With a front row seat to the offensive domination of Reds right fielder Nick Castellanos (261 wRC+, 1st in MLB … by a lot), the frustrating early results from Jason Heyward are all the more painful (29 wRC+, 218th in MLB).
Fortunately, Heyward’s lack of production has been largely covered up by the Cubs hot start to the season, but with only 50 games remaining, we can’t afford to ignore it forever – not with all the context we have from the recent past. But even still, it’s very complicated.
Aside from the fact that we’re talking about an extremely small sample (8 games, 28 plate appearances), Heyward’s early-season slash line probably shouldn’t be quite as bad as it is: .192/.250/.192 (29 wRC+).
Among the positive signs, you’ll find a 7.1% walk rate to pair with a 10.7% strikeout rate, which is far better than he’s ever posted in his career. But more impressive is the quality of the contact he’s made so far:
2020 Contact Split (Career)
Hard: 47.8% (30.4%)
Medium: 43.5% (46.9%)
Soft: 8.7% (22.7%)
With 23 balls in play this year, Heyward’s share of hard contact has been excellent and his soft contact has been largely nonexistent (only five batted balls have had an exit velocity below 90 MPH, while five batted balls have already been over 101 MPH). Laying that out differently, Heyward’s average exit velocity this season is 91.4 MPH, which is 3 MPH better than his average rate last year, when he posted his best numbers as a Chicago Cub (101 wRC+), and over 2 MPH better even than his 2015 season with the Cardinals (121 wRC+) – the first year during which Statcast began recording exit velocities.
And with all that being true, StatCast has Heyward’s expected batting average at .311 (in the top-10% of the league) and his expected slugging at .431. Combined, those figures lead to an expected wOBA of .351 … FAR higher than his actual wOBA of .205 and right in line with his best overall season in the pros (2012 with the Braves, when he hit 27 homers and was worth 5.3 WAR).
Some additional, fundamentally good signs include a better than usual zone swing rate and a career high 93.5% zone contact rate.
However … it’s not all good news.
While Heyward continues to make a lot of hard contact, so much of it has been on the ground. His 60.9% ground ball rate is extremely elevated, and while that should theoretically result in a much higher BABIP than his .217 number in 2020, Heyward is going the opposite way just 8.7% of the time (one of the lower marks in baseball). Heyward has been at his best (at least, with the Cubs), when he uses the opposite field and middle of the field more often, and, of course, keeps the ball off the ground. Unfortunately, Heyward is also posting what would be a career worst line drive (17.4%) and fly ball (21.7%) rates, while also maintaining a near-career high infield fly ball rate (20%).
Yes, it’s still so early and the expected Statcast data is encouraging, particularly after another step forward in 2019, but hitting this many ground balls to the right side of the infield is just never going to lead to good results. Just as a pitcher may consistently out-perform his peripherals based on who he is on the mound (think Kyle Hendricks), Heyward’s approach so far seems to suggest consistent underperformance at the plate.
Worst of all, there’s just not that much time to wait for things to change. At a certain point, no matter his defensive capabilities, the Cubs will have to consider some tough decisions on Heyward. In the meantime, however, let’s hope those actual results drift closer to their expected range.