As the Pirates finally tore down their core of players from the last regime this offseason, the one veteran left behind was Adam Frazier. The second baseman had just been nominated for his second straight Gold Glove but had his worst season by far at the plate, hitting just .230 with a 78 OPS+. He drew some trade interest, like he had the year before, but nothing materialized from those talks.
While Frazier had been an above average hitter through his career to that point, his down year wasn’t too surprising. He usually starts slow and then figures out his swing as the season progresses. He had a .661 OPS over 58 games in 2020. The year before that, he had a .680 OPS through his first 58 games played. In 2018, he had a .678 OPS at that point in his season. That abbreviated season probably hurt him more than most hitters in the league.
That’s what makes his start to this season so eye opening. Not only did he come out of the gate hot, he’s leading the league in hits and is in the hunt for a batting title.
It's hardly a surprise that this is the best April and May of Frazier’s Major-League career. Here’s how his first 45 games compare to the first 45 of his previous four full seasons in the majors:
STATHEAD
It’s not even really close. Sure, Frazier got off to a pretty good start in 2017, but for the most part, his batting average is about 100 points higher than it normally is at this point of the season, and his OPS is over 200 points higher. Yes, almost all of those extra hits are singles, but the sheer volume makes a significant difference.
Ok, so Frazier is usually a slow starter. He usually bounces back and has a couple terrific weeks once something clicks. While his season stats usually finish within arm's length of league average, there are hills and valleys to get there.
How does this start compare to those tears?
Here are Frazier’s first 45 games played this season compared to the best 45-game stretch he had each year:
STATHEAD
With the exception of that torrid 2018 stretch – which won him the second base job going forward – Frazier’s 2021 start is basically as good as any of best stretches in other years. The OPS and slugging are a little lower, but a high on-base percentage more than makes up for it.
In a year where strikeouts are skyrocketing and batting averages are at all-time lows, this is almost the perfect hitting environment for Frazier. The ball was slightly de-juiced? That doesn’t really impact him. His greatest attribute as a hitter is getting the bat to the ball. He’s leading the National League in contact percentage (90.1%). He’s second among qualified NL hitters in strikeout rate at 9.4%. (Kevin Newman is first at 5.8%, if you’re looking for some straws to grasp at from his first two months of the season.)
Plus, he’s aggressive when he gets a pitch in the zone. PitcherList originated a metric known as “call strike plus whiff rate” (CSW%). The concept is simple: How often do you look at a strike, and how often do you swing and miss. Neither is a good outcome. Frazier’s CSW% is just 20.9%, the fourth best in baseball. The lowest is Kyle Tucker of the Astros, a good hitting, young outfielder. Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies are second and third. If you watched this weekend's series, you know they need no introduction.
These are the fundamentals of Frazier as a hitter. Aim to make contact, don’t give away free strikes. It's old school baseball. They’re really good traits for a leadoff hitter, and it challenges everything pitchers across the league are trying to accomplish. Yes, Frazier is benefiting from a .368 batting average on balls in play and his expected stats are more down to earth (though still good, despite mediocre exit velocities). That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s doing a lot of things right at the plate.
“I’m just trying to simplify things, really,” Frazier said this weekend. “I’ve found some things that work for me, a few cues. Being on time is everything.”
Frazier has played it close to the chest on what those cues are, but looking at video, two things stand out:
2020 on the left vs. this weekend in Atlanta on the right.
The first is that hands are lower and closer to his load. It’s a simplified motion and is much more direct. He cut some unnecessary movement and has one less cue to go through with his swing.
There are plenty of hitters who have benefited from dropping their hands, and Frazier is definitely seeing the benefits that come with that. His ground ball rate has been slashed from about 45% in his career entering this year to 34.2%, and his line drive rate is a career-high 32.3% rate. He’s staying on top of the ball, and starting his swing from a new angle can play into that.
The other cue is with his feet. This year, Frazier has adopted a heel tap.
He experimented with his front foot a lot last year. That's usually a sign that a player is having timing issues. Sometimes he was flat footed. Sometimes he did a true toe tap where his heel was elevated. This year, he’s had the double heel tap since spring training.
Back in Bradenton, Fla., he mentioned that he had a really productive conversation with Colin Moran about his swing, and credited his spring stats to that. (Neither party divulged any details of what was said.) Moran adopted a double toe-tap last year and has had better results since. This is a hunch, not confirmed, but I suspect that tap came from that conversation with Moran. Even if it did not, something positive came out of that chat, and Frazier is timing up pitches better.
We’re about halfway to trade deadline season, and Frazier’s name will come up again, like it did last year. It’s the elephant in the room that always needs addressed with Frazier, because while he is raking right now, this is very likely the tail end of his Pirates tenure. The high batting average grabs the eye and is the elevator pitch, but these underlying metrics and tweaked cues in his swing are going to make him more appealing on the market this time around.
