Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams needs to stop the bleeding

CJ Abrams is in one of those prolonged slumps Nats fans have gotten all too familiar with

Slumps are part of baseball. Hitting 95 plus MPH fastballs and diving breaking balls is a very hard task. In an 162 game season, every hitter goes through stretches when they are not at their best. However, for the best hitters, those lulls last only a few games, maybe a week or so at most. For Washington Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams these slumps last weeks if not months.

Right now, Abrams is in one of those funks Nats fans have become very familiar with. In the last two weeks, Abrams is 6/47. That adds up to a .128 average and .411 OPS. On May 19th, Abrams average was .312 and his OPS was .942. He looked like the best offensive shortstop in baseball.

Since then, Abrams has come crashing down to earth. His season average is now just .267 and his OPS is .809. The most worrying thing is that this has become a pattern for Abrams. Each of the last two seasons, Abrams has had stretches where he is a dominant hitter, especially early in the year. However, he goes month long stretches where he is anonymous.

A lot of this has to do with his approach. Abrams is a very aggressive hitter. When he is on his game, he is hunting mistakes and punishing almost every mistake a pitcher makes. When Abrams is slumping, that aggression is his worst enemy. He makes too many outs early in the count. You see a lot of pop ups and roll over ground balls. He expands the strike zone and pitchers ruthlessly punish him.

This is what separates Abrams from a guy like James Wood. When Wood has his rare struggles, he still has a clear plan at the plate and remains patient. He stays within himself and does not panic.

Right now, you can feel Abrams panicking in the box when you watch his at bats. He wants to get out of the slump with one big swing. However, that is not how you get out of slumps. You get out of slumps by stringing together solid at bats. With those quality AB’s, you begin to see the ball better and start doing damage.

One thing I can’t help but notice is how Abrams always has new tools coming into a season, but cannot adjust when pitchers do. There was a story that talked about how CJ went to Maven Hitting Lab in Georgia. He talks about how he cleaned up his swing when he was down there and added new tools to his arsenal.

However, like last year, as the year has gone on, it looks like he has reverted back to old habits. You have to wonder if it is just hard for CJ to make in season adjustments, or if this is an indictment on hitting coach Darnell Coles. For the last two years, Abrams has come into the season with a great looking swing, but it has gotten away from him over time. Isn’t the job of the hitting coach to correct things when a players swing is out of whack?

Regardless of your thoughts on Coles, a lot of the responsibility falls on Abrams. At the end of the day, he should know his swing better than anybody else. Why does it take him so long to fix things?

The team desperately need their shortstop to get going. While a Josh Bell explosion helped offset Abrams slump for a while, we know that is not going to last forever. For most of the season, Abrams and James Wood have been carrying this offense. We knew Abrams’ OPS was probably going to come down from the near .950 level. However, we need him to stabilize and stop the bleeding.

If Abrams can just learn to stop the bleeding, he can be that elite bat we all know he can be. As an aggressive hitter, Abrams will always be prone to cold stretches. However, for him to get to the next level, those slumps need to be shorter. Abrams needs to avoid letting those week long slumps become month long slumps. While it seems like he has been around forever, Abrams is still just 24 years old, so he has time to learn.

However, the longer this slump goes on, the more concerning it gets. At his best Abrams is such an electric player, but he is tough to watch when he is off his game. We need the good CJ Abrams back, and fast.