What's Wrong With Justin Upton?

Leading up to the second half of the baseball season, we're taking a look at what must happen for the Tigers to make the playoffs. They're lagging in the race to October – 6.5 games behind in the division and four back in the wild card – but time remains for them to make up the ground. On Wednesday we broke down the alarming vulnerability of Justin Verlander and Jordan Zimmerman, and yesterday we turned our attention to the erratic bullpen. Today, let's examine the Tigers' biggest offseason acquisition (and see if we can find him.)

 With the addition of Justin Upton this past winter, the Tigers looked to have a dynamic duo of corner outfielders entering the 2016 season. Upton, who would man left, was fresh off an All-Star campaign with the Padres and had proven himself to be one of the N.L.'s most productive hitters over the preceding eight years. Returning in right was J.D. Martinez, coming off an All-Star season of his own in which the 27-year-old clubbed 38 homers and drove in over 100 runs. If Upton and Martinez could produce more of the same, everyone figured, the Tigers would gain somewhere to close to ten wins from their corner outfielders alone.

Alas.

Upton was all but invisible through the first half of the season, while Martinez broke his elbow on a freak accident in mid-June. Between Upton's struggles and Martinez' injury, the two outfielders combined for a whopping .06 wins above replacement (per baseball-reference.com) in the Tigers' first 89 games. The takeaway?

This is baseball.

Martinez, to his credit, was in the midst of another strong season before hitting the D.L., so we won't pin the lack of production on him. But Upton has no such alibi.

Over 85 games, the 28-year-old is slashing .235/.289./.381, all career lows. He is on pace for about 17 home runs and 69 RBI, after knocking 25+ dingers and driving in 80+ runs each of the past two seasons. True, Upton hasn't been hitting as high in the lineup as he's used to, but his feeble numbers aren't for lack of opportunity. Quite simply, the Tigers' $132-million man has been mired in a season-long slog at the plate.

For Upton, the offensive struggles start with the fastball. A very capable fastball-hitter over the course of his career, he simply hasn't been able to catch up to the heat in 2016. According to brooksbaseball.net, Upton is hitting just .174 against four-seam fastballs this season with a .252 slugging percentage. That is an extreme deviation from the mean for the three-time All-Star, who was hitting .293 and slugging .534 against the same pitch through the first eight years of his career.

His impotence against fastballs has thrown the rest of his swing out of kilter. Perhaps to guard against being blown away, it seems Upton has sped up his approach at the plate. This has left him especially vulnerable to pitches like changeups and curveballs. Against the former, Upton is hitting .185, down from .249 on his career; against the latter, he is hitting a ghastly .097, down from .253. He has whiffed on half – half – of the curveballs he has swung at this year.

The obvious concern is that Upton's bat speed is beginning to decline. But that seems like a rush to judgment for a 28-year-old, especially one who's been strikeout-prone throughout his career. High swing-and-miss rates have long been a part of his offensive makeup, so it's not as if he's spiraling in some unprecedented direction.

Furthermore, Upton has always been a streaky hitter. Both he and Brad Ausmus have acknowledged that numerous times this year. After watching his average fall to .198 after a 5/45 plunge in late April, he rebounded to hit .440 over the next six games. And yet on the heels of a .333 stretch with four home runs through eight games in mid June, he fell into a .143 slide over the next nine. The issue for Upton is two-fold: he's been cold far more than he's been hot, and the in-between has veered toward the wrong end of that spectrum.

With the Tigers needing to make up significant ground in the second half of the season, it's paramount that Upton rediscovers his punch at the plate. Outscoring the opposition is the Tigers' most reliable recipe for success, and to make the playoffs it's likely they'll have to slug their way there. With a productive Upton and a healthy J.D. Martinez, that's not such a daunting proposition.

It's hard to imagine that Upton's best years are already behind him. It's more likely that he's pressing under the weight of a new contract, trying to justify his $132-million payday with each mighty swing of the bat. In the process, he has become a jumpy, undisciplined hitter, one who hardly resembles the All-Star of the past.

But Upton has plenty of time to turn things around. For what it's worth, he hit .310 over the final eight games before the break, buoyed by four multi-hit games. If he can pick up where he left off – and avoid the craters along the way – the Tigers will benefit immensely.