Atlanta Braves: Injury holds Dansby Swanson back from breakout season

Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson was on his way to a breakout season before suffering another setback that derailed everything.

Entering the 2019 season, one of the biggest storylines for the Atlanta Braves was the future of their shortstop, Dansby Swanson.

It seemed as if that questioned had been answered through the first half of the season as Dansby was killing it at the plate.

On July 4 Dansby had a 2 home run game and was hitting .274 with an OPS of .834.

We were even questioning whether or not Dansby Swanson belonged in the All-Star Game.

He was consistently putting together good at-bats and was driving the ball to all fields.

And I know it was a year for home runs, but with those 2 home runs on July 4 Dansby had already set a new career-high for home runs in a season.

Dansby was not only making contact, but he was making a lot of hard contact. According to FanGraphs, Dansby had the third-highest hard contact rate among all shortstops in 2019.

He was still hitting the ball hard after coming back from his injury, the biggest difference was that he was not hitting the ball the other way anymore.

His opposite-field hit percentage went from 27.4 percent (eighth-best among SS in MLB) to 21 percent.

Through 88 games of the season, Dansby certainly looked like the future shortstop for the Atlanta Braves. But looking back at the season in its entirety, there is still reason to question whether or not that’s actually the case.