Where Is Michael Conforto’s Power?

With more position players getting activated off the injured list over the weekend, the New York Mets’ offense seemingly came to life during the first installment of the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium. One player that joined in on the fun — but not too much — was outfielder Michael Conforto.

It was exciting to get him back from a hamstring injury that cost him about five weeks. It was even more exciting when he stepped to the plate for his first plate appearance back on June 23rd and produced a well-struck double to forcefully announce his return. There haven’t been many more fireworks since then, though, as Scooter has posted a 51 wRC+ in his last 47 plate appearances. What’s most concerning, though, whether we’re talking about before or after his stint on the injured list, is his general lack of power.

So far this season, Conforto has posted a .089 ISO, which has included just nine extra-base hits (seven doubles, two home runs). With this in mind, I wanted to look a little deeper into what exactly he’s been struggling with compared to 2020. Turns out there’s quite a bit to unpack.

Changes in Batted-Ball Profile

Due to 2020 being shortened, we’re at that unique time of this season where the current sample size is actually pretty similar to last year’s total body of work. It makes for a stark contrast for Conforto since his 157 wRC+ and .401 wOBA were the best of his career. From a quality-of-contact standpoint, though, the soon-to-be free agent has remained somewhat consistent.

His 36.4% hard-hit rate is similar to what he’s produced in each of the three seasons prior. While his 16.4% soft-hit rate is a bit elevated, it’s on par with his career mark (16.6%). The same can be said about the direction in which his batted balls travel — although the 20.0% oppo rate is currently on pace to be his lowest since 2015, he’s at least not pulling everything (he owns a 40.0% pull rate and 40.0% up-the-middle rate heading into Tuesday’s action).

Still, we know that when Conforto is at his best, he’s using the opposite field with regularity, as he did in 2020. Not doing so as much at this point in 2021 could be a byproduct of him pressing a bit to get going, as well.

The 28-year-old’s 29.1% fly-ball rate is trending to be his second consecutive year under 30.0%. The 28.3% clip from last year was a career-low mark, but it wasn’t felt as much since it was paired with a career-high 30.3% line-drive rate. Although Conforto’s current 24.5% line-drive rate is slightly above his career average, his 46.4% ground-ball rate is easily on track to be the worst single-season mark of his career.

But, speaking of fly balls…

Performance on Fly Balls

If a hitter is going to hit fly balls less often, they better maximize the production for the ones that actually get hit. This happened for Conforto in 2020, as he produced a career-best 273 wRC+ on fly balls, along with a .756 ISO, which was the second-highest single-season mark of his career (.794 in 2017). This year? Well, you know where this is going.

Through 32 plate appearances that have ended with a fly ball, Conforto has produced just a 26 wRC+ and a .156 ISO, both of which would easily be career-worst numbers. It’s nice to see his 6.3% soft-hit rate on fly balls because that’s much lower than his 13.7% career clip, but it hasn’t translated to more hard contact. Conforto has never finished a season with a hard-hit rate below 40.0% on fly balls, and it was a career-high 53.1% in 2020. So far in 2021, it’s all the way down at 31.3%.

This all makes sense since it’s difficult to make hard contact consistently when he’s connecting more often on balls outside the strike zone (57.8% in ’20, 72.0% in ’21) than he is inside the strike zone (86.8% in ’20, 78.8% in ’21).

Struggling Against Most Pitches

As we continue comparing Conforto’s 2020 season to his current 2021 campaign, the concept of “night and day” rings true. Last season, he posted a wRC+ of at least 112 against the five pitches he saw 80-plus times (four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, curveball, changeup). He’s seen each of those offerings at least 80 times already this season, and he owns a wRC+ of at least 100 against just two (sinker, slider).

Furthermore, check out how his ISO has dropped just about everywhere when we break it down by pitch:

Saying Conforto has had a rough go of it during his contract year is quite the understatement. Getting hurt and missing more than a month hasn’t helped him get into any kind of groove, but as Yogi Berra once said, “It’s getting late early.” There’s still half of a season left for Scooter to get things firing on all cylinders, and as we’ve seen with a number of Mets hitters already this season, it just takes one perfectly executed swing to completely turn things around.

Let’s hope that happens soon for Conforto. Who knows… maybe it happened on Monday night with his seventh-inning RBI single.