Ke'Bryan Hayes' offense may be unlucky, but he feels fortunate to be a Red

AL EastBlue JaysOriolesRaysRed SoxYankeesAL CentralGuardiansRoyalsTigersTwinsWhite SoxAL WestAngelsAstrosAthleticsMarinersRangersNL EastBravesMarlinsMetsNationalsPhilliesNL CentralBrewersCardinalsCubsPiratesRedsNL WestDiamondbacksDodgersGiantsPadresRockiesScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsThe Windup NewsletterFantasyMLB ProspectsMLB OddsMLB PicksPower RankingsFans Speak UpAnalysisKe’Bryan Hayes’ offense may be unlucky, but he feels fortunate to be a RedKe'Bryan Hayes is hitting .130/.193/.208 with a home run in 83 plate appearances so far this season. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson) Share articleCINCINNATI — If Cincinnati Reds’ leadoff man TJ Friedl thought about feeling sorry for himself because hits weren’t falling over the first month of the season, all he had to do was look across the clubhouse to put it in perspective. “Literally, the definition of unlucky is right there,” Friedl said recently, nodding in the direction of Reds third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes. The Reds didn’t trade for Hayes last July to bolster their lineup, but to improve the defense. “We knew we weren’t getting a guy who was going to hit third, but you’re getting maybe the best defender in the league,” Reds manager Terry Francona said this week. “It’s kind of our responsibility to figure out our offense. We also thought there was some more in there.” Hayes’ defense came as advertised at third base. Last season, he won his second Gold Glove. But the Reds also thought he could have better results at the plate than he had in Pittsburgh, where he spent the first 5 1/2 seasons of his career. When Hayes was traded to the Reds, he was hitting .236/.279/.290 with two home runs in 100 games. In his 52 games with Cincinnati, he hit .234/.315/.342 with three home runs. Earlier this season, RotoWire ran an article entitled “2026 MLB’s Unluckiest Hitters,” and Hayes was at the top. RotoWire used BaseballSavant’s expected batting average, expected slugging and expected wOBA (weighted on-base average) and compared it to the actual results in the same categories. The larger the difference between the StatCast expected rates and the actual results was determined to be the luck gap. When that article was released on April 15, Hayes was the unluckiest hitter in all three categories and in what the author called the “luck gap,” —the sum of all three numbers. When the article was published, his luck gap was negative-689, with the next closest unlucky hitter, Bo Naylor of the Cleveland Guardians, at negative-.584. Using that same methodology, Hayes is hitting better, but is still, by this definition, the unluckiest hitter in baseball. Overall, Hayes is hitting .130/.193/.208 with a home run in 83 plate appearances. His batting average was under .100 as recently as last Saturday, the day he had a pair of hits against the Detroit Tigers, raising his batting average from .081 going into the game to .106. He’s had a hit in each game since then, inching his actual results closer to the expected results. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve just gotten to where I don’t think about it day-to-day and just think as if you have a .000 batting average because you’re 0 for 0 on the season each day,” Hayes said Thursday. “A lot of the best guys do that, whether they went 4 for 4 or they went 0 for 4. Just continuing to trust in my work and see where I can be a little bit better.” Before the Reds traded for Hayes, they looked at his underlying attributes and believed the risk of his bat was worth the gamble. Even if they couldn’t improve his hitting, he still is a premium defender, a good base runner and sees pitches at the plate. The underlying metrics that convinced the Reds he could be better offensively were a low strikeout rate, high contact rate and hard contact. Those three things are among the most important factors a hitter can have to be successful. This year his strikeout rate of 13.3 percent is in the 89th percentile, his 19.5 whiff percentage is in the 78th percentile and his average exit velocity of 91.3 mph is in the 77th percentile. He’s no slap hitter or oscillating fan at the plate. Looking at those numbers against his actual production shows exactly why the team has never looked at him as a lost cause offensively. Even when he isn’t producing results, he still gives a solid at-bat to go with the transcendent defense. “He’s doing everything right, the ball is just not falling for him,” Reds hitting coach Chris Valaika said. “A lot of the intents that we put forward with him going into the offseason and coming into this year, he’s doing those things. He’s getting the ball in the air. He just hasn’t had the success.” Two of the things the Reds really wanted Hayes to concentrate on were to hit the ball in the air and use more of the field. Last season, he had a groundball rate of 49 percent, nearly the same as his career mark of 48.7 percent. So far this season, 31.8 percent of the balls he’s put in play have been on the ground. He also has lowered his strikeout percentage from 19.5 percent last year (and 20.2 percent for his career) to 13.3 percent this year. “It sucks, obviously. We all want to get hits and all that,” Hayes said. “For the most part, I thought I was having good at-bats, I was hitting the ball good. One of my goals was getting the ball in the air a little more, which I did. Just kind of wasn’t finding holes. You obviously think about it, you’re human, but at the end of the day, I’ve just got to continue to trust the process and what I’m doing in the cage and BP and eventually they’re going to start finding holes.” What makes that easier is the team’s 20-11 start despite his bad offensive luck. And while he’s not reaching his own expectations, the team is still winning. As long as that continues, Hayes can just keep going about his business playing exceptional defense and waiting for his .138 batting average on balls in play to turn around. That’s not a luxury he had with the Pirates, where he was expected to be western Pennsylvania’s version of Mike Schmidt after signing an eight-year, $70 million extension in 2022 that was, at the time, the largest ever given out by the team. “It’s nice to just be able to play my game,” Hayes said. “There’s still more there offensively, for sure. I’m just working to get that going, which I feel like I’ve made strides coming into this year, but kind of like what we were saying, a little unlucky in the beginning. I’m trusting what we’re doing in the cage and kind of what I’m doing in my process right now.” — The Athletic’s Eno Sarris contributed to this report. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms