While I recently asked the question – Are Expected Stats Ruining Fantasy Baseball? – that doesn’t mean I’m going to completely abandon the idea of using all the tools at my disposal, even if I might lay a bit less importance on them than many others in the industry. Let’s just ramble through some numbers in the expected realm as well as from the Statcast era that is breaking down walls, allowing us to analyze players as never before.
*Minimum 70 batted ball events.
Jay Bruce has the top launch angle mark in baseball at 25.1 percent, followed by Rhys Hoskins (24.6) and Josh Phegley (24.0). Bruce is on pace for 38 homers and 80 RBI. He’s also hitting a pathetic .208 with a hideous .266 OBP. Interestingly, his barrel rate of 17 percent is a five year best (average 9.8). His 89.5 mph exit velocity is only up 0.6 mph from his five-year mark. That launch angle though. He could hit 30 homers if he stays healthy no problem, but lifting everything is crushing his average, as is the drastic increase in the K-rate (29.6 percent this season and after 4-straight years under 23 percent).
Yet another Miguel Cabrera check in. Miggy is 18th in baseball in hard-hit ball rate (50.7 percent). Half the balls he has hit are exiting at 95+ mph. That rate is ahead of Baez, Story, JDM, Acuna, Harper, Machado etc. Cabrera has hit .310 the last 19 games and .389 the last week to push his average above .300 on the year. Still only has two homers, but the average is 28th best in baseball, the .377 OBP is 34th and the hard-hit ball rate is even higher. There’s still some lightening in this bat.
Rafael Devers is 7th in baseball with an average exit velocity of 93.3 mph. His launch angle is actually way down to 8.3 percent, so growth in the homer category seems unlikely. However, the walks are up, the strikeouts are down, and he’s hitting the ball hard. This is the growth that we expected to see last season but simply didn’t see any signs of.
David Fletcher has a very poor hard-hit ball rate of 21.7 percent (10th worst in baseball). He is also 14th from the bottom in barrel percentage. You may not even be aware that he plays for the Angels. Still, the guy is having a productive fill-in type season in the fantasy game. Fletcher has a solid .359 OBP and .803 SLG, and he qualifies at second and third base everywhere. He’s also seeing time at shortstop now with Andrelton Simmons down (six games), and he’s also appeared in 16 games in the outfield. Folks, we might have a 2B/3B/SS/OF eligible player soon (depending on your league rules). Fletcher is also hitting .310 which is the 19th best mark in baseball. He’s really a 10/10 type who is gonna hit .280, but he’s rolling now despite what the Statcast data suggest long term.
Joey Gallo is fourth in baseball with a 12.8 percent barrel rate. Gallo is first in baseball with a 96.1 mph exit velocity. Its hardly surprising that his batting average is up at .277. Can he sustain that? Well, his exit velocity is up three mph from the last two seasons, but it’s debatable that he can maintain his current pace. However, he has lowered his K-rate to a career best (still bad but 34.2 percent) and his walk rate is also a career best (19.9 percent). Another big move in the positive is that his launch angle continues to go down from 22.7 percent in 2017 to 21.6 percent last year to 20.4 percent this season. He hits the ball so damn hard, that the minor drop in the angle is leading to more hits. He certainly could hit .250+ with this new approach and for a guy with a career mark of .213, that’s damn impressive.
Hunter Pence is a national treasure. The hair, the attitude, the hustle. He is the embodiment of what you want to teach your kid to be on the field. He’s also funky, goofy, 36 years old, and on the downside of his career. The Giants and he parted ways landing him in Texas this season. Barely an AL-only thought at the start of the season, Pence has emerged as a mixed league option (even though the Rangers tried to seemingly replace him with Willie Calhoun who is now on the IL). Pence is 14th in baseball in average exit velocity at 92.6 mph, and those hard-hit balls have led to an impressive .309/.356/.650 slash line. Pence has an OPS under .700 the last two seasons, and the last time he posted an OPS of .825, the only time he did it, was in 2011. This simply cannot continue, mechanical changes or not, but boy is it fun to watch. Expect the inevitable injury soon, and realize that a long homerless drought is on the horizon (career 14.7 percent, under 12 percent the last two seasons and the mark is currently 30.6 percent).
Victor Robles is having a solid fantasy season – he’s on pace for 24 homers, 28 steals and 100 runs scored – and he might be the poster boy for the anti-Statcast crew. Robles has never hit the ball really hard, or stood out on the advanced metric scales at any point in his professional career. Yet, the skills are there, there talent is there, and frankly, the production is there. So, do we believe our protractor or what our eyes are telling us? To be fair, his exit velocity numbers are awful. In fact, Robles is behind only Billy Hamilton (77.9 mph) with a mark of 79.4 mph. Yes, second worst in baseball for Robles. He’s still on a 20/20, 100 pace. Is he a complete player at this point of his development? I could easily argue no. Is he a strong fantasy weapon? I would answer yes to that one.
Bryan Reynolds is 10th in baseball with a hard-hit rate of 52.8 percent. He plays for the Pirates if you didn’t know. The 24 year old outfielder has been getting a good deal of run of late, and he’s earning the work. The hard-hit rate is very encouraging. That said, his BB/K ratio of 0.36 isn’t very helpful. His .373 BABIP is elevated. His 20.8 percent HR/FB rate is also elevated. I do really like the hit dispersal chat – 33 percent to left, 35 to center and 32 right – as he is on the ball. That .242 average and .309 OBP against righties doesn’t stand out at all, but he’s worth a short term pick up if you need an OF boost on the hope that his strong work can extend out a few more weeks.
Gary Sanchez leads baseball with a barrel percentage of 16.3 percent. No one else in baseball is higher than 13.5 percent (Jose Abreu). Anthony Rendon is the only other over 13 percent at 13.1 percent. Sanchez is what he is. He’s an average defender at absolute best. He’s been beat up physically a lot in his career. He his BB/K ratio is league average (0.39) and he is slow as a moving sundial, so it’s unlikely that he’s going to hit much higher than his current average of .265. Yes, I know he’s hit over .275 twice. I also know that he has no chance to hit that high if he’s putting 58 percent of his batted balls into the air. In fact, his fly ball rate is slightly alarming (career 40.4 percent). Great for homers, but horrible for everything else.
Carlos Santana was hot in April when he blasted his way to a .316 batting average. It seems like interest has waned in May as the mark has dropped to .250. The value in Santana is knowing what you are going to get. Good or bad, up and down, you know where he is going to be at the end of the year. He is currently on pace for a season of .248-28-90-90. Actually, that would be slightly better than expected, but totally within the realm of possible with the switch hitter. Carlos is 6th in baseball in average exit velocity at 94.0 mph, which would actually be a five-year high as he’s hit an awful lot of balls on the screws.
