No, this isn’t a piece about baseball legend Cool Papa Bell. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a catchier title in regards to Pirates first baseman Josh Bell, who has evolved into one of baseball’s premier offensive players in 2019. It’s been something of an unexpected development considering the unspectacular start Bell’s career got off to during his first couple years in the majors.
A second-round pick in 2011, Bell soared up prospect lists in his days in the Pirates’ farm system, ranking as Baseball America’s 38th-best farmhand when the club promoted him to the bigs. Bell first got the call on July 8, 2016, almost exactly three years ago, and has been a mainstay in Pittsburgh since then. Through 2018, though, Bell looked like somewhat of a light hitter relative to his position, not the franchise-caliber masher he has become. While Bell did smack 26 home runs in 2017, he nonetheless entered this year a career .260/.348/.436 batter over 1,355 plate appearances, giving him a 110 wRC+ and a 1.4 fWAR which made him more closely resemble, say, James Loney than Freddie Freeman.
This season has been a completely different story for Bell, who, with 26 homers across 374 PA, has already tied his career high en route to his first All-Star nod. With a .306/.377/.654 line, Bell ranks fourth in the game in wRC+ (158), trailing a decent trio of Cody Bellinger, Mike Trout and Christian Yelich. The 26-year-old Bell has already racked up 2.7 fWAR, almost doubling the mark he posted during his entire career before 2019. Plus, while Bell recorded a mediocre .177 ISO from 2016-18, that number has soared to .349 this year, putting him fourth in the league.
So why the sudden epiphany? For starters, Bell’s pulling the ball more than ever and going opposite field less than at any previous point, all while hitting more fly balls and fewer grounders. That’s an easy recipe for more pop, as is his decrease in infield fly balls. Bell’s pop-up rate stood at upward of 9 percent in each of his prior seasons, but it has plummeted to just over 2 percent this season.
Unsurprisingly, Bell has hit the ball much harder in general. His hard-contact rate has risen by an eye-popping 15 percent since last season, while his soft-hit rate has fallen by almost 10 percent, according to FanGraphs. Only 11 players have outdone Bell in hard-hit percentage. With that in mind, it’s not exactly stunning he ranks near the top of the majors in weighted-on base average (.421) and expected wOBA (.404), per Statcast, which places the switch hitter in elite company in most of its offensive metrics. Bell’s expected batting average (91st percentile), barrel percentage (95th), xwOBA (96th), expected slugging percentage (96th), hard-contact rate (97th) and exit velocity (98th) are all magnificent.
Unlike 2018, when Bell logged a .284 wOBA/.257 xwOBA against breaking pitches, those offerings haven’t fooled him this year. If you’re going to throw a breaking pitch to Bell nowadays, there’s a good chance you’re going to pay. He has hit a ridiculous .455/.460 off them this season, having shown power against them in several quadrants of the strike zone, which the drastic change in FanGraphs’ heatmaps shows between 2018 and ’19.
It’s clear Bell has benefited from a more aggressive approach. He’s swinging at way more pitches, including out of the zone, which has led to less contact, an all-time worst swinging-strike percentage and more strikeouts. But when you’re producing like this, it doesn’t matter. He’s still walking and striking out at better clips than most hitters, evidenced by a K/BB ratio which ranks 50th among 158 qualified batters.
The Pirates have been waiting for a new face of the franchise to rise up since they traded away organizational icon Andrew McCutchen prior to the 2018 campaign. It appears they’ve found his successor in Bell, though the newly established slugger’s days of playing for a relative pittance are nearing an end. Now in his last season on a league-minimum salary, Bell’s on the verge of cashing in during the arbitration process. Considering his 2019 breakout, though, that’s a high-class problem for Pittsburgh.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
the hyperlink is linked to the wrong josh bell:)
Error 404 on Cool Papa’s link
A+ for the headline
I bet he will regress mightly in the second half!
As a Pirates fan who’s seen him his whole career he is different this year. Everything is coming off his bat hard.
You can thank juiced balls (harder cores..) It’s no secret phenomenon and as a Braves fan I’m thoroughly enjoying them as well..
2/3 of the lineup at 15+ pre all-star break, it’s not in the h2o.
For Whom Josh Bell Tolls, you’re up..
I was thinking about him too haha
You only said it once. You have to say it three times in the mirror to summon me.
Good thing I read most of the articles here.
He’ll play for us next year. After that, like Gerrit Cole, he’ll be dealt with 2 years remaining in arbitration. No wonder Bucs’ attendance is going down. Nutting won’t pay for any stars to stay. He got lucky that Cutch signed a team friendly contract.
Pirates don’t put winning first. It’s all about the cash.
Sell Team to Mark Cuban so I can see the Pirates win a Wo4ld Series in my lifetime. Fans are showing their displeasure with current ownership by staying home. Nutting sell the team and go make money with another business that doesn’t include fans emotional attachment to a winning organization.
I don’t care about free bobble heads.
The same owner who’s squandered numerous opportunities only to cash in 1 title? Sure, take him. Pirates won’t find a savior in Mark Cuban. May as well ask a Dolan family member to buy the team.
Cuban was asked if he had any interest, he doesn’t. The ONLY owner(s) who would ever be able to buy the Pirates and put a bit more money into it (payroll is mostly a function of market size, almost any other owner* would spend roughly the same level) are Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, who own the Pittsburgh Penguins. Owning both would allow them to start their own RSN, cutting out AT&T Sports Pittsburgh, and allow them to generate enough revenue to put more into both teams than they would just licensing their TV rights. But, Nutting already turned down an offer from them and the Pens resigned with AT&T until 2028. So, not happening.
*The reason they want Cuban is that they think he’s such an ego maniac that he’d pour his own personal money into the team.
Without a salary cap, the Pirates will NEVER win the World Series again. One legit small market team has won the World Series in the modern era of billion dollar sports leagues.
Even if Nutting sells every thing he owns and pours it into the team. Still no. The other richer owners in bigger markets will just out spend him then, too.
And if Nutting sells the team, it will be to an out of town owner who will move to a market that actually draws fans to the ball park.
Doubt this helps with your frustration, sorry.
A salary cap only limits the amount owners have to pay, and thereby the amount players make. Didn’t we just have a big “collusion” blowup about how the FA market is terrible? This would not only not help that, it would make it much worse. Just go look at the payroll position of the last 15 WS winners. Some are high, yeah, but many, many are not. Money doesn’t win championships. It can help, but only if the person pulling the strings is competent. A cap will do nothing but hurt the league.
Except that the reality is the exact opposite.
3 of the 4 major pro sports in North America are trending upward in terms of ratings, revenues, attendance, online interest, etc.
The other sport is baseball.
3 of the 4 major sports leagues see their players making more and more money.
The only one screaming collusion is baseball.
A salary cap comes with a salary floor tied to a % of revenue so the players in those leagues are guaranteed to make more when the sport makes more. Baseball players get a smaller and smaller portion of the pie each year while the owners make more and more.
Baseball is seeing a massive attendance drop this year. Much of it coming in the small markets who know full well they have no chance.
The attitudes towards a cap/floor in baseball are stuck in 1994. 25 years of reality has shown they are not true.
It isn’t just money on the major league though. Richer teams can spend more on minor league teams , international free agents , scouts , coaching etc… it goes on and on how much a richer team spends
Agreed 100% on the salary cap. It works for every other sport. They need a cap and a floor so the AAAA organizations spend some money too. Until a hard cap comes in teams like this have to have all the stars align perfectly for a shot at one title and as soon as it happens the window of opportunity slams shut.
Money might not win a championship but a bad contract for a franchise like Pittsburgh will bury them and guarantee they’ll be in a hole so long they’ll take years to dig out to try and make a run at a championship.
Bell is going to be traded soon and this would probably be the best year to do so. He is having a monster season on his standards. Who wouldn’t want to pay a boat load of prospects and have that bat in their lineup? His defense isn’t to shabby either. I say it is above average at the moment.
Luke Voit plus Garcia.
Remember last year’s 1st baseman superstar Jesús Aguilar. Josh Bell is having a great season but let’s see him put together 3 or 4 seasons before we put him in that Freddie Freeman category.
Ummm….not quite the same. Bell has always been a highly regarded prospect while Aguilar wasn’t much of one until his breakout year. The second half will show some regression….it almost has to as he’s one extra base hit from a mlb record before the allstar game.
Got that record out of the way.
Nice nod to the past in the headline…..
He’ll be traded to the Rays for Austin Meadows, Tyler Glassnow and Shane Baz……
Thanks for trying but, just no similarities to their game… if we’re color blind as we should be.
Respectfully, I never said there were similarities in the Bells’ games. I just liked it as a title.
What’s funny is how many people were ready to write Bell off after a down second year. As if no one had ever heard of a sophomore slump.
The Bell I saw last year was a bit too bulky. This reduced his bat speed. Without that bat speed, his plate discipline and patience vanished and it fell apart from there. This year, the bat speed is back and the patience has returned with it.
This is a question for people who understand baseball economics, not Pirate fatalists…
What would an extension for Bell look like (after this season, assuming some regression but a continuation of this break out year)?
Rookie of the year finalist, then sophomore slump, followed by All Star breakout year. 3 years of arb left. Elite bat, improving but still mediocre defense with very little wiggle room on the defensive spectrum This general type of player has not been paid very well lately, but few if any of them bring the walks and hitting for average along with the power that Bell does.
I’d imagine something around 15 million a year for 5 years is the starting point for Bell and Boras to take an extension offer seriously.
He’s a Boras guy? Uh oh.
I don’t know enough about arbitration, etc to peg the value exactly but….
5 years 15 million with two $20 million options after that? So, 7 years at $115 million max value?
He has 26 homers– headline it “Ding Dong Bell.”
enjoy him while he’s in a bucco uniform…
The dreamer in me was hoping Cool Papa Bell was mulling a comeback at age 116.
Can still swipe 30 off the bench.
Josh Bell is a switch hitter. I am a little surprised that you could so thoroughly analyze his stats, but whiff on this fundamental fact.
Having seen Bell play many times, I have no idea how I made that stupid mistake either. Thanks for pointing it out. It’s fixed.
“IF” he continues his pace the rest of the year and considering he is not a FA yet they should pay him now instead of later. Maybe at 15-18 million per year? If his agent won’t take that Houston has a ton of prospects and send him there.
Pittsburgh attendance means a little but the local TV market is small. If I own the Pirates I would do the same spending as current ownership. 125 million does not get it done to compete with LA Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox every year.
The only chance is to load up on prospects as a few teams have done and make it to a WS. Houston, KC are two examples. Tampa is also headed in the right direction.
Houston being the 4th biggest market in the nation also helps. That’s the astounding thing about it, they were that bad for that long with that much support. A truly incompetent organization.
They would be wise to extend him but again… this is the Pirates
Let’s hope the Home run derby does not screw up his swing.
Bell will be traded in one year. Bob will say we can not afford him.
The ball is juiced. All these records being broken having nothing more to do than MLB set off to wind the ball differently.