Pittsburgh Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen Still Looking For Answers

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen is in an extended slump for the first time in his career and is getting a few days off to figure things out.

Andrew McCutchen came up with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2009 and very quickly established himself as a player who could fill the stat sheet. From 2009 to 2015, only Miguel Cabrera was worth more Wins Above Replacement (WAR, per Fangraphs) than Andrew McCutchen. Before this year, he had reeled off four straight years with an on-base percentage over .400 and a slugging percentage of .488 or better.

This year, the reliable Andrew McCutchen has gone missing. He’s currently hitting .241/.311/.408 and looking for answers. He’s taken extra batting practice, watched video, done side sessions and tried to figure things out in the batting cage. If anything, he’s overdoing it in his effort to get back to his old self.

It got to the point on Sunday that Pirates manager Clint Hurdle decided McCutchen needed a break. The Pirates had Monday off, so Hurdle announced he would sit McCutchen for a three-game series against the Braves that ends on Thursday to give him four days off to “unplug.” Hurdle and McCutchen are hoping the break will clear Cutch’s head.

For his part, McCutchen wants to play, but he’s not the type to make waves. He’s been the team’s best player for years and is the acknowledged team leader who has mentored young outfielders Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco, both of whom are having very good seasons. In fact, Marte (3.2 WAR) and Polanco (2.8 WAR) have been the team’s best players. If McCutchen was producing like he normally does, the Pirates would have one of the best outfields in baseball.

The most glaring issue with McCutchen’s hitting is his plate discipline. For the first seven years of his career, he never had a walk rate below 10 percent. It’s been over 13 percent in each of the last two years. This year, he’s walked just 8.1 percent of the time. He’s also striking out more often than he ever has. His career strikeout rate is 18 percent. This year’s he’s struck out nearly 25 percent of the time.

You can see this in his swing percentage, which is the highest of his career. Also, he’s swinging at pitches both in and out of the strike zone more often than his career rate. Along with swinging more often than ever, he’s making contact at a career low rate. It all adds up to a decrease in walk rate and an increase in strikeout rate.

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Most players gain plate discipline as they get older. They learn the strike zone and their walk rate goes up. For McCutchen to be walking less often and striking out more often is unusual. His best month for plate discipline was April (12.8 percent BB%, 22.9 percent K%). His walk rate has gone down in each month since. In a small sample size of 58 plate appearances since the All-Star break, McCutchen has walked just 3.4 percent of the time and struck out nearly 26 percent of the time. It’s very likely that he’s pressing and this is making him swing too often at pitches he can’t handle.

McCutchen’s batted ball profile shows a decrease in hard hit percentage and an increase in soft hit percentage. That’s not what you want to see from a power hitter. From 2012 to 2015, McCutchen had a hard hit percentage between 37.1 percent and 40.5 percent each year. This year, it’s down to 33.1 percent. This has come with an increase in soft hit percentage, such as weak grounders and pop ups. McCutchen’s soft hit percentage is 22.2 percent after being in the 11 to 13 percent range over the last four years.

It’s interesting to note that there is another MLB player with a nearly identical batted ball profile—Jonathan Villar:

22.2 percent Soft%, 44.7 percent Med%, 33.1 percent Hard% — Andrew McCutchen

22.3 percent Soft%, 44.3 percent Med%, 33.3% percent Hard% — Jonathan Villar

These numbers make them look like duplicates, but there’s a big difference. Villar hits 58 percent of his balls on the ground compared to 35 percent for McCutchen. Another big difference this year is that Villar has a .405 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP), which is 51 points higher than his career rate of .354. A .405 BABIP for a full season is incredibly rare, so it’s likely that Villar’s BABIP will come down. Andrew McCutchen has a .294 BABIP, which is 39 points below his career mark of .333. Based on regression to the mean, his BABIP should come up.

McCutchen’s BABIP is another problem he’s having this year. Sometimes a player is hitting into bad luck and will have a lower BABIP than normal, but it’s hard to say if that’s the case with McCutchen because of his lower than normal hard hit percentage and higher than normal soft hit percentage. It’s possible his BABIP accurately reflects the way he’s hitting the ball. That being said, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation to adjust McCutchen’s batting line by adding enough singles to raise his .294 BABIP to his career BABIP of .333. The result is a .268/.335/.435 batting line. That’s still not vintage Andrew McCutchen, but it’s much more respectable.

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Fans of the Pirates are hoping this four-day rest period will get McCutchen back to the player he was expected to be. The Bucs are unlikely to catch the Cubs in the NL Central, but they are just three games back in the Wild Card race. McCutchen has been worth 0.5 WAR this year after averaging 6.7 WAR over the previous five seasons. A typical Andrew McCutchen would have the Pirates tied for a Wild Card spot right now. Hopefully, that guy will be back on Friday.