Adam Frazier would prefer not to talk about his stats this season.
They are impressive. The Pirates second baseman is currently leading the National League in hits, is tied for third in the National League in doubles and has the fourth-highest batting average. Earlier this season he tied his career-long hitting streak with hits in 12 straight games. That streak was ended last Thursday against Cincinnati Reds, and since then, he’s gone 8-for-14 in his past three games. He already has more hits this season than he did all of last year, despite playing 19 fewer games than he did in 2020.
All of that is tremendous, but Frazier knows how these things go. Twice now this year he has invoked the phrase “knock on wood” when discussing his own personal performance. He doesn’t want to jinx what is currently happening, because baseball is fickle.
“I try not to [pay attention to stats], but a lot of people text me all the time and tell me how good I'm hitting. And I'm just going to knock on some wood because I know how baseball is. Feel great one day and forget how to even touch a ball the next. I know how the highs and lows of the game come just as quick as they go. So I've got 120 or so games left, so I'm not worried about that right now.”
As for what is going right, Frazier isn’t sure that he has a complete answer. He made a change in his stance this offseason, moving his hands lower to allow for a quicker swing and leave more time for him to see each pitch. Whether it’s that or something else, Frazier describes his approach pretty simply.
He says he’s just seeing the ball well right now. He’s doing his best not to chase pitches out of the zone, he’s not guessing and the swing mechanics are perfectly fine, which results in clean contact more often than not these days.
While Frazier may not pay close attention to his own stats, they do back him up. According to Statcast, Frazier is chasing pitches out of the zone at a similar clip to years past. What is different, though, is that he’s making contact on 78.8% of his chases, a mark that is nearly six percentage points higher than next-best chase contact% of his career.
His in-zone contact% is higher this season than it’s ever been, too. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that his whiff% is also the lowest of his career right now. That would lead one to believe that Frazier is tracking pitches better than he ever has, whether a pitch is in the zone or out, and has been able to make more contact than he ever has as a result.
More simply, he’s also striking out less and walking more this season. Frazier was asked for an explanation or a description of what’s going well for him after the Pirates’ loss to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday, and it essentially amounts to a shrug of the shoulders.
“I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for you,” Frazier said. “I’m just trying to hit strikes. Staying on baseballs. Not really chasing out of the zone. Really a recipe for a lot of things.”
Frazier’s success has earned him a reserved spot in the leadoff spot of the lineup this season. That has been true all season, and there’s been no reason to change it yet.
Really, Frazier is the type of player who can give his manager some peace of mind. He has been worse defensively this season than in years past, but he’s still a solid second baseman on most nights. In the Pirates’ win on Friday, he also moved out to left field at the end of the game and made an impressive catch to keep it tied, before they won it in extra innings.
That positional flexibility is something manager Derek Shelton has said he values a lot. You can see it with other players on the roster, like Erik Gonzalez, Wilmer Difo or Phillip Evans, who all can and do play multiple positions.
The difference is that those players aren’t leading the National League in hits. That distinction belongs to Frazier. As valuable as he has been in years past with the glove and his willingness to do what is asked of him, he’s dwarfing those traits this year with his bat.
That is true, even if Frazier doesn’t want to acknowledge just how well things are going for him.
“I think there's a lot of things going right,” Shelton said after Friday’s game. “I think the best way to describe Adam Frazier is he's a baseball player. He's a gold glove caliber second baseman. He continues to have really consistent at-bats. He's leading the National League in hits. He's second or third in doubles. We ask him to go play left field, he makes a heck of a play on a tough ball that's hit, and he had been out there one time all year. The biggest compliment you can give Adam Frazier is he's a baseball player.”
Mike Persak: mpersak@post-gazette.com and Twitter @MikeDPersak
First Published: May 17, 2021, 5:14 p.m.