Back in April, I explored the question of how worried Brewers fans should be about Ryan Braun. He’s infamous now for his PED suspension but the larger concern was how his thumb would respond to a cryotherapy procedure he underwent in the offseason. It just so happened he got off to a terrible start and so a lot of people simply assumed it was the thumb. My assertion at the time was that wasn’t the case. Since then he indeed underwent a second “maintenance” cryotherapy procedure for his ailing thumb. But that actually supports my claims.
At the time I wrote the Braun article he was overly aggressive at the plate (57% swing rate). He was also swinging at a career high number of pitches outside the strike zone (51.0 O-swing%). He was hitting .238/.273/.310 with a 2.3 BB%. That’s all very bad, but his batted ball profile was normal.
In 2014 he struggled with his thumb issue all season. His ground ball rate was 51.8%. When he struggled with his thumb for the first time in 2013 he had a 58.3 GB%. In April of this year he had a 44.0 GB% which is what his career average was at the time.
To me that didn’t support the idea that his thumb was the issue. It seemed more like a plate discipline problem. And the evidence since then supports that.
From April 28th to now, Ryan Braun has hit .275/.360/.600, with a 12.1 BB%. His plate discipline improved significantly. He went from a 57.0% swing rate to 44.6% (career: 48.4%). He also went from swinging at 51.0% of pitches outside the strike zone to only 31.8%.
To me that’s pretty clear evidence that when Ryan Braun has his traditional plate discipline he can still bang with the best of them. But none of that explains the need for additional cryotherapy to alleviate the pain in his thumb. Enter batted ball distribution.
Remember I said when he’s struggling with his thumb his ground ball rate spikes? It was over 50% in the months he struggled during the 2013 season and for the entire 2014. From the time I wrote the first article (April 27th) to now Ryan Braun’s ground ball rate was 51.5%.
So far all the evidence we have suggests that when Ryan Braun’s thumb is hurting him it shows up in his ground ball rate. However that doesn’t mean that every time his ground ball rate is high his thumb is the reason. We also can’t assume that he won’t be able to hit well when he’s dealing with his thumb issue. That’s evident in his .275/.360/.600 slash line. His plate discipline is an important factor there. But we can assume every time his thumb is hurting his ground ball rate will start to go up.
It’s a mixed bag for Brewers fans. On the one hand you can assume as long as his thumb is healthy and his plate discipline is on point he’s going to be good. The plate discipline will likely always be there to some degree. But his thumb won’t always be healthy. Even the best plate discipline isn’t going to matter if he’s hitting ground balls more than 50% of the time.
So the real hope has to be that occasional cryotherapy procedures will keep his thumb healthy enough for the majority of any given season. The Brewers have been informed that the procedure can be safely done every 3-4 months. Assuming it works every time that should be sufficient to cover the majority of a season: March-June; July-October.
It is possible he will be able to manage the condition better in the future. His original procedure was done last October. That’s 8 months between procedures. Of course he wasn’t playing baseball for a little over 4 of those months.
The only reason the procedure was done then is because nobody knew how it would affect a baseball player. Now that they know he can return to playing in less than a week there’s no reason to do it so early. It’s possible if he gets the procedure done in March that it will last longer than June. We might get that answer this year since he’s having the procedure done in June which leaves a little over 4 months left in the season.
All things considered, I think it could be worse. Ryan Braun has shown an ability to perform well when his plate discipline is good. We actually might not have seen the best he has to offer. In April his thumb was fine but his plate discipline was not. The opposite was true in May. If this latest cryotherapy eliminates his thumb issue and he can continue having good plate discipline we might be in store for a “breakout.”
Statistics courtesy of FanGraphs
