Nolan Arenado’s struggles: How much should Colorado Rockies fans worry?

There’s no sugar-coating it: Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado’s 2020 season has been pretty rough any way you look at it.

In a shortened season there’s obviously going to be heightened pressure and focus on any superstar that’s struggling. A .218/.259/.455 slash line for a wRC+ of 66 going into Monday’s game in Arizona isn’t a pretty picture for the Rockies third baseman, but how concerned should we really be with Nolan Arenado‘s performance thus far?

With a wRC+ generally in the high 120s, we’re used to seeing Arenado hit literally twice as good as he’s shown us so far in this stretch. But he’s struggling surprisingly, albeit not alone in the category of players you’d consider perennial MVP candidates.

Jose Altuve’s wRC+ has dropped from 138 in 2019 to 68 this season. Cody Bellinger has dropped from 162 to 97. Javy Baez from 114 to 60. Marcus Semien from 137 to 64. Francisco Lindor from 114 to 88. Kris Bryant from 135 to 64.

Arenado’s not the only one. This season has started rough for quite a few players. And while he’s not exactly a major reason for the Rockies’ early-season success, he’s also not at fault for their downfall over the past couple weeks either. A team wRC+ of 84, just a touch lower than the 86 put up in 2019, doesn’t exactly show overall improvement from a front office he had a heated offseason with.

And again, it’s only 26 games and 112 plate appearances for Nolan. It’s a month’s worth of data that just so happens to be nearly 50% of the season this year. But what’s worth being concerned about and what?

Let’s dig in and see how Nolan’s gotten here and what we should expect going forward.

The stats seem to point to one main issue for the Rockies slugger.

The most noticeable drop-off that is likely affecting him the most is how well he hits (or doesn’t hit) over the inside part of the plate. His highest wOBA on pitches on the inner third of the plate is .269 whereas in 2019 his wOBA was no lower than .350 in any quadrant on the inner part of the plate. It’s a surprising area for him to struggle.

This difference isn’t due to a change in pitch mix or pitch location either. He’s seeing slightly more fastballs (63.0% vs 60.1% in 2019) and slightly fewer breaking balls (28.3% vs 30.1%) and offspeed pitches (8.7% vs 9.9%). Pitchers still try to attack him low and away off the plate most often. So what he’s seeing is mostly consistent with what he’s used to.

He may even be a little more selective in pitches this season too. He’s swinging less overall (46.3% vs 51.4% last season) and a lot of that is swinging less at pitches in the zone (63.7% vs 73.1% in 2019).

He’s not whiffing on pitches much differently than we’re used to and he’s chasing pitches outside the zone slightly less than normal too. So plate discipline probably isn’t a likely reason for his struggles to open the season.

Rather, Nolan is quite simply getting under the ball more than he normally does and it’s leading to softer contact and subpar results.

Some of the stats indicate the Rockies’ third baseman is a victim of some bad luck.

As we’ve already seen, Arenado’s difference in xwOBA and wOBA show that he’s been getting unlucky. It’s not often you see a Rockies player have a higher xwOBA than wOBA so that needs to be recognized when it comes to Arenado’s current stats.

Another stat that shows Arenado’s been unlucky is his BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) which currently sits at .167, a career-low. A normal BABIP will be around .300 and Nolan hasn’t had one lower than .312 in the past three seasons. Part of this is simply going to be because he’s getting more pop-ups and hitting the ball softer, thus making it more likely he’s going to get out more. But there’s also an element of luck at play here and that low of a BABIP shows Nolan’s been unlucky, just as his xwOBA insinuates.

Arenado’s also striking out at an incredibly low rate, only 7.1%. That’s basically twice as low as his 2019 rate of 14.0% and puts him in the 100th percentile in the league. And while having a low K% doesn’t always equate to being a better hitter at the plate, it does mean more balls in play which should mean a higher chance of getting on base. But soft contact and pop-ups don’t exactly help this cause.

A surprising stat to see given his struggles is that Arenado’s barreling up the ball 8.2% of the time. This is actually higher than his 8.0% number last year and ranks 4th on the Rockies this season behind Hilliard, McMahon, and Story. That number not dropping off shows us that when he’s making good contact, he’s still making really good contact. So this should be a sign of positivity going forward.

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There’s one comparison that should put Rockies fans at ease.

You don’t have to look back all that far to find a stat line similar to how he’s performing now, and it should make you feel a little more confident that he’ll snap out of this funk shortly. His start this season is very reminiscent of his March/April of 2019. Here’s how each compare:

Total Plate Appearances

• 2019 – 129
• 2020 – 112

Total wRC+

• 2019 – 91
• 2020 – 66

Total HRs

• 2019 – 6
• 2020 – 7

K% and BB%

• 2019 – 7.0% and 8.5%
• 2020 – 6.3% and 7.1%

ISO

• 2019 – .229
• 2020 – .238

His start to 2019 was certainly better than he’s started now, but there are too many similarities otherwise. He followed this up with a May in which he posted a wRC+ of 203. If you’re like, “Oh hey, these advanced stats are stupid and I don’t like them, give me the normal stats,” well then look no further:

That May his batting average was .425 and he hit 9 HRs while getting 29 RBI in 26 games. No matter how you look at it, he was really, really good. And it led to him posting up a season-long stat line that’s very much what we’re accustomed to seeing from Nolan, so there really shouldn’t be a ton of concern that his performance to date is what we should expect from him going forward.

Some of what we’re seeing from Nolan is concerning, most certainly. He needs to get on top of the ball a little more than he is now and turn those soft pop-ups into hard line drives. Maybe he’s in his head a little and will snap out of it once he puts together a string of good games. Maybe part of it is a result of having a subpar batter behind him and a change in lineup order to get a better hitter behind him could be beneficial.

But he’s not the cause for the Rockies’ struggles and should not be blamed for them. He’s in a slump but if past history combined with underlying statistics tell us anything, he’ll break out of this soon. Rest easy…he’ll be fine.

Editor’s Note: All stats in this article are current through Sunday, August 23.