Christopher Morel's season-long stretch of brutal luck continued in game vs. Braves

Chicago Cubs third baseman Christopher Morel has been the victim of some of the worst luck in the game of baseball this year. The 25-year-old continues to hammer baseballs, but by some string of misfortune, they all happen to land in fielders' gloves.

"Luck" in baseball hasn't always been a quantifiable idea, but with the help of Statcast and other advanced metrics, we have a better idea of how lucky, or unlucky, hitters and pitchers are. Statcast points towards Morel being one of the unluckiest players in the game and his recent 0/4 outing against the Braves backs that idea up.

Christopher Morel's bad luck on display as he goes 0-of-4 with three batted balls hit over 100 MPH

Morel began his day with a 108.5 MPH line drive that had an expected batting average of .650. Of course, it was caught. The third baseman would add a pair of 100+ MPH flyouts to the day, totaling three balls that he smashed and three balls that resulted in outs.

To put things into perspective, the slugger currently has a batting average of .205 and a slugging percentage of .392. Thanks to advanced analytics, we have what his expected stats would be, given how hard he's hitting the ball and the launch angle in which he's hitting it.

Morel's xBA is an impressive .271, nearly 70 points higher than his real batting average. His xSLG is a whopping .517, good for over 100 points higher than his real slugging percentage.

Morel also ranks among the games elite in bat speed, BB%, and xwOBA, all according to Baseball Savant. He's truly an incredibly talented hitter that has seen the misfortune of what true bad luck looks like.

His luck is truly something that needs to be studied. But, luckily for Morel and Cubs fans, his 2024 struggles aren't something that needs a direct change or fix done to it. The expected stats show that he will progress to the mean and likely begin hitting closer to his expected numbers as things start to fall his way.