Where did Jake Burger's power go?

[Alex Krutchik]

After impressing during his 2023 breakout season, Jake Burger has failed to be a consistent slugger in the middle part of the Marlins lineup this year.

Jake Burger was an intriguing yet flawed player when he was traded to the Miami Marlins at the deadline last year. 

He was in the midst of a season with the struggling Chicago White Sox in which he was batting .214 with a 31.6 percent strikeout rate. Elite power was still there, however, hitting 25 home runs in 88 games with a .527 slugging percentage.

He came to Miami and was a big reason the Marlins made their first postseason in a full year since 2003. He posted an .860 OPS with nine home runs in 53 games with the Marlins last year. He cut his strikeout rate by 10 points, down to 21.7 percent. 

The 28-year-old is not yet arbitration-eligible and under team control through 2028. It seemed, at first, like Burger would be a key part of turning this anemic offense around for years to come.

While there is still plenty of time for Burger to turn it around, the first three months of his first full season in Miami has been a letdown.

Burger was one of the couple of bright spots in the Marlins lineup for the first two weeks of the season, but an oblique injury in mid-April forced him out of action until May 6. Since then, he hasn’t shown the same power that we saw from him in the past. In 49 games since returning from the IL, Burger is hitting .214 with a .332 slugging percentage. He has hit five home runs in that span—a 16.5 home run pace when extrapolated over a 162-game season.

The odd thing is that he isn’t struggling with putting the ball in play. His zone contact (82.4 percent) and chase contact (54.7 percent) rates are the highest they've been in his career. His whiff rate, meanwhile, is the lowest of his career at 28.3 percent. 

His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is staggeringly low at .269. It’s the third-lowest BABIP on the Marlins among qualified hitters, just six points above Nick Gordon, who’s at the bottom of the list.

Burger is barreling balls at 10.4 percent clip, which, while being in the top quarter of league hitters, is a career-low for him. Statcast defines “barrels” as balls that have an exit velocity of at least 98 miles per hour and an ideal launch angle. Burger’s average exit velocity is still in the low 90s, par for his career. But his quality of hits hasn’t been there. His sweet spot percentage (defined as a ball hit between 8-32 degrees) is down to 26.8 percent after hovering around 33 percent in previous seasons. This has also led to a career-high in ground balls rate (50.3 percent) and a career-low in line drives (18.6 percent).

Of course, there is time to turn things around. We’re talking about three months of poor production form a 28-year-old with four and a half seasons still left under team control. But it would be nice to see the slugging third baseman hit his ceiling sooner rather than later.

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[THOMAS JOSEPH]

He will benefit from the ASG break or perhaps even a few weeks in the minors. He is flailing at pitches and appears not to have a good idea of the strike zone right now.