How Michael Harris II can avoid the sophomore slump this season
It’s the way this game goes: you show the league your skills and then they figure you out – forcing adjustments to be made. With a breakout rookie year, comes the possibility of a sophomore slump.
The Braves are returning former Rookie of the Year, Michael Harris, to the lineup. He helped lead a 22-25 Braves club in May to a 100-win season and a four-peat of the NL East crown heading into October with a .297/.339/.514 batting line and 20 stolen bases.
However, his numbers staggered towards the end of September and into the playoffs, where he went 1-for-14 with a pair of strikeouts.
While it is thrilling to have such young production returning to the lineup, the Braves will have to manage him carefully to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
What is a sophomore slump?
Like I mentioned, a lot of times you see rookies come into the Big Leagues and immediately be on top of the world. But once the league is on notice, teams start to find weaknesses and ways to slow that player down.
The sophomore slump typically doesn’t last a full season, and a lot of times, the overall numbers of the season might not look a whole lot different in the end.
However, year two is typically when weaknesses are exploited and players make adaptations to become an everyday player.
What it could look like for Harris
The Braves know this well.
Remember when Austin Riley hit seven homers over his first 15 Major League games? He had a torrid start if there ever was one. He ended June 2019 tied for third in the MLB with 14 homers and was ranked in the top 50 in baseball with a 133 wRC+.
Then, pitchers started overloading him with the slider, seemingly getting in the young hitter’s head and messing up his timing. He ended the season hitting .226 with just 18 dingers and 108 strikeouts.
While Riley only slightly improved his numbers in 51 games in 2020, he solidified himself as a rising star and gave the Braves a taste of consistency for the first time in 2021 and brought the heat again in 2022 with a team-leading 38 long balls.
And this isn't an organizational failing of the Braves; it's baseball.
The Phillies’ Alec Bohm had a similar journey, as he burst onto the scene with a .338 average and .881 OPS as a rookie in 2020. After a torrid 44 games in 2020 though, he struggled over a full season in 2021, batting .247 with a .647 OPS.
Bohm, however, returned to a happy medium of consistency last season, batting .280, .713 OPS and producing 70 more hits and 25 more RBIs.
Worst case scenario, Harris has a complete breakdown of his game, similar to what Braves phenom Jason Heyward had in year two.
After hitting .277 with 18 homers and a whopping 91 walks in the right fielder’s 2010 rookie year, Heyward hit .227 with 14 homers and just 51 walks in 14 fewer games in 2021. Heyward has had much better years since 2011, but he never lived up to the “anchor of the lineup” expectations he had set for him. His eye at the plate and his awareness seemed to set him up to be an elite leadoff guy, but he has yet to walk more than 68 times in a season again.
The benefit to Harris is, even when he isn’t hot at the plate, he is helping the team win games with a Gold Glove-caliber presence in center field as well with his elusiveness on the base paths, as he displayed in a near 20-homer-20-steal campaign as a rookie.
While his plate production might dip temporarily this season, as it did in the playoffs last season, Brian Snitker has a consistent contributor in Harris.
Taking action
So, what can the Braves do to stop Harris from slumping?
It might be as simple as being patient. The Braves are familiar with struggling youngsters, but they are also familiar with the benefits of sticking with them through it. All that to say, Harris will be worth the wait.
The Braves need to be patient, but they also need to be proactive.
What Harris did in 2022 is top-of-the-order kind of production, but you have to give the 22-year-old room to grow. Being proactive means knowing that Harris still might slump and need time to adjust.
So, as the Braves did with Heyward, putting too much pressure on him might be catastrophic. The Braves started the season batting Heyward third in the lineup. With a struggling Dan Uggla behind him, pitchers attacked him, leading to fewer walks and more pressure on him to produce.
There’s nothing wrong with moving Harris up in the order here and there to reward good performance, but to put pressure on him to be a table-setter this early in his career might be a mistake the Braves can’t take back.
Also, the Braves shouldn’t be playing him in 160 games. Especially if he gets in a slump, he’ll need time to think, rest and make adjustments. That’s the benefit of starting shortstop Vaughn Grissom out in Triple-A: if he slumps, there’s not as much pressure on him to produce.
Harris’ situation is different. He’s certainly Big-League ready, but he shouldn’t be treated like Ronald Acuña Jr. just yet.
Harris hasn’t given Atlanta much reason to be alarmed this spring. He’s 11-for-43 with 11 hits, five extra-base hits and a 9-4 strikeout-to-walk-ratio. This could be another magical year for the Georgia native, but the Braves should brace for some year two struggles.
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