Miguel Sano is Murdering Baseballs
Miguel Sano has been an absolute terror at the plate this season. Sure, there are flaws in his game and those may never go away. But the early results have been tremendous for a guy who seems to do nothing but crush every baseball that he comes into contact with.
Sano has gotten off to a stellar start for a Minnesota Twins squad that doesn’t look all that bad. His slash features an average at an even .300, while he’s reaching base at a .431 clip. Obviously a .440 batting average on balls in play tends to aid you in those aspects, but when you’re hitting the ball as hard as he is, something we’ll touch on in a moment, that number is always going to remain high. It all culminates in a park-adjusted offense of 190, which ranks at the top of the third base group by 23 points.
The approach hasn’t necessarily improved, but remained constant from last year into 2017. His Swing%, at 42.6%, is only 1.6% higher than it was last year. He’s seeing 4.24 pitches per plate appearance, a figure identical to that of 2016. His whiff rate is still higher than you’d like, at 14.3%, but it’s only 0.3% higher than last year. Brooks has him swinging at just about the same amount of each pitch type as he did last year.
And with the minimal change in those figures, his contact rate has also remained almost identical across the two seasons. His 65.9% contact rate isn’t terrific and represents a 0.1% increase from the previous year. When you factor in the notable improvements in his health, it becomes far less surprising that he’s managed to graduate from a wRC+ of 107 to the 190 mark he’s posted thus far in 2017. When he’s run into balls, he’s doing some major damage to a point that no other hitter in baseball can really touch at this point.
Despite a high strikeout rate (34.1%) and that high swinging strike percentage, Sano is making hard contact at an absurdly high rate. Nick Castellanos is the only player in baseball with a higher percentage of hard hit balls this year, as Sano currently sits at a 53.5% Hard%. He’s making soft contact at a rate of 1.7%. Read that again. That’s absolute nonsense. Baseball Savant has Sano averaging 98.9 MPH in terms of exit velocity. That’s easily the highest in all of baseball. When you combine that with his high launch angle tendencies, this guy has the potential to be a fantasy owner’s absolute dream over the course of a full season.
In fact, Sano has already showcased a dip in his groundball numbers. His 29.3% GB rate represents a five percent decrease and ranks 176th among 183 qualifying Major League hitters. As such, his 28.6% HR/FB ratio ranks third at the position, trailing only Joey Gallo and Jake Lamb, which isn’t terribly surprising given the power tendencies of each individual in their own right. Especially Jake Lamb. Because we all know how I feel about Jake Lamb. That penchant for making obscenely hard contact, while constantly putting the ball in the air, is going to continue to benefit Sano greatly. Especially if he can maintain the respectable 22.4% linedrive rate that he’s posted to this point.
There are obvious drawbacks to his game. He’s prone to strikeouts, which is nothing new at this point, and he is susceptible to whiffs low in the zone, particularly on the outer half of the plate. However, if he can continue to demonstrate improvements in his walk rate (18.7% BB rate is almost an eight percent increase from last year), he becomes that much more valuable.
It’s hard not to fall in love immediately with a player like Miguel Sano. Players with obscene power are always a treat to watch and particularly intriguing on the fantasy side. The strikeouts are always going to be there and represent one of the larger drawbacks of his game. However, with the ability to make this kind of contact and the power that he possesses, a healthy Miguel Sano is going to be an absolute joy to continue to watch develop out of the hot corner moving forward.
