“They see me as a tall guy. They want to tie me up inside, so I want the ball middle, middle in. Something coming into my barrel.” — Kris Bryant

Bryant identified a path of attack for pitchers. He understands pitchers try to lock him up inside and that he needs to hit the mistakes. These mistakes for Bryant are the pitches middle-in and lower inside part of the strike zone. In 2017, Bryant slugged .617 and 1.000 respectively on pitches in those parts of the zone. In addition to trying to capitalize on these mistake, Bryant has also realized he needs to lay off the upper inside part of the strike zone. Here is a breakdown of Bryant’s slugging percentages by zone from last year from Brooksbaseball.

Bryant has had trouble with pitches up in the zone. He slugged only .313 and .238 on pitches up and in and up and away respectively. These are pitches in the zone that his contact hasn’t resulted in production, even though these pitches might be expected to generate the fly balls Bryant is looking for. His numbers were also similar in his MVP season when he slugged .333 and .300 on pitches in these locations.

Kris Bryant Swing Rates 2017

Kris Bryant Swing Rate 2018

In the upper left quadrant Bryant has clearly made strides in cutting down on his swings. He’s realized the ineffectiveness of his batted balls generated in the top half of the zone and has accepted that laying off those pitches will give him more balls on boarder line pitches in addition to limit the amount of low quality balls in play.

Comparing last years swing rates with the small sample of this season, Bryant has cut down on the trouble spots. He has cut his swing rate on pitches up and in by 9.26% (73.97% in 2017, 64.71% in 2018). On pitches up and away, Bryant has cut his swing rate 16.67% (66.67% in 2017, 50% in 2018).

Given exit velocity data from last season, we see Bryant hit balls up in the zone with less authority. Below we have a basic strike zone drawn to illustrate the zone classification MLB’s Statcast system applies to batted balls recorded. Zones 1 and 11 have led to Bryant’s lowest average exit velocities. Bryant simply doesn’t hit pitches up and in well enough to warrant trying to put them in play, and this year he had taken steps to mitigating the swings he offers at those pitches. Who knows how long this trend will hold up and what the next adaptations Bryant might make, but I do know this Bryant is striking out less, making more quality contact, and might even have a shot at his second MVP.