A Look at Will Brennan’s Offense

Dive into Will Brennan’s MLB career and this season’s offensive adjustments.

Will Brennan made his major league debut September 21st, 2022. His first game was against a Chicago White Sox team that was starting, what has since become, a multi-year crumble. In the top of the 3rd inning in his 2nd big league plate appearance he hit a single on a sinker from RHP Lance Lynn right over the plate for his first hit and first RBI. Brennan ended the night going 2-for-4 with an RBI.

Brennan started the 2022 season in AA Akron, getting the promotion to AAA Columbus Clippers early in the season on May 26th, 2022. Before getting the call up to the show Brennan was hitting .316/.367/.471 in Columbus.

In the very small sample size of 45 plate appearances in his first major league experience, Brennan was hitting a .357 BA with an OPS of .900. Obviously this wasn’t going to be sustainable for the then 24-year-old to carry into the 2023 season, but to fans who had been following his minor league career, there was a buzz of optimism. It was looking like there was a strong potential that Brennan’s AAA stats would proportionally carry over to the majors.

Then 2023 came around and fans were left disappointed in his first full season performance. Will Brennan, for the most part, assumed the role of starting RF once Oscar Gonzalez started to show an offensive decline.

Brennan started the year in a bit of a slump, not hitting his first HR of the season until April 28th. Going into May 22nd he was hitting .206 in 109 plate appearances until an unfortunate double ended the life of a bird that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From that day Brennan went on a tear, including an amazing 14th inning walk-off against the Houston Astros. Brennan batted .333 in the month of June 2023.

Unfortunately, this couldn’t carry over into the 2nd half of the season. Brennan, like much of the 2023 squad, struggled to finish the season as the team watched playoff hopes drift out of their grasp and was batting only .233 in July and .242 in August. His wRC+ against RHP dropped from 116 going into July 1st, 2023 to 67 for the remainder of the season. There was a noticeable uptick in his batting average for September and October (.303) but Brennan couldn’t find power again, hitting his last HR of the season on June 30th. This left fans wondering if the lack of 2nd half power was the result of an offensive slump, or the result of his diving catch on June 21st against the A’s. He left that game with left shoulder soreness.

Brennan ended the season batting a .266 with a .655 OPS. He had a wRC+ of 81 and his fWAR was technically positive at 0.1. He hit 5 HR on the entire season with 41 RBI, but, at least, his best work was done in the clutch. With RISP, he had a .250BA.

One of Brennan’s biggest offensive struggles was the sharp decline in walks compared to AAA. Understandably batting stats are seldom a 1:1 translation once a player makes the jump to the show, but Brennan only drew 16 walks the entire season. Walking 3.5% of the time, a full 5.1% below league average did not lead to productive at bats. Looking deeper at his plate discipline, it was pretty obvious that he had an issue chasing any ball outside of the zone. His O-Swing% of 39.4% and his O-Contact% of 71.8% was capitalized on by opposing pitching. Brennan was stuck in a position where he was making weak contact, was not pulling the ball (34.7 Pull%), and hit a lot of ground balls (46.2 GB%). He only barreled 9 balls in all of 2023 for a Barrel% of 2.4%.

Many vocal fans did not have a lot of faith in Brennan’s ability to improve in the off season.

Going into the All-Star Break and at the time of writing, Brennan has shown vast improvement for the 2024 season. Notably his walk rate has nearly doubled - 6.8% compared to 3.5% in 2023. In the first half of the 2024 season he has tied his BB (16), has 3 more HR (8), and is sitting at a 101 wRC+. Against RHP his wRC+ has improved from 92 wRC+ in 2023 to 114 wRC+ this season. All the while he is batting 18 points lower than 2023 with a .248 BA and with a .251 BABIP compared to last year’s .296 BABIP. Obviously Brennan isn’t just making more contact and getting unlucky, so what has changed for the 26-year-old right fielder?

Apparently some added muscle mass and a couple of courses at the José Ramírez School of Pulled Fly Balls was all that it took to help Brennan improve upon his offensive weaknesses. Brennan is pulling the ball 41.7 Pull% (up 7% from 2023), hitting more Fly Balls (10.6% more than 2023), and hitting harder. His HardHit% is up 7.2% from 2023 at 36.4%. This is translating well to Barrel%, which is up 4.6% compared to last year. He is slugging more, up 46 points from last year (.402 SLG) and his ISO is up from .090 in 2023 to .154 in 2024. Brennan has also made his limited plate appearances count. Will is batting .300 with RISP including this 3-Run Walk-Off Home Run against the Twins.

Brennan’s plate discipline has improved this season as well. He’s maintained a swinging strike percentage (8.7 SwStr%) that, if qualified, would place him above Freddie Freeman and Christian Yelich in the league. For team reference, José Ramírez has a 7.0 SwStr% and Josh Naylor is sitting at a 10.6 SwStr%. Brennan’s O-Swing% is also down 6.7% from 2023 (32.7%) and his CStr% has dropped 1.6% from last season to 12%.

What does this all mean for Will Brennan and the 2024 Cleveland Guardians?

Well, Brennan batted .327 in the month of June before going on the IL with rib inflammation. This leaves his July and August in question as that sort of injury can zap a player’s power. As mentioned earlier, Brennan went down with left shoulder soreness late June in 2023, but never actually went on the IL. It is hard to say if that injury and lack of rehab starts contributed to his poor performance in July and August 2023, so it will be interesting to see if the IL stint this year affects his July and August stats this season. Keeping an eye on his SLG and wRC+ against RHP will indicate if he is due to slump again, or if he will hit the ground running out of the break and pick up the hot streak he was on in June.

Looking at the various projection models, Brennan is predicted to stay the course with some slight improvements. ZiPS has slash line at 0.263/0.314/0.385 ROS. Fangraphs DC has him maintaining his BB% at 6.1% and Steamer has him at a 104 wRC+, both of which are improvements from his ZiPS pre-season projections (5.6 BB% and 93 wRC+). The projection models average to Brennan only hitting 3 more HRs over the rest of the season. Personally, this number feels a bit low considering that his average launch angle has increased 3.1° compared to last year.

Will Brennan has always been one to teeter around average and is looking to end this year slightly above league average. He is not a super star, power hitting, corner outfielder, and that is ok! He is solidifying his role as a 3rd or 4th outfielder and is constantly challenging both the coaching staff and himself, proving that he deserves playing time. About the time he slumps long enough for fans to grumble, his bat wakes up again and he goes on another 5-6 game on base streak. He is making a difference in the line up, something that was felt while he was on the IL. Now that the season is on the back straightaway and rounding the corner into trade deadlines and a playoff push, it will be interesting to see how Brennan adjusts to continue to earn playing time.