The Curious Case of Benintendi
Andrew Benintendi, in an interesting turn of events, has become a bit of a polarizing lightning rod among the Red Sox community. Concern was born out of his surprisingly poor 2019 season, and spurred on by his abysmal opening to 2020. Through 2 games, the smallest of small sample sizes, Benintendi has appeared at the dish 11 times and has failed to notch a hit, recording 4 strikeouts in the process. This comes on the heels of a substandard 2019 output in which Benintendi slashed .266/.343/.774 with 13 home runs, 68 runs batted in, and 10 steals. All of this resulted in a mere 1.8 WAR and an OPS+ of 100; numbers that are typically associated with a completely average MLB outfielder and are eye-opening given Benintendi’s pedigree and early career success. This is where the split in perception exists. Benintendi still has a multitude of supporters within the Red Sox fan-base who trust in his talent and are willing to look past last season as an outlier for a young player still developing. However, there is a growing faction of fans who’s patience is beginning to run thin while waiting for Benintendi to fulfill his potential.
Benintendi was drafted #7 overall by the Red Sox in the 2015 MLB draft out of the University of Arkansas. A decorated collegiate hitter, Benintendi hit .376 with a bonkers 1.205 OPS his final season at Arkansas before entering the pro ranks. Benintendi skyrocketed through the Red Sox organization, appearing a grand total of 151 games at the minor league level before making his Major League Debut in 2016 at the tender young age of 21. He hit the ground running and produced a solid .835 OPS through limited playing time in 2016, and then followed that up with a 20-20 season and a 2nd place finish in ROY voting during his true rookie season in 2017. Coming off the strong rookie year in 2017, expectations were high for Benintendi entering his 2018 season and he delivered with the best season of his career so far. While his power numbers dipped slightly, Benintendi smacked 41 doubles and accumulated a .830 OPS and a 123 OPS+, far and away the best of his three full seasons, while making significant contributions to the Red Sox World Series winning team.
Entering 2019, all signs pointed to another step forward for Benintendi on his development towards becoming one of the game’s elite hitters. Unfortunately, that step didn’t happen. Benintendi slumped to the aforementioned .774 OPS, 100 OPS+. and lowly 13 home runs. A myriad of reasons have been bandied about by Red Sox faithful as the reasoning behind this significant drop-off in production. Benintendi arrived to Spring Training in 2019 carrying an estimated additional 15-20 lbs of muscle on his frame. He also opened the year as the full-time leadoff hitter for the first time in the career. Furthermore, Benintendi appears to have been in the midst of some technical changes to his swing, as his launch angle increased by over 5 degrees from 2018 to 2019. It appears that all of those factors may have been too much to overcome and contributed in some way, shape, or form to Benintendi’s down year.
Diving deeper into the Benintendi’s underlying numbers from 2019, there are some worrying trends present, while also some signs that portend hope for a bounce-back season in 2020. The most noticeable change in Benintendi’s batting profile was a significant increase in strikeouts, as he whiffed 140 times last season, a 20% increase from his previous career high despite seeing the fewest plate appearances of his brief career. This seems to be a direct result of some poor plate discipline, as his chase percentage and swing and miss percentage each increased by over 5% from 2018. The most worrying piece of this puzzle is that it wasn’t due to one specific type of pitch flummoxing him, as is often seen in these types of cases. Benintendi pretty equally increased his swing and miss percentage against both fastballs, breaking pitches, and offspeed stuff.
However, while his plate discipline last season took a marked turn for the worse, his batted ball profile took a step in the right direction. He very marginally increased his exit velocity, while also improving his barrel percentage by 1.5% and his hard hit rate by nearly 5%. When you combine these improvements in batted ball statistics with his 5 degree improvement in launch angle and 3% increase in fly-ball rate, it’s highly likely that Benintendi is due for some positive regression in 2020 with regards to his power numbers in particular. His HR/FB ratio actually dropped in 2019 to 7.9%. I’d expect that number to creep back up and possibly even surpass his career norm of 9.3% this season if he continues to try to elevate the ball.
It is tough to say what Andrew Benintendi is at this point in time. While he doesn’t appear to be living up to the billing of potential batting champ and franchise cornerstone that accompanied his rise to the majors, he also likely is better than what he showed in 2019. If he can restore some patience at the plate and improve his pitch selection, better days lie ahead. Those are the key stats that I will be watching as it pertains to Andrew Benintendi’s 2020 season; can he reduce his chase rate / strikeout rate while maintaining his batted ball profile from 2019?