Michael Harris II Primed for All-Star Level Breakout in 2024
While the sophomore season for Michael Harris II wound up being solid, the 22-year-old is poised to have a breakout season in 2024 with the Atlanta Braves.
It's hard to consider someone who won the NL Rookie of the Year and has posted back-to-back 4 win seasons a breakout candidate, but that's just how talented Michael Harris is and what the future could hold.
He also gets lost batting ninth in a lineup full of All-Stars, but 2024 feels like the year when he establishes himself as a perennial All-Star.
Obviously, 2023 got off to a rough start for Michael Harris. There is no sugarcoating it -- he was one of the worst (if not the worst) hitters in all of baseball through the month of May.
The back and knee injuries had something to do with him hitting .174 with just 2 home runs, a 45 wRC+, and .526 OPS through his first 34 games.
Said Harris in June, after a sweep of the Rockies where he went 5-5 with a double and a homer in the series finale, “I didn’t find a groove yet, then got hurt. Then I started to find a groove and got hurt again. I’m feeling good now, I guess that’s the most important part. But you learn from those moments and know how to handle it next time.”
From June on, he was one of the best hitters in baseball, slashing .326/.352/.535 with a 136wRC+ and .887 OPS to go along with 16 home runs.
Reason to Believe MH2 Can Do More
The second-half numbers alone should bring optimism into 2024, but diving into the metrics will give reason for optimism as well.
In a great article on Fantrax, that you can read here, they talk about why MH2 should see an uptick in home runs in 2024 (in a separate article they talk about home run regression for Ozzie Albies).
Part of that is that he was very unlucky with not only his barrelled baseballs but his non-barrels as well. Only 17 of his 41 barreled baseballs left the yard, while he only hit 1 home run on a non-barreled baseball.
Harris acknowledged the bad batted-ball luck when discussing the streak: “While (the slump) was going on, I wouldn’t say it was just terrible,” Harris said in June. “I still felt I was hitting the ball hard, just wasn’t finding any holes. It wasn’t like I was striking out three times a game. So I guess there was some feel (from the Braves) with that, to just give me a little time to figure it out, and then it all came together.”
MH2 also decreased his groundball rate from 56 percent in 2022 to 48 percent in 2023, which would lead you to believe he would see an uptick in home runs, but that was not the case.
Partly because those groundballs that were taken away were line drives and not fly balls.
And while it doesn't appear he'll ever be someone with a high walk rate, he at least cut his strikeout rate from 24.3 percent in 2022 to 18.7 percent in 2023.
The barrel%, exit velocity, max exit velocity, and HardHit% all remained very strong in 2023 compared to 2022. His HardHit% actually went up over 3 percent.
Another reason for optimism: MH2 made huge strides against lefties in 2023. After hitting just .238 against southpaws in 2022, he hit .301 against them in 2023 (better than he hit against righties).
We now have a pretty large sample size for MH2 at the big league level to work with, and it all shows you that he has what it takes to be an All-Star level talent.
Assuming injuries don't hold him back and lead to a long slump like the beginning of 2022, there's not reason you should expect huge numbers from MH2 in 2024.
What Does an MH2 Breakout Look Like
Again, you're talking about a player who has hit over .290 in his first two seasons in the big leagues and flirted with 20-20 in both seasons as well.
It's not like the numbers MH2 has put up to this point aren't great, and even if he just stayed at these numbers -- along with elite defense -- he'd continue to be a 3-4 win player.
This upcoming season is really about MH2 showing the true power potential he possesses. It's easy to project him to hit 25 home runs this upcoming season.
And while he's a good fit at the bottom of the lineup batting in front of Ronald Acuña Jr., that likely has been the cause of him not running as much.
If the Braves were to bat him in the middle of the order, or even potentially move him up to the two-spot against righty starters, we likely see him reach 30 stolen bases.
Now you're looking at MH2 as someone who could finish the year with a line like this: .290/.330/.500 for an .830 OPS, 85 runs, 25 home runs, 90 RBI (if batting in the middle of the order), and 30 stolen bases.
Again, the average numbers are likely to remain what they've been, and the runs, RBI, and stolen bases could all be determined by where he hits in the lineup. But vaulting into the 20-plus home run range will increase those SLG and OPS numbers that are so sought after in today's game.
There were 13 players who had a 25-20 season last year, so it's certainly not a rare accomplishment -- especially with the new rules.
Only seven players had 25-30 seasons and that list includes Acuña, Corbin Carroll, Bobby Witt, Julio Rodriguez, Francisco Lindor, Kyle Tucker, and Trea Turner.
Fernando Tatis Jr. missed it by one stolen base and Jose Ramirez was 1 home runs and 2 stolen bases short.
The point is, all of those players are considered superstars in today's game and you don't hear MH2's name listed among them ... yet.
But you very well could, as soon as next season.
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