Chicago Cubs: Bryant leads MLB players avoiding sophomore slump
With their stud third baseman off to another incredible season, the Chicago Cubs and their players are putting the dreaded “sophomore slump” to rest.
Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant had a great game yesterday and he didn’t even get a hit. The 2015 National League Rookie of the Year was 0-for-2 but had three walks and scored two runs in the Cubs’ 13-2 rout of the Atlanta Braves. He finished the game with a .893 on-base plus slugging percentage, which is 35 points higher than his OPS last season.
Contrast that with 2015 American League Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa, who missed his third game in a row after injuring his ankle during the Houston Astros’ 5-3 loss Thursday to the Texas Rangers. Correa, who is set to return Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals, is slashing .256/.351/.423 with eight home runs in 61 games after going .279/.345/.512 with 22 home runs in 99 games last season.
By looking at their numbers in a vacuum, it would appear that Correa is experiencing the dreaded “sophomore slump” while Bryant is overcoming it. But that isn’t necessarily true.
A quick look at the past couple seasons shows the sophomore slump is one of those things that can only be applied accurately on a case-by-case basis rather than declared a pandemic. It’s easy to point to Jason Heyward in 2011, Eric Hosmer in 2012 or Matt Shoemaker in 2015 and say, “Look! It happened again! It’s real!”
In reality, each rookie class has players who improve in their second seasons, players who experience slightly decreased production but remain valuable to their teams, and players who we would consider to have slumped.
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
For example, look at the 2014 rookie class. Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts was worth 1.8 Wins Above Replacement as a rookie according to FanGraphs. The next season he spat in the sophomore slump’s face with 4.8 WAR. This season, he’s one of the most productive hitters in the game’s best offense.
In that same rookie class were New York Yankees pitcher Dellin Betances and Minnesota Twins outfielder Danny Santana. Betances was worth 3.1 WAR in 2014 but dropped to 2.4 last season. Santana, meanwhile, fell from 3.3 WAR as a rookie all the way to minus-1.4. Santana clearly slumped, but since Betances was still an above-average relief pitcher, it shouldn’t be considered a slump.
Correa’s sophomore season fits Betances’ mold more than Santana’s. After an elite performance last season his “sluggish” 2016 seems like a disappointment, but in fact he’s still an above average hitter. Correa’s 113 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) is down from 133 last season, but he’s still an above-average hitter and a valuable part of a team that has turned its season around over the past few weeks.
Since the 2015 rookie class might have been the best ever, there was bound to be some regression. While players such as Bryant, Francisco Lindor, Noah Syndergaard, Alex Colome, Odubel Herrera and Jake Lamb show last season’s numbers weren’t a fluke a look at FanGraphs’ rookie WAR leaders for the 2015 season has a lot of players who could be considered slumping. San Francisco Giants third baseman Matt Duffy is a shell of himself. Cardinals outfielder Randal Grichuck, Oakland Athletics outfielder Billy Burns, Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson and Chicago White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodon aren’t putting up the same numbers this season either.
Cubs shortstop Addison Russell isn’t having a great offensive season, so in that regard he caught the sophomore slump, but his defensive value is high enough that it could be argued he’s not slumping at all—Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier saw his WAR jump from 4.0 in 2014 to 5.5 in 2015 based almost solely on his defensive value.
The list of sophomores discussed above doesn’t include those who have been injured (Jung Ho Kang, Anthony DeSclafani, Carson Smith and Miguel Sano, to name a few), players who are breaking out in their second season (Red Sox third baseman Travis Shaw and Cardinals outfielder Stephen Piscotty) or the “third year slump.” An example of the third year slump is Juan Lagares, who was a 3.0 WAR player as a rookie in 2013 and a 4.0 WAR player in 2014 but was just a 1.0 player in 2015 after his defensive value vanished.
Next: Cubs Scouting Yankees Three-Headed Monster
Players have up and down seasons through their careers. The arc of Hosmer’s career is different from that of Lagares or Bryant or any other player. A down year during a sophomore season is just part of that arc for some players.