Brett Gardner is a pest. That may same like an insult, but it is both a compliment and a matter of fact.
The idea of a pest is widespread in sports, but rarely applied to baseball. For the uninitiated, it is a label applied to a player who is loved by teammates and local fans, but is infuriating to play against. This epithet is commonly reserved for hockey players who make a living getting under opponents’ skin with questionable hits and constant trash talk. Perhaps the greatest example in the NHL today is Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand.
It is a bit unnatural to apply the term “pest” to a baseball because it a non-contact sport where players rarely interact with each other intimately. The nastiest physical contact in a baseball game is caused by pitchers plunking hitters with 90+ mph fastballs, and it’s usually and accident. Pitchers who serially hit players on purpose in an effort to hurt them are better described as sociopaths than pests.
The part of being a pest that does apply to baseball-Gardner specifically- is being frustrating to play against. This description has fit the outfielder perfectly in the past. Despite lacking great power, he has made life a living hell for opposing pitchers by fouling off tons of pitches and working his way on base via the walk.
Although Gardner has never been the hardest guy in baseball to strikeout with a career 18.4% K rate, he seems impossible to put away at times. There are moments when he appears able to get his bat to literally any pitch and provide countless lucky fans in foul ball country with souvenirs.
However, this year there has been different for the 31-year-old. While he has excelled with the bat, he has not being fouling off pitches at the same rate as he’s done the last two years.
| Season | Foul Balls | Foul Ball Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 449 | 17.4% |
| 2014 | 425 | 15.1% |
| 2015 | 30 | 8.3% |
Gardner has gone for one of the premier spoiler of pitches to an Average Joe in the discipline at best so far in 2015. There is an argument to made that this is a good thing. Gardner currently possess a .320/.400/.453 line with a 140 wRC+ and has paired with Jacoby Ellsbury to create an absolutely terrifying tandem atop the Yankees’ batting order. Perhaps he’s fouling fewer pitches off because he’s squaring more of them up.
A kernel of truth may exist to this line of reasoning, but there is also cause for concern. Lurking beneath Garder’s sterling 0.73 BB/K ratio is the ugly truth that his contact rate has fallen off significantly this year.
| Time Period | O-Zone Contact% | Zone Contact% | Total Contact% | Swinging Strike% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gardner’s Career | 77.4% | 94.0% | 88.4% | 4.1% |
| 2015 | 61.5% | 92.9% | 81.7% | 6.2% |
These numbers seem to indicate that the improvement in Gardner’s strikeout rate is very much an unsustainable phenomenon. He has definitely struggled to make contact on pitches outside the zone, pitches he likely would have fouled off in the past.
Because Gardner swings outside the zone infrequently, his struggles to make contact there will not cripple his game, but as the season wears on we should see more cases of the outfielder swinging through pitches you would expect him to spoil.
Of course small sample size warnings apply in this case, as they always do this early in the season, but plate discipline numbers tend to be meaningful earlier than many other statistics. It is reasonable to assume that Gardner will make less contact this year than we are used to seeing. This hasn’t hurt him yet, but eventually it’s bound to.
Beyond his more obvious skills such as running down baseballs, swiping bags, and surprising opposing pitchers with the odd round-tripper, Gardner’s knack for battling through at-bats is what has made him special. Despite what his strikeout numbers say, that ability seems to be compromised to some degree this year.
Brett Gardner may seem like he’s better than ever at the moment, but he’s lost a little bit of what made him such a good player, and as a result, such a good pest.
*2015 Stats as of May 4th
Photo credit: Bob DeChiara-USA Today Sports