Pirates by Position: Ke’Bryan Hayes dazzles at 3B but has yet to show power for the position

If the dazzling plays made by Ke’Bryan Hayes didn’t prove he was baseball’s best glove at third base, the measures of metrics made it clear he was the best defender in the game.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence anytime a ball is hit over his way,” Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds has said of Hayes. “You just start jogging in if there’s two outs.”

Hayes led all major leaguers in defensive runs saved (24) and all third basemen in Outs Above Average (18), putouts (109), assists (307) and chances (428) last season, yet has no hardware to show for it.

Most Defensive Runs Saved at 3B - 2022 Season

Ke'Bryan Hayes 23
Nolan Arenado 19

In fact, Hayes' 23 match the most by any player at any position this season (Brendan Rodgers also has 23)#LetsgoBucs #VamosBucs pic.twitter.com/mYFVOMgFRm

— SIS_Baseball (@sis_baseball) October 3, 2022

Ke'Bryan Hayes turned a key double play in the 9th inning to help the @Pirates come back to complete their 3-game sweep of the Brewers, 5-4 in 10 innings this afternoon.

Afterwards, he went 1-on-1 with Robby Incmikoski pic.twitter.com/9RVI1Z4LWm

— AT&T SportsNet™ PIT (@ATTSportsNetPIT) August 4, 2022

Even as Derek Shelton stumped for Hayes to win his first Gold Glove, the Pittsburgh Pirates manager acknowledged it would be difficult to get the nod over St. Louis Cardinals star Nolan Arenado.

“It’s hard to change that narrative,” Shelton said last October, when Arenado visited PNC Park in the final series of the season. “I think the difference in changing that narrative is if there’s a huge gap. The guy down there is really, really good. Unfortunately, we get to see that a lot being in our division. So that narrative is hard to change.”

That Arenado won not only his 10th consecutive NL Gold Glove but his sixth Platinum Glove had as much to do with his offensive numbers as it did his defensive reputation (and, perhaps, the SNY video showing Hayes pulling sunflower seeds out of his back pocket as a New York Mets runner rounded third base and scored in September).

Arenado slashed .293/.358/.533 with 42 doubles, 30 home runs and 103 RBIs for the NL Central champions and finished third in NL MVP voting. Hayes, by comparison, has yet to hit his 20th career home run or his 100th RBI through 1,051 plate appearances in 256 games over his first three seasons. After being bothered by a left wrist/hand injury in 2021, Hayes dealt with a low back/hip issue all of last season.

For as good as his glove is at the hot corner, the Pirates are waiting for Hayes to prove he has the prototypical power for the position. Hayes ranked 22nd among MLB third basemen in homers (seven), RBIs (41), runs scored (55), slugging percentage (.345), OPS (.659) and wRC+ (88). He didn’t hit his first home run last season until the 41st game, in a 4-2 win at San Diego on May 28. That was one of only two three-RBI games for Hayes, who finished with seven multi-RBI games.

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“He dealt with a lot of stuff, injuries that can be tough for a hitter,” Reynolds said. “If he’s healthy, he’s going to hit.”

His first month in the majors might have set unreasonable expectations for Hayes, given he slashed .376/.442/.682 with seven doubles, two triples, five home runs and 11 RBIs in his first 24 games in September 2020. Those numbers never were sustainable, yet Hayes batted .257 in 2021 and slipped to .244 last season with an OPS+ the past two seasons that was below league average.

Now the highest-paid player in franchise history after signing an eight-year, $70 million contract last April, the Pirates are counting on the 26-year-old Hayes to become more productive offensively. He led the team in WAR (4.3), doubles (24) and stolen bases (20) and batted .333 through the first 20 games before hitting .198 in June and .213 in July.

The problem for Hayes isn’t contact — he has a 47.2% hard-hit rate and an average exit velocity of 91 mph — but rather a swing with a low barrel percentage (3.9) that produced a 49.6% ground-ball rate.

Where Hayes might be the only player whose name is in permanent ink on Shelton’s defensive lineup, where he belongs in a batting order that has added Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Santana and Ji-Man Choi is a different matter. Hayes batted .227 in 39 games in the leadoff spot, .302 in 17 games in the two-hole, .230 in 49 games while hitting third and .250 in 17 games at No. 5 in the order.

New video from Ke’Bryan Hayes on Instagram.

The swing looks great, and he looks like he bulked up this off-season… Big 2023 coming soon????? pic.twitter.com/Td3gepSpOX

— Austin Oravec (@austinoravec) February 2, 2023

Last week, Hayes posted a workout video on Instagram in which he appeared to have added muscle in his upper body. Pirates minor league third baseman Jared Triolo trained with Hayes this winter in Houston and was impressed with how Hayes goes about taking care of his body in the offseason through stretching and lifting weights.

“He’s really methodical about what he does,” Triolo said.

The Pirates are hoping there’s a madness to Hayes’ methods, given he is considered the future of the franchise and the only returning Opening Day starter in the infield. The additions of McCutchen and Santana should ease the burden on Hayes to be the face of the franchise.

“As everyone in here knows, I’m not the loudest guy. I am not the loudest rah-rah guy,” Hayes said last April after signing his record contract. “But I just try each and every day to go into it with … try to kind of lead by example. That’s the way I look at it, just every day coming in with my work, having purposeful work and stuff like that.”

Perhaps Shelton was being purposeful in protecting Hayes by not saying much when asked about his health last month. Like Hayes, the Pirates don’t need to worry much about the defense as they do going to bat.

“Yeah, he’s in a good spot,” Shelton said. “We’re excited to get him into camp but he’s in a good spot.”