What to make of star SF Giants center fielder's struggles at the plate after hot start

On April 18th, Jung Hoo Lee was hitting .361 with a .653 slugging percentage and a 1.073 OPS. The SF Giants center fielder looked like a star on the rise, with 10 doubles, three home runs, and three stolen bases. Since then, he has slashed .215/.280/.327, and has looked like a player who is in over his head.

What to make of star SF Giants center fielder's struggles at the plate after hot start

What happened to Jung Hoo Lee? He looked like a possible MVP candidate early on in the season, but flamed out and has not found his way at the plate since then. His power has plateaued, with just three home runs and seven doubles since April 18th. His on-base-percentage, which was over .400 after April 18th, fell off a cliff.

Were Lee's first three weeks simply a mirage? A hot stretch that happened to coincide with the start of the season? Is the real Lee just a defense-first centerfielder?

Let's dive into the Statcast numbers and see if we can make sense out of Lee's recent struggles.

One number that jumps out right away is Lee's expected batting average, which is in the 85th percentile at .287. His actual batting average of .252 is over 30 points below that, indicating that there could be some bad luck. However, his expected slugging percentage of .408 is right on the mark, as Lee currently holds a slugging percentage of .409.

The big problem is that Lee is not hitting the ball hard enough. His average exit velocity of 87.9 miles per hour ranks in the 22nd percentile. His 3.9% barrel rate ranks in the 12th percentile, as does his 31.5% hard-hit rate. His bat speed is even lower, in the eighth percentile.

Those numbers have gone down since April 18th, but only slightly. Until April 18th, Lee's average exit velocity was 89.4, his barrel rate was 6.2% and his hard hit rate was 39%. Since then, his average exit velocity has dropped to 86.9, his barrel rate has slipped to 2.1% and his hard-hit rate has dipped to 29%.

Lee is making hard contact less often, but even in April, he was not hitting the ball much harder than he is now. It appears that Lee may have just been on a heater early on in the season, and is now following it up with a slump.

Most likely, the real Lee is somewhere in the middle. Lee has great speed and plays solid defense. Statcast gives him a baserunning value of 3 (95th percentile) and a defensive run value of 3 (81st percentile).

If Lee can provide strong defense in center field and speed on the basepaths, he does not need to hit for power to be valuable. If he can hit closer to his expected batting average of .287, instead of the .215 mark he's been at for the past two months, he'd be a valuable contributor in the lineup as well.