In a year marred by injury for the Atlanta Braves, former Rookie of the Year Michael Harris II seemed to be one of the few to avoid the bug. In fact, Harris only missed two games throughout the season due to a minor elbow injury, close to the top of the board for Braves games played in 2025.
However, those two games, while a small number, are a major reflection of how his season went about. Let’s take a look at his performance in 2025 and see how it could impact his future with the Atlanta Braves.
Harris batted .249 with a .678 OPS in 2025, complemented by 20 home runs and 86 RBIs. He also knocked 26 doubles, good for exactly 100 doubles in his career at the end of the season. He reached the 20 home runs is the most he’s hit in a season, a sharp resurgence from the diminishing long ball numbers he had been putting up since his rookie year.
Harris also stole exactly 20 bases for the third time in his four-year career, marking his first career 20-20 season. Despite impressive metrics, Harris’ WAR was the lowest it’s been in his career, largely due to posting a career high in strikeouts and a career low in walks.
While the overall numbers were decent, they’re an average of some league-worst lows and some league-best highs. Heading into the All-Star Break, Harris was statistically the worst qualified hitter in the game with a .234 OBP and .551 OPS. His .317 slugging was the fifth lowest.
He was popping up in the field and striking out another. Walks were as few and far between as they could get. Fortunately for him, he had the chance to look like one of the best hitters in the game for a time, too. All it took was an adjustment in his stance.
In his first 32 games after the All-Star Break, he batted .382 with a 1.113 OPS with 10 home run and 24 RBIs. He hit nearly double the home runs he had before the All-Star Break. At one point, he had an eight-game multi-hit streak after the break, a run accomplished by the likes of Hank Aaron and George Sisler.
While the Braves would love to keep seeing the highs he’s capable of, they’ll need a more consistent Michael Harris going forward than the one they had in 2025. They can only handle so many feast or famine hitters at once and be successful.
Defensively, Harris’ 2025 season was his best to date by fielding percentage. The centerfielder made just a single error on 404 total chances, good for a .998 percentage. It’s worth noting that one error is the lowest he’s ever had on a season, while 404 total chances were the highest he’s had. Simply put, his defensive consistency is improving by leaps and bounds.
Harris’ 2025 metrics reflect the story told by his stats: a player who’s an exceptional fielder and a slightly-above-average hitter who’s deadly once on base. Defensively, Harris is in the 95th percentile for fielding range, the 87th percentile for fielding run value and the 77th percentile for arm strength.
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Offensively, Harris is quite good in some metrics, but his low points illustrate exactly why his WAR was so low this year. He’s in the 82nd percentile for bat speed and the 79th percentile for xBA, but he’s in the first percentiles for both chase and walk rate. Simply put, Harris has a bad habit of swinging at pitches out of the zone, and it’s tanking his otherwise solid offensive metrics.
When he’s able to get on base, though, Harris is in the 79th percentile for sprint speed, so he’s deadly to opposing teams that want to throw him out on steals.
He went from having one of the worst hitting seasons among qualified players to one of the best, and his final metrics seem to be just an average of the two polar opposite seasons he had.
Now that he’s settled into his new swing, if Harris can work on pitch identification this offseason, he’s likely to be a threat for any pitcher in 2026. Even if he still struggles early on, though, the Braves will still have one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball to lean on when in need.
He’s on an 8-year, $72 million contract with Atlanta that’s set to last through 2030, with club options for 2031 and 2032.
