Brandon Belt settling in as Blue Jays' most reliable hitter amid rollercoaster year
At times Brandon Belt's production has invited skepticism, but in recent weeks he's been a force at the dish.
Brandon Belt was signed to be a complementary offensive piece for the Toronto Blue Jays, but for much of the season he's been the team's most productive hitter.
Tuesday's game-winning home run was a reminder of how important the veteran has been to Toronto, and Belt's season-long numbers have him side-by-side with some of the game's best bats. His 135 wRC+ is tiend for 18th among hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, and he ranks either first or second on the Blue Jays in most key offensive metrics.
Those statistics understate how important he's been to Toronto more recently. That's because he got off to a horrendous start in April, posting a .169/.246/.288 line and striking out in an eye-popping 41.5% of his plate appearances.
Since May 1, he's the team's leader in many offensive categories — in some cases by a significant margin.
Because Belt's playing time is limited against left-handers, he hasn't been at the top of the team's leaderboards in a few counting stats, but it's impressive that he's just one home run and two doubles behind his top teammates in this span despite taking approximately 100 fewer trips to the plate than many of them.
During a period when the Blue Jays offence needed all the help it could get, Belt has stepped up. FanGraphs estimates his on-field value since May 1 at $17.6 — a lofty total for a guy on a $9.3 million deal.
With Toronto in the midst of a tight playoff race the value that Belt has banked is crucial, but the team has to wonder what it can get from the first baseman from here on out. That's because for most of the season his production has outpaced his expected numbers by a significant margin.
Of the 301 hitters who've put at least 150 balls in play this year, Belt's wOBA exceeds his expected wOBA by the 12th-highest amount (.037). The 35-year-old has seemingly had luck on his side all season, but a closer look at how his season has played out offers some hope that he'll produce at the clip the Blue Jays need from here on out.
A good way to understand Belt's season is to spilt it up into approximate thirds.
In the first third of the season the veteran looked unconvincing at the plate. He managed to cobble together slightly above-average production (107 wRC+) despite a massive strikeout rate (38.1%) and middling power numbers (.141 ISO) thanks to a massive percentage of his balls in play dropping for hits (.420).
In the second third, Belt's production ticked up as he continued to enjoy an inflated BABIP (.435) that compensated for a still-high strikeout rate (37.7%), while his power ticked up significantly (.217). That made for overall results that were strong (143 wRC+), but didn't appear sustainable.
Belt's most recent third has better similar overall results to his second (152 wRC+), via far more impressive means. His power numbers keep getting better (.283) while his strikeout rate is going down (27.9%)— a rare and encouraging combination for the 13-year vet.
Meanwhile he's now seeing his balls in play generate hits at a more reasonable rate (.302) indicating that he's no longer relying on Lady Luck to intervene on his behalf so often.
To his credit, Belt's line-drive swing has resulted in an above-average career BABIP of .323, but living north of .400 wasn't realistic for an extended period of time. That's why earlier in the season he looked like a candidate to see his production plummet in the second half of 2023.
Now, Belt is looking more like a guy who's coming by his numbers honestly. That began with bringing his strikeout rate under control, particularly given how immensely difficulty it is to generate consistent offence while going down on strikes more than 35% of the time.
Since 2000, there have been 34 hitters who have produced a strikeout rate that high in a season with 300 or more plate appearances. Of that group, just 15 managed to generate a league-average wRC+.
That might sound like plenty, but those hitters tended to be some of the most extreme sluggers of the 21st century. They averaged 17.8 plate appearances per home run in those seasons. For reference, Belt's career number is 28.7.
Belt can hit for power, but he's not a Joey Gallo or Miguel Sanó type with massive raw thump.
This season his average exit velocity is in the 37th percentile and his max exit velocity is in the 56th percentile. The strikeouts had to come down for his numbers to become projectable, and that's exactly what's happened. Five of FanGraphs' six projection systems are predicting a wRC+ between 119 and 128 for the rest of his 2023— with Steamer as an outlier (109).
If he manages that he probably won't be Toronto's best hitter, but he'll be a crucial cog. There's a chance he's got even more in him, too, as the combination of power and strikeout avoidance he's managed recently is remarkable — and driven by outcomes almost impossible to achieve via good fortune.
For most of the season an underachieving Blue Jays offence has gotten an unexpected level of production from Belt while misfortune has been plagued many of its key hitters. Now Belt is looking more like a guy the team can rely on without requiring any intervention from the baseball gods.
