2019 was a grind for Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi

Boston Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi struggled to make the leap many expected in a season where he battled inconsistency.

Andrew Benintendi was projected to have a breakout year for the Boston Red Sox in 2019. Instead, he took a step back.

The 25-year old turned in the worst season of his career, hitting .266/.343/.431 with 13 home runs, 68 RBI, and 10 stolen bases.

Benintendi’s sweet swing produced a .290 average last year and he was a 20/20 duel threat the previous year. He’s shown us flashes of being a five-tool player and this was the year he was supposed to put it all together. The regression from this young outfielder with superstar potential who is viewed as one of the cornerstones of this team’s future was one of the most underrated disappointments of the season.

That notion isn’t lost on Benintendi based what he told MLB.com’s Ian Browne about his frustrating 2019 campaign.

"“I feel like there was always something. I’d figure one thing out, and then there would be another [issue]. Not as consistent as I’d like it to be,” explained Benintendi. “Pretty much there was one good stretch, a two-week stretch. Other than that, it was trying to basically just grind and get the job done. Hopefully I can learn from it.”"

There’s plenty that we can learn about why Benintendi’s production dropped off by analyzing his numbers.

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Let’s start with the batting average, which sticks out like a sore thumb at .266. It wasn’t a matter of bad luck either considering his .333 BABIP was the highest since his abbreviated debut season. The main culprit was a sharp uptick in strikeouts. Benintendi’s strikeout rate hovered in the mid-teens over the previous two seasons before jumping to 22.8% this season, per FanGraphs.

Benintendi swung at a career-high 51.2% of pitches and swung more frequently at pitches outside of the zone with a 33.0 O-Swing%. He made contact on pitches outsize of the zone at a career-low 68.9% rate. Combine that with a steep increase in his swinging strike rate to 11.6% and it’s easy to see why he struck out more. Benny chased too many bad pitches. As frustration built from his mounting struggles at the plate, he may have been pressing more which only made matters worse.

While there’s plenty that went wrong with Benintendi’s season, we can find a few promising signs that point to future success.

Benintendi has struggled against fellow lefties in the past, hitting .247 with a .696 OPS in his career against southpaws. That changed this season when he erased any noticeable platoon splits, hitting slightly better against lefties with a .269 average and .796 OPS.

"“I hit lefties better than righties, which is somewhat out of the norm for me,” Benintendi said. “I know I can hit lefties. I think if I hit righties the way I usually do, it’s a completely different year. I still feel like I hit a lot of doubles. There’s a lot that didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but there’s definitely some positives.”"

His home run total dropping for a third consecutive season is a slight concern but the Red Sox don’t need Benny to be a homer-happy slugger. Benintendi’s swing is tailor made for knocking opposite field shots off the Green Monster at Fenway so reaching 40 doubles for the second consecutive season has to be viewed as a positive sign.

It’s also encouraging that his .165 ISO is higher than it was in 2017 when he hit his career-high 20 homers, suggesting Benny’s power is on the rise even if balls aren’t leaving the park quite as often.

According to Baseball Savant, Benintendi set career highs with a 37.7 Hard Hit Percentage, 88.6 Exit Velocity, and 8.1 Barrel Percentage. He’s squaring up the baseball and hitting it harder than ever, trends that typically lead to positive results.

If Benintendi can continue to improve upon these Statcast metrics, hold his own against lefties and cut back on the strikeouts, 2020 could see the breakout year we’ve been waiting for. This was a tough year for the Red Sox left fielder but the lessons he learned by grinding through it will benefit him moving forward.