Chicago Cubs: Kris Bryant fixed his plate approach quickly

Kris Bryant didn’t waste anytime in cutting down his strikeouts

A big concern that a lot of Chicago Cubs fans and some scouts had with Kris Bryant was his high strikeout rate. After his first major league game that saw him go 0-for-4 with three strikeouts – it seemed that there may have been a good reason for that worry.

But like any problem, there is always a solution. Bryant was able to quickly figure out what the problem was and quickly applied the solution.

As anyone would have been – Bryant was hyped up and anxious for his first major league game. After all this was his childhood dream coming true – he was a big league ball player and he had 32,000 plus fans in the park watching him and who knows how many hundreds of thousands or more watching from their mobile devices or on television.

It was those nerves though that could take some credit for maybe some ill-advised swings.

Bryant’s solution was simple – settle in and make the pitchers throw the ball over the plate and not chase anything. Like the old saying goes, “easier said than done”, especially so for some players, but so far he’s done a pretty good job at it. Since his first game, Bryant has only struck out five times.

“Since that first game [Friday], I told myself be a little more patient, look for stuff in the zone and put good swings on it, and I think I’ve been doing that.” Kris Bryant – via Carrie Muskat mlb.com

That approach has led to more pitches to hit plus a lot more walks. He didn’t walk in his first game but his second game he switched his three k’s to three free passes and now eight on the young season for Bryant.

While it may not seem like a big improvement, it really is considering his minor league career stats with strikeouts. In 773 minor league plate appearances, Bryant was fanned 206 times and walked 99 times.

It was a simple fix and one that has worked so far. He’ll still have some games of multiple strikeouts – that is kind of expected for someone that has a powerful swing like he does, but it is a great sign that he figured out the problem and he was able to take the appropriate steps in correcting the problem.

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