Braves Have a Huge Decision To Make About One of Their Young Stars

The Atlanta Braves have a few different ways they can configure their lineup

Author:
Lindsay Crosby
Feb 11, 2024 10:48 AM EST

As they prepare to enter the 2024 season, the Atlanta Braves don't have a ton of questions left to answer.

The Braves return all but one lineup regulars from MLB's best offense last season, as well as virtually all of their rotation from last season. The biggest questions seem to focus on who fills out the bench and how Atlanta configures the bullpen.

Oh, and where to bat centerfielder Michael Harris II.

The third-year outfielder has been absolutely electric in his first two seasons, batting .295 with 37 homers and 40 stolen bases. He's predominantly done it from the #9 spot in the order, as well, with the team easing him into the lineup during his rookie season of 2022 and him proclaiming he's comfortable batting from there.

So far in his career, Harris has batted ninth in 152 of his career 252 games, with a .302/.336/.510 career line from the final spot. After the nine hole, Harris has batted in every single other spot but doesn't have more than 27 career games from any one, with various levels of domination from each:

1st: 3 games, .241/.241/.500 w/ 1 HR
2nd: 16 games, .243/.284/.443 w/ 3 HRs, 5/7 SBs
3rd: 5 games, .100/.143/.100
4th: 1 game, .250/.250/.250 w/ 1 SB
5th: 4 games, .294/.294/.412 w/ 1 SB
6th: 19 games, .375/.392/.611 w/ 3 HRs, 1/2 SBs
7th: 25 games, .266/.303/.468 w/ 4 HRs, 5/6 SBs
8th: 27 games, .318/.420/.482 w/ 1 HR, 4/4 SBs
9th: 152 games, .302/.336/.510 w/ 25 HRs, 23/25 SBs

The case to move Michael Harris up in the order

The argument to move Harris up from 9th comes down to maximizing his at-bats - it's estimated that the average leadoff hitter would get nearly 100 more plate appearances over the course of a season than the average #9 hitter, and the Braves lineup showed last year that it's anything but average.

(Ronald Acuña Jr had a MLB-leading 735 plate appearances from the leadoff spot last season, thanks to how often Atlanta turned over the lineup.)

So, moving Harris up means getting someone with a career .295 batting average more at-bats, and any movement up in the order would be good - even the difference between #6 and #9 comes out to almost 50 at-bats across the course of a season.

Given the speed of Harris - his 28.8 ft/sec average speed last year was highest amongst lineup regulars, even beating Acuña's 28.0 ft/sec - putting him in the #2 hole would give more of a scoring and stolen base threat for Austin Riley and Matt Olson batting #3 and #4.

Indeed, if Atlanta wanted to maximize both speed up in the order and take advantage of the three-batter minimum for all pitchers by alternating lefties and righties, a potential lineup could look like this:

Acuña - RHH
Harris - LHH
Riley - RHH
Olson - LHH
Ozuna - RHH
Albies - Switch
Murphy - RHH
Kelenic - LHH
Arcia - RHH

This lineup has the dual advantages of getting Harris more at-bats while allowing Kelenic to not feel pressure to perform, both hitting at the bottom of the lineup and not having the responsibility of being the batter before Ronald Acuña Jr.

(And manager Brian Snitker confirmed the plan was to bat Kelenic towards the bottom third, so we know that's in the plan.)

The case to leave Michael Harris II batting 9th

But it's not simply a matter of "bat him 2nd to maximize his at-bats", there's fit to consider with moving Harris.

The first is the demands of batting 2nd in the lineup - per MLB's Statcast guru Mike Petriello, the #2 spot in the order has become more productive on a relative basis than any other spot in the lineup, with that #2 hitter producing a 114 OPS+ in 2023, better than #1, #3, or #4 by five points of OPS+.

And Michael Harris II, while a good hitter, might not be the best hitter to take that spot.

Because Harris has a really unique and not at all optimized game - let's call it "Harrisball".

Harris has a career walk rate of less than 5% (as compared to the MLB average of 8.4%) while maintaining a wRC+ of over 100, and that's a combination that's not very common. So uncommon, in fact, that the group of players that have done it since 2000 totals 29 players.

Yes there's some good names there - Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Canó, Alfonso Soriano - but also such luminaries as Amed Rosario, Javier Baez, and Yan Gomes.

(And also Kenji Johjima, who I literally forgot existed until researching this piece.)

And if you include ">38% chase" into that criteria, it's an even smaller list.

So while a high contact, low walk profile that chases WAY too much would work in the #2 role (it's hard to imagine a high contact role not working from any spot in the lineup), it's not the most ideal makeup of a #2 hitter.

Why I'd leave Michael Harris II batting 9th

Here's the thing: moving an individual player up or down the lineup doesn't really make a large impact.

FanGraphs ran an experiment, making three lineups - a "best hitter batting 2nd" lineup, a "singles hitter batting 2nd" lineup, and a "what's the absolute worst lineup we could make" lineup - and ran them through 100,000 nine-inning games to see the differences in run scoring.

Lineups one and two performed virtually identical across the simulations, finishing with 4.279 runs per game and 4.283 runs per game.

The deliberately bad lineup? 4.122 runs per game, a difference over a 162-game season of a whopping 26 runs.

In the grand scheme of things, for a team that scored an absurd 947 runs last season, the difference in Harris batting 2nd and 9th may not ultimately matter.

But there's another reason to leave things as-is.

The other reason to not move Harris out of the #9 spot to 2nd or 6th or anywhere else is kinda obvious, if you think about it: He doesn't want to move.

After a big game against the San Francisco Giants last season while batting from the #2 hole while Ozzie Albies was out, Harris was asked about batting 2nd in the order and if he wanted to stay. Here was his answer, as given to MLB.com's Mark Bowman:

"I feel like I can just hide down there in the nine spot and do my little damage and not be really seen down there because everybody ahead of me is doing phenomenal and has crazy numbers as well. I feel I can hide down there and get some more hittable pitches.”

He was emphatic in a follow-up about his feelings towards the bottom of the order.

“The nine-hole has my heart.”

I've noticed this a lot during my time as host of Locked On MLB Prospects: We sometimes forget that baseball is more than numbers. It's played by human beings, emotional creatures who have preferences and feelings and off the field concerns. It's a hard game to play, a mental grind where comfort and fit are paramount to surviving a six month season plus playoffs.

He wants to bat in the #9 hole. Let him.

Sure it may not be the most "optimal" spot in the lineup from a pure mathematical and sabermetric perspective, but it's what he wants to do, and he's comfortable down there.

Let him keep doing it. It's hard to argue with the results so far.