leg kick.

“I still have no idea,” he says. “It felt good, and I was successful with it, so I just kept doing what works.”

Comparing Harris’ numbers from this yr to final reveals an attention-grabbing stress. His batting common and OBP are nearly equivalent, however he’s down about 40 factors of slugging share, and with it 22 factors of wRC+. That gives the look of a noticeable sophomore hunch, although most sophomores want they may hunch as Harris has:

There are two underlying numbers that point out Harris may need undergone an method change from 2022 to 2023: First, his strikeout fee dropped from 24.3% as a rookie to 18.4% as a sophomore. Second, he’s hitting the ball within the air extra: His common launch angle has elevated to 7.1 levels in 2023, up from 4.5. His groundball-to-fly ball ratio has dropped from 2.07 to 1.62, and he’s hitting extra line drives than final yr.

Harris doesn’t view this as an method change a lot as a refinement primarily based on an additional yr’s expertise: “Pitch selection, and then making the right swing,” he says. “I don’t think I’m physically trying to hit the ball in the air, I’m trying to hit line drives. But I guess if I catch it in the right spot, some go up and some go down. I guess I’ve got a better clip of them going up in the air this year.”

The outcomes haven’t been fairly nearly as good, but when something Harris’ underlying numbers are significantly higher:

So Harris is placing out much less and making higher contact than he did in 2022, when he was Rookie of the Year. But he’s just like the sixth- or seventh-best hitter on the Braves, and his outcomes have regressed, so the improved course of doesn’t stand out as a lot as it might in any other case. As if opposing pitchers didn’t have sufficient hassle with the highest of Atlanta’s lineup, they’ve bought to take care of this man on the backside.