Cubs News: Kris Bryant off to best start of his career
Steve Mitchell - USA Today Sports

Cubs News: Kris Bryant off to best start of his career


by - Correspondent -

CHICAGO -- The Cubs offense has seemed to struggle in the early part of the season as is the case more times than not when you have to battle spring conditions in Chicago. The North Siders play a lot of cold weather games where hitting conditions are not ideal. The Cubs .238 team average ranks them 14th in Major League Baseball, and their .193 team average with runners in scoring position ranks them 28th in the league behind the White Sox and Giants.

One player the offensive bug has seemed not to hit is Kris Bryant who is off to the best start of his career.

Bryant is hitting .352 at the start of the year through 69 at-bats. As far as the high leverage situations he has a four for eight line with runners in scoring position including four walks. He’s already cut down on the punchouts with only eight strikeouts in 14 games thus far which means halfway through the month he is on pace for just under 16 strikeouts. It would be his lowest April total since his rookie year where he only played in 12 games.

He also has been an on-base machine with a .493 OBP early on and a whopping 199 wRC+. Again still early but his best stats in those came in 2015 where he had a .455 OBP and a wRC+ of 148, in a limited sample size. He has already added a whole win above replacement in fWAR. While his numbers are sure to drop a little bit, he has been nothing short of astonishing to start the year, and we could be looking into what could be another MVP season for Bryant who looks to solidify his place of the elite players in the major leagues.

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