2019 Early Z-Contact% Decliners
Yesterday, I identified and discussed seven hitters who have enjoyed Z-Contact% spikes compared to last year. Do such gains portend a breakout? Only time will tell. Today, I’ll dive into the players on the opposite end of the spectrum — those who have suffered the largest declines in Z-Contact% versus last season. Is this an early warning sign of a disappointing campaign?
| Player | 2018 Z-Contact% | 2019 Z-Contact% | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trevor Story | 87.2% | 65.00% | -22.2% |
| Paul DeJong | 87.9% | 69.20% | -18.7% |
| Brandon Nimmo | 82.7% | 66.70% | -16.0% |
| Elvis Andrus | 91.4% | 77.50% | -13.9% |
| Wil Myers | 83.2% | 70.30% | -12.9% |
| Yolmer Sanchez | 87.0% | 75.00% | -12.0% |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | 82.7% | 70.80% | -11.9% |
| Brian Dozier | 85.7% | 74.40% | -11.3% |
| Albert Pujols | 92.1% | 81.30% | -10.8% |
| Andrew McCutchen | 84.5% | 73.70% | -10.8% |
| Amed Rosario | 85.1% | 74.40% | -10.7% |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 82.2% | 72.10% | -10.1% |
| Bryce Harper | 79.6% | 69.60% | -10.0% |
Wow, that’s a lot of dramatic decliners and some serious declinage! I won’t discuss all these names, but wanted to list everyone who has declined by at least 10%.
Trevor Story vaulted himself into the top 20 in 2019 drafts on the heels of an elite fantasy season in 2018. Much of his fantasy breakout could be traced to the significant reduction in strikeout rate, as his Z-Contact% surged higher. Unfortunately, those gains haven’t been held over the first week and a half of the season, as he is back to his swing and missing ways. Interestingly, his Z-Contact% has declined to a career low all the while his O-Contact% has spiked to a career high. That’s super odd. He doesn’t need to match his 2018 strikeout rate or .291 batting average to earn lots of fantasy value, but it will be the difference between his owners breaking even or losing money on their investment.
Not only has Paul DeJong’s Z-Contact% plummeted, but his SwStk% has skyrocketed to 19.7%. Since he’s really just a one (homers) or two category (RBI) shortstop, you weren’t really counting on a positive batting average. But, more strikeouts means fewer opportunities to knock a fly ball over the wall.
Brandon Nimmo was a pleasant surprise in the Mets lineup last year, showing elite skills across the board. But so far this season, he has apparently picked up a bat with baseball-sized holes all over, as his SwStk% sits at an absurd 20.4%, more than double last year’s mark, and he has struck out in nearly half his plate appearances! The magnitude of the suckiness is eye-opening, especially since he has never struggled to make contact. The higher strikeout rates were solely because of his great patience. I’m curious where he goes from here.
So Elvis Andrus has posted a Z-Contact% above 90% literally every season of his career. However, his SwStk% has risen four straight seasons, and at the moment, it has jumped for a fifth, into double digits for the first time. That he has already swiped two bags, 40% of his total all of last year, is a good sign. But I’m concerned.
Ronald Acuna Jr. enjoyed an epic rookie season, but so far the 2019 season hasn’t been kind. While his strikeout rate has actually improved substantially, and he has walked more than he has struck out (a great sign!), he has performed like Story by missing more at pitches in the zone, but making more contact on pitches outside the zone. Strange. His ground ball rate is oddly sky high. There are enough positive signs here that the slow start in the results department don’t concern me in the least.
Brian Dozier’s start certainly isn’t providing any sort of hope in a rebound off a down 2018.
If this doesn’t confirm that Albert Pujols is done, I don’t know what does.
Hmmm, Bryce Harper’s Z-Contact% fell just below 80% last year for the first time, and now early on, it has slipped below 70%, while his SwStk% has spiked. That’s a little concerning. I do love his 29.7% walk rate though. And .538 BABIP. And 50% HR/FB rate. He’s a man of extremes, eh?
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Do you think about whether Z-Contact % tends to fluctuate wildly in 10-game samples? It looks like Harper’s has bounced around quite a bit the past couple of years, and his current Z-Contact % is within the range we’ve seen from him. Whereas Acuna is about as low as he’s ever been in that stat. I wonder if there is an additional plate discipline metric that can offer insight about whether there is a real problem that we are seeing, or if it’s just natural fluctuation. It might be too much wishful thinking this early on, but it’d be great if there is additional context we can add to these numbers.
Oh, absolutely! Literally every metric is prone to fluctuation, and even though plate discipline stats stabilize more quickly than, say, BABIP, this is still too early to make any definitive conclusions. I also wish there were other metrics we could point to this early that truly mean something.
I was hoping for something a little more encouraging, dang lol. Plate discipline is almost all I look at for the first couple of weeks, but I don’t have a real systematic approach for how to interpret it. I think your process finding the extremes and trying to rationalize them is close to the best that we can do this early on.
Besides just random fluctuation, you have the issue of quality of competition when you’re talking 10 games. The Mets thus far have faced Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin twice each. Granted the other 3 were the Fish but even there they faced 3 promising young pitchers in Caleb Smith, Jose Urena and Trevor Richards.
You can also get oddities like the Dodgers facing 5 lefties in their 1st 8 games (plus a visit to Coors Field to help pad the stats) (plus facing mop-up guys and even position players in the 1st 3 games against the DBacks).
Too early to say much, but I have thought about this a bit. The problem is it is too early to really say much, but if you want to pick up someone who has changed their swing or plate discipline or just a simple breakout for a younger player, you need to be the 1st to get them which means you need to jump on those guys who have shown a change. Most of them it isn’t going to stick, but every year there are a few guys for whom it does stick. It’s a tough call – how much of your roster or resources to you commit to lottery tickets?
This is why I rarely end up picking up hitter breakouts early in the season, but do nail pitching breakouts often! Pitching is just easier as you could look at their velocity and pitch mix for changes. Unless you visibly see or read about a change in swing or hitting mechanics, it’s much more difficult to know what’s real and what isn’t.
Story was horrible at the beginning of the season last year. The Rockies even moved him down in the order because of all the strike-outs. Some impetuous owners in shallow leagues…gulp…actually dropped him.
Might be interesting to get an article on some other SS – Dansby, Semien, etc. seems like the under-the-radar guys are doing kinda good while hte old vets (Andrus/DeJong) are sucking?
DeJong is 3 years younger than Semien, same age as Dansby.
I wonder if there is an issue here with stabilization based on number of strikes seen varying among batters. For example, since you wrote this article, Acuna’s Z-Contact% is up to 75.0% and he would already be off your list—and that was just one game. Of course, his zone percentage is very low–37.7% and he’s only actually seen 78 pitches in the strike zone this year (after last night, so it was less when you ran these stats; 67 to be exact). Dozier has only seen 66 pitches in the zone (but wow, that percentage is awful)–not because they don’t throw him strikes; he just hasn’t played as much.
Actually, going through the names on the list, nobody seems to have seen more than 80 or 90 strikes so far this season. Maybe it is just too early? I would guess, if someone can get off the list on five plate appearances (then again, Acuna made contact with all 11 strikes he saw last night; I imagine that it is rare for so many in one game).
Actually, let me correct myself here. Acuna saw 11 strikes and 10 balls last night, but he swung at three out of the zone, making contact with all of them, so he actually saw only 8 in the zone (all of which he made contact with) and 13 out of the zone. I am not sure that this makes any difference in my analysis. I would say that it doesn’t change my point, but my earlier comment sort of fizzled out without much of a point.
Welllll, I agree with the concluding line that it’s just too early. It is. But that’s the challenge of trying to evaluate hitters so early. I want to just throw up my hands and say it’s too early to say anything, but then FanGraphs would blank until several weeks in! So consider this as a reason to monitor these players, rather than immediately change your pre-season evaluation on them.