As surprising as it may seem, given his immense success in his less than two years at the Major League level, Kris Bryant has come a long way as an offensive player. He’s cut down on his strikeouts. He’s improved his contact rate. These developments have helped to culminate in his status as the top position player in the National League thus far in 2016, according to WAR. But as we saw against James Shields on Tuesday night, which always seems to be the case when the two players meet, there are still some respects in which Bryant could stand to improve.

Now, given where my Major League sympathies lie and the undeniable success that Bryant has experienced in such a short time, it should remain relatively apparent that none of this is meant to disparage the Chicago Cubs third sacker in any sort of manner. And even if one wanted to do so, it’d be very difficult. He’s cut down on his strikeout rate by about seven percent (down to 23.3%, with a decreased swinging strike rate of 13.9%). His overall contact rate is up about five percent (to 71.4%). He’s sporting a .261 ISO. There’s not much of anything to dislike, and that’s just in regard to his offensive game.

But what was abundantly clear on Tuesday night, as Bryant served as the team’s designated hitter, was that he still struggles against the offspeed stuff. In striking out three times against James Shields, just as he did in his Major League debut, Bryant found himself peppered with changeups from the veteran hurler, as he fell to just 1-for-10 with seven punchouts against him in his short career. The goal here is to simply illustrate Kris Bryant’s battle against the offspeed pitches that Shields registered so much success with on Tuesday.

It isn’t that Bryant’s struggles have been magnified beyond that game on Tuesday on the South Side. But it did help to spark acknowledgement of what he has turned in against offspeed pitches throughout his time at the Major League level. The following represent the distribution of pitches that Bryant has seen, swung, and whiffed, respectively:

As is typically the case, offspeed pitches represent the lowest percentage of pitch type that Bryant has seen. And with the exception of an outlier of a month or two over the course of the last two seasons, his swing trends have been relatively consistent in a general sense, regardless of pitch type. Even with those ideas in mind, offspeed pitches have represented the largest percentage of pitches at which he’s swung and missed on a fairly consistent basis.

An additional trio of graphs helps to further illustrate Bryant’s issues with the offspeed stuff, specifically changeups, based off of Tuesday night:

Again, while the percentage isn’t high, low offspeed does represent the majority where Bryant actually see that stuff, in terms of location. Mainly because if you’re a pitcher leaving offspeed up for a hitter like Bryant, you’re probably looking for that ball in another area code. And while he obviously loves the high offspeed (and what Major League hitter doesn’t?), he’s also demonstrated a pretty high Swing% on those low changeups. And he’s demonstrated a low contact rate on those pitches that he’s shown something of a penchant for swinging at, even if the overall amount of times he actually sees offspeed pitching is relatively low. But, again, the purpose here is to illustrate a potential trend more than anything else.

Obviously, there’s plenty to note here. In summation:

• He demonstrates a lower contact rate vs. offspeed than other pitch types.
• The percentage in which he does see offspeed could be increasing ever so slightly.
• BUT..
• He sees offspeed less than other pitch types.
• AND ULTIMATELY..
• Kris Bryant is still a very, very good hitter of baseballs.

At the end of the day, is the offspeed stuff a cause for concern? Not necessarily in any real regard. Bryant typically has the type of approach that can prevent him from falling into a void like he did on Tuesday, thus largely avoiding offspeed pitches. One thing certainly is worth noting, though, that he’s seen offspeed stuff at an average of 13.33% of the time over these past three months, which represents the highest percentage of his short career over any span. It’ll be interesting to see if Major League pitchers continue to make that adjustment, and if they do, it’ll be equally as interesting to see how Kris Bryant makes his own.

We haven’t done a good ol’ fashioned rankings since the start of the season, so the All-Star Break seems like the perfect time to re-examine some of the selections that were made in the initial 2016 set. Obviously things have changed, but given that it’s the middle of July, nobody is surprising us anymore. We know largely who is who and what they bring to the table, while others have dropped off due to positional eligibility. While there’s still room for bounce back or decline, we know where we stand at the season’s midway point.

While these rankings still remain somewhat subjective, based on the individual elements I tend to look at, neither Kris Bryant or Jake Lamb ended up no. 1, so the bias may not have shone through as much as it otherwise could have. Enjoy the rest of your break before the stove starts to heat up.

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People that know me away from the world wide web know that if there’s one thing that I have a soft spot for, it’s super utility types. I have an unabashed love for the guys that you can plug in anywhere and still get a little bit of offensive production from. Ben Zobrist, Josh Harrison, Brock Holt. Love ’em. This is a list that has since grown to include Javier Baez, and while I chose to focus on a member of the Chicago Cubs in my column last week, let’s circle back to the North Side to examine a player that is becoming an intriguing fantasy option each time he finds his way into the lineup. Which is becoming quite a bit of late.

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On Monday against Cincinnati, Kris Bryant had a literally historic night for the Chicago Cubs. In smashing three home runs and adding a pair of doubles against the Reds, Bryant became the first player in Major League history to achieve the feat. It was the latest chapter in what has been one of the greatest starts to a career for any player, ever. That doesn’t mean that Bryant’s short career to this point hasn’t been without those who have attempted to disparage it, of course.

Some predicted a sophomore slump could be in the cards for Bryant, pointing to a lack of contact, a high strikeout rate, and a reliance on the big fly as potential causes of such a scenario. Additionally, one of the primary criticisms for those who had insisted in disparaging Kris Bryant had been his inability to find consistent success on the road. And to a very realistic extent, his home/road splits in 2015 certainly did lend themselves to that very trend.

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Patience is certainly a virtue, especially as it relates to fantasy baseball. However, with the hard luck season that Justin Turner had apparently decided to embrace in the first two months of 2016, he likely tested the patience of owners throughout the fantasy landscape. As we approach the end of the month of June, though, his luck appears to have shifted for the better.

Before this 2016 season got underway, Justin Turner would have hardly represented a catalyst for many as they evaluated the offensive talent possessed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, many had called for him to be supplanted at the hot corner, as he spent the bulk of both April and May struggling, as some poor luck appeared to have got the better of him. But just as the weather in Southern California has heated up, so has Turner, as well as the suddenly upstart Dodgers.

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While the Arizona Diamondbacks continue to trudge their way through a rather difficult 2016 campaign, there are at least a few success stories emerging out of the desert these days. Perhaps no story in the Southwest has had more success accompany it than that of Jake Lamb, who we’ve already discussed among the third base group on one occasion earlier this season. In that post, I listed Lamb as a “viable” option, a label which just feels like an absurd understatement and would lend itself to more disparagement than anything at this point, given what Lamb has turned in thus far in 2016.

His month of June hasn’t quite gotten off to what he may have envisioned after strong April and May stretches, but Lamb’s 2.1 WAR lands him ninth among qualifying players at the hot corner. That mark also happens to come in higher than the one he posted last year, in 148 less plate appearances. He’s reaching base at a rate that is 20 points higher than last year, with a .349 on-base percentage, despite a BABIP that is currently 43 points lower than his 2015 figure, at .301. Additionally, his wRC+ (131), wOBA (.372), and walk rate (11.2%) are all higher than last year. It’s been improvements across the board for Jake Lamb.

What has been most impressive about Lamb, though, has been the ability to make solid contact and generate the power that comes along with that. Lamb’s currently sporting a hard hit rate of 41.3%, which trails only Matt Carpenter among big league third basemen. His ISO, sitting at .264, ranks fifth among third sackers, behind only Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, and Carpenter. He can thank his new swing, coupled with a quality approach, for the uptick in power, specifically the home runs, where his dozen on the season represent twice as many as he had all of last year.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone unimpressed with what Lamb has turned in at the plate this season. However, as apparent as his growth at the plate has been, his manager, Chip Hale, has still demonstrated a penchant for sheltering him against left-handed pitching. Lamb has 242 plate appearances on the season, but only 50 of those have come against southpaws. He’s both sat entirely and been lifted against lefty relievers, something that has resulted in Hale drawing the ire of Diamondback fans on more than one occasion. On the surface, it would appear that Hale is making the right decision in sitting his starting third basemen against left-handed pitching. However, with some of the peripheral trends and such a small sample actually existing against them, in addition to the way Lamb has swung the bat all year, it’s getting harder to justify sitting him in those situations.

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Playing in a West Coast market isn’t always the most pleasurable of tasks. With a majority of games that take place largely after much of the country has gone to sleep, it’s often quite difficult for those types of clubs to generate the type of buzz that those on the East Coast or in the Midwest manage to lay claim to. It’s why so many have gone without noticing the Seattle Mariners’ success this season, and it’s why even fewer have gone without noticing what Kyle Seager is putting together at the hot corner this season.

But Seager has managed to keep himself firmly in the picture as a potentially elite third sacker, as he’s piecing together a mighty impressive campaign for a Mariners squad that is second in the American League West to the Texas Rangers and currently finds itself atop the AL wild card picture. He’s coming off of another solid, if unspectacular year in 2015, as well as being mired in a tough stretch back in April, but could very well be on pace for the best season of his career in a number of respects.

In 2015, Seager slashed .266/.328/.451/.779, with a walk rate that was almost identical to the previous year (7.9% to 8.0% in 2014), and a strikeout rate that managed to dip to 14.3% after an 18.0% mark in the previous year. His .185 ISO ranked ninth among qualifying third basemen, as did his 116 wRC+. While there was a slight regression for Seager almost across the board, with the exception of his K-rate, that could largely be attributed to a BABIP that dipped down to .278. Even so, the regression wasn’t significant in really any respect. Which might make it less surprising that Kyle Seager is currently in the midst of what could be a career campaign in 2016.

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Way back in January and February, across the exhibition season in March, and upon the beginning of the 2016 year in April, there were some pretty standard predictions that accompanied the Philadelphia Phillies across that period of time. Everyone knew the Phillies were going to be interesting, but likely among Major League Baseball’s worst teams. And there was also a pretty steady movement behind Maikel Franco as a prime breakout candidate at the hot corner. As the calendar turns to June, though, neither of those predictions have been entirely correct. Not only have the Phillies been quite watchable through these first two months of the year, Franco hasn’t been the surefire breakout player that he was expected to be.

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The 2016 season obviously has not gotten off to the start that the Arizona Diamondbacks envisioned when they signed Zack Greinke and acquired Shelby Miller via trade. At the same time, there have been several success stories throughout the roster, particularly in the field. Paul Goldschmidt is his typical all-world self, for the most part, and we’ve touched on the emerging Jake Lamb. One player who could use some more notoriety, though, is Brandon Drury.

Drury is still clinging to third base eligibility despite the fact that the spot is largely held down by Jake Lamb. He came up through the minor league ranks as a third baseman, but has demonstrated impressive versatility in his time with the Diamondbacks. Lucky for us, we’re not worried about what he brings to the table in terms of his defense at this point, anyway. What Drury does present with the stick, though, is a source of great intrigue, especially as he begins to see a larger opportunity at the Major League level.

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If Pablo Sandoval’s shoulder injury, which cost him the entire 2016 season, didn’t put an unofficial end to his time with the Boston Red Sox, then the emergence of Travis Shaw very well may have. A player that was already set to supplant Sandoval at third base even before he went on the disabled list for the year, Shaw has experienced a quiet emergence for a rebounding Red Sox ballclub. As we begin to head into the final stretch of the month of May, he’s not only establishing himself as a quality starter at the position for the Red Sox, but is currently among the game’s best at the hot corner from a statistical standpoint. For now.

That was way more ominous than I may have meant for it to be. Nonetheless, we’re going to approach Travis Shaw with a sense of foreboding, as his regression would seem to be inevitable at this point.

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