Kyle Tucker Isn't Back. He Never Went Away

"Tucker!  High and Deep to Right Field! Forget About it!" Todd Kalas's call of Kyle Tucker's 6th inning bomb off of Andrew Heaney captured the moment. Tucker hit it into the 2nd deck in right field and Kalas's call made it clear it was a no-doubter.

Tucker Got All of That One Last Night

On Wednesday, Tucker homered and singled, marking his 4th straight game with a base hit. Over those 4 games, Tucker is 7 for 13 with 3 homers, 2 other extra base hits, 3 walks and only 2 strikeouts. This mini-hot streak has lifted Tucker's OPS from .584 to .741--that is from below the MLB average (.701) to above it. 

Why was Tucker slumping through the season's first 33 games?  Why did he have a slash line of .175/.242/.342 before Sunday's game against the Blue Jays? I took a deep dive into Tucker's numbers this season, particularly in comparison to his numbers from 2020, when he established himself not only as an everyday player, but an above average contributor. 

I came to a clear and simple conclusion. Kyle Tucker is the victim of bad luck.  And basically nothing else.  There is nothing Kyle Tucker is doing wrong to have such a low slash line. It's just bad luck.

The website Baseball Savant uses batted ball data--how hard a ball was hit and the launch angle of a ball--to determine a player's expected level of production. For Tucker, that produces an expected slash line of .288/.314/.557.  Tucker's xWOBACON (Whoa! Bacon!) is .441. 

These are very impressive numbers. Tucker's xWOBACON, which stands for eXpected Weighted On BAse percentage on CONtact, is 40th among qualified MLB hitters. His expected slugging is 15th among qualifiers. For perspective, Yordan Alvarez's expected Slugging Percentage is .522 and his xWOBACON is .465. 

Tucker is hitting the ball hard. His average exit velocity is 92.1 MPH, which is 27th in MLB. And he has barreled 13 balls this season, which is 20th best in baseball. And after last night, Tucker is leading the Astros with 8 homers this season. 

So what might explain why Tucker's hard hitting ways are not leading to hits? One thought is that Tucker is making less contact. That he is striking out more, swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone, and thus, putting less of those hard hit balls in play.

The data show that this is not the case. Tucker has improved his walk rate this season from 8% in 2020 to 9%. He has lowered his strikeout rate from 20% to 19%. Tucker has reduced his share of swings and misses from 22% last year to 21% this year. He has chased a few more pitches this year--swinging at 27% of pitches outside of the strike zone this season compared to 26% last year. 

None of these numbers indicate a huge change in Tucker's approach at the plate this season. He has improved on most of these numbers, even if slightly. 

Another thought is that Tucker is hitting into the shift more. Tucker is left handed hitter with pull tendencies. In 2020, he pulled 51% of the balls he hit. As a result, Tucker faces the shift--a lot. In 2020, opponents shifted on 74% of Tucker's plate appearances. This year, that has increased to 88%. 

Yet, Tucker seems to have hit into the shift less often this year than in 2020. This year, he has reduced the share of pulled balls to 36%, and he has increased the number of balls his hits up the middle from 32% to 42%. 

The shift is designed to stop hits on the infield, and the "slice charts" below show where balls hit less than 200 feet went. In 2020, Tucker hit 68% of his balls on the infield to the two right-most slices. This season, he has reduced that to 53%. He has increased the share of balls he hits up the middle by 8% and the share to the opposite side of the infield by 5%. These data again indicate that Tucker is using a slightly better approach this season. 

A deep dive into the data keeps leading to the same conclusion--Kyle Tucker's approach at the plate, his swing decisions and his style of hitting the ball--are the same as in 2020. He's just getting worse results than he should so far. 

Tucker's BABIP--that is, his batting average on balls in play--is .200. The American League average is .284. That is, when the average player makes contact, he's getting a base hit 28% of the time. Tucker is only getting one 20% of the time. Even though Tucker is hitting the ball hard and making good decisions at the plate, his balls are finding gloves. 

The noted enlightenment philosopher Crash Davis offer a key thesis on BABIP luck in the late 1980s. "You know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It’s 25 hits...That means if you get just one extra flare a week, just one, a gork, a ground ball — a ground ball with eyes! — you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week and you’re in [Minute Maid Park]."

Tucker has not been getting those flares, gork, or dying quails this season. But his hitting streak in his last four games is an indication that Tucker's luck is turning. Over the long stretch of a baseball season, small sample size irregularities--like a .200 BABIP--tend to even out. 

Tucker's hot streak prompted a Houston sports talk host to declare that "Kyle Tucker is back people."

Kyle Tucker is back people. Live it.

— Michael Connor (@MC790) May 13, 2021

But that analysis is not quite right. This deep look into the data shows that Kyle Tucker is not back. He never left.